Abstract

The Irish playwright Samuel Beckett has long been known for his indefatigable spirit of irreverence in the face of many of Western society's most cherished institutions and hallowed belief systems. Yet his consistent reverence for one particular bastion of Western culture remains a lesser known fact: that of popular stage and screen entertainment. This thesis explores the ways in which Beckett interlards Waiting for Godot with a selection of thematic motifs and comic conventions culled from the English music-hall, American vaudeville, circus clowning and, finally, early screen comedy in order to present us with a vision of the human condition that is as universal as it is devastatingly comical or, for that matter, comically devastating. Special attention is paid to Beckett's deployment and/or adaptation of: (a) the "multi-sensory" language of the clown of 'low' comedy; (b) vaudeville and the music-hall's self-referential stage and stage-world; (c) the popular, "shifty" tramp-clown figure of stage and screen, and (d) the comic 'double-act' of the music-hall, vaudeville and circus--each of which serves to underline the bafflingly complex nature of human experience in a universe characterized by radical indeterminacy.