AUK Successfully Stages Waiting For Godot

The American University of Kuwait Theatre Program performed Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot at the Black Box Studio four nights running from May 19-22 with sell-out crowds three of the four nights. The all male cast, comprised of AUK students, did an excellent job with what is considered to be one of the most revered yet challenging plays of our modern time. 

A tragic-comedy set nowhere and everywhere, Waiting for Godot, is a thought provoking commentary on the human condition. Seen through the eyes of two characters whose lives are spent waiting, the audience is forced to share these characters' unease and alarm at the condition they find themselves in. In true existentialist fashion, the play questions everything at the heart of human existence. Director of the play and AUK Professor Christopher Gottschalk describes the essence of the play soundly in his director's note saying, "Whether or not one chooses to view [Beckett's] work as warnings of literal foreboding destruction brought on by the atomic age or as metaphors for our timeless human penchant for self-annihilation, it is clear that his characters embody the ever present question all humans tend to ask themselves sooner or later, 'why am I here?'".

Lead actors Yousef Nayef (Estragon) and Hisham Najem (Vladimir) did a great job in engaging their audience making them laugh at times and other times portraying the confusion and restlessness that is central to human thought. The cast of Waiting for Godot also includes Zaid Al-Kazemi as Pozzo, Abdulaziz Al-Hagan as Lucky and Nader Abdullah as the boy.
 

The cast of the play with Director and AUK Professor Christopher Gottschalk
 

Images from the play