Waiting for Godot

There is a common misunderstanding of Samuel Beckett’s work that goes something like this: his plays are heady and serious, and his message dreary.  In truth there were three things that Beckett loved above all else: his wife Suzanne, a good Irish Whisky, and the comedy styling’s of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.  So much more than a messenger of gloom, Beckett also belonged to the music hall tradition.  He loved to laugh at a proper pratfall.  As he has Nell say in Endgame, “nothing is funnier than unhappiness.”