0:02 Who are you? And where are you going? What do you want? [Music] Hello and welcome to Jigger's Place. Boy, am I glad to be here today. uh despite having had the last two days off uh for the Jewish holiday of Russia Shana, you know, I'm ready for a vacation. So,
0:39 uh I guess that's what it is when you're you know, out of the office. Uh you know, you uh what can I say? You just it all piles up and then it all comes crashing down. So, uh, but anyway, welcome to Jigger's place. Uh, we're gonna we're gonna sort of have normally we have a cocktail and a smoo. Uh, but today being the day after Rashashana is a fast day. It's called the fast of Gdalia. I won't get into all of the significance of this Gdalia, but uh it
1:16 doesn't end for another roughly two hours and 15 minutes. So committed host that I am. I'm going to mix a cocktail, but I'm not going to drink. Um but but you know, want you to be able to embibe and uh I'll I'll have my drink later after the fast ends. Uh but uh we're going to be talking about one of the most consequential plays of the 20th century, Waiting for GDAU by Samuel Beckett. Uh I I have
1:52 unfortunately not seen the play in a theater. Um but I have read the play and it is it's a combination of marvelous and kind of mind-blowing. Um I've never taken acid but I don't know seems to me like it must be a little bit like what that must be. Can't say from personal experience. Uh, so we're gonna we're gonna talk about that for a little while here as we head into the end of the week. And you know what? I just noticed something. We've got the wrong background. So,
2:28 let's uh let's see if we can fix this. No. Maybe not. Oops. Okay, there we go. Okay. Uh, yeah. So, in honor of talking about waiting for GDAU, I'm gonna make a cocktail called the GDAU. And uh it's it's it's a it's a vodka uh cocktail and uh because of so to to set
3:07 the scene a little bit. So, the the play is done on an almost bare stage. It's a bare stage with kind of a tree in the middle of it. And and so I'm going with real simple things here. Um and so I'm going to use just my my uh my wrap vodka, which is Smirnoff vodka. Uh it's it's a great vodka. Nice, clean, very simple. You know, Woody Allen used to advertise it back in the 1960s. Uh so we're going to use that. Um some dry
3:43 vermouth just uh you know martini uh vermouth and we've got a little uh creme de cassiss uh in this case diper and some orange bitters. I'm just going to use angura and and that's basically it. Now it's mixed up in a mixing glass. Normally of course there would be ice in it but in deference to my not drinking it until later I don't want to have all the ice melt and ruin it. So, I'm going to mix it without the ice. But normally, if you have a mixing glass like this, so you know, you'd want it about half filled uh with with ice. You want your
4:21 your your bar spoon or your stir for mixing it. And it can be typically drunk in a coupe. Okay, that's the sort of round shaped glass, if you will. Um this is my one of my beautiful coups from Barney, if you remember that department store, which has now been defunct for a few years. Okay. So, we're going to start out with uh 2 oz of vodka. And uh so you can see it's it's a you know, it's a strong cocktail here, which is fine. You know, it's it's it's
4:57 well past the sun is well past the yard arm. Even even in uh Hawaii, if you're you know if you're in Hawaii and Alaska where it's about what 3:00 in the afternoon, sun's over the yard. I'm here in California of course it's five and if you're on the East Coast it's 8:00. So 2 oz of vodka and a half ounce of dry vermouth. We go. So, um,
5:32 vodka and vermouth might sound to you like a martini, and indeed, those are the two ingredients in a vodka martini, a dry vodka martini. U, the cassiss, uh, I mean, you know, I'm not one who calls every cocktail a martini. Um, but the cassiss would definitely make it, uh, not not a martini. We're going to put a half ounce of creme de cassiss, which is kind of a blackberry flavored liquor. This has a nice
6:08 Yeah. Nice kind of blackberry flavor. It also gives it some color. Okay. And then uh there you go. Right. And then uh two dashes of orange bitters. Oops. Wow. Going to break my glasses here. Okay. And then if it had ice in it, we would stir it up. And we do that for about 20 or 30 seconds. Uh making sure the ingredients are mixed together, they're iced down, and also some of the ice has melted, the
6:44 water um opens up the flavors in the cocktail. And and then after doing that for another be about another 10 or 20 seconds, we'd put it in the coupe and then I'd go say a short blessing and sip it and I'd go, I don't know, it's good, it's bad, don't don't know. But but in any event, uh that is the good. If you if you aren't getting the recipes, by the way, if you join my email list, just go to my website, bevel.com, scroll down to the bottom, you can join my email list, and you'll get the recipes. uh the the you know in the morning before uh
7:21 the show every other week and and that way if you're missing something, you'll still have time to go and get it. The bottom line is if if you don't have every single ingredient in a cocktail, you can still make the cocktail. Of course, it won't taste the same, but you know, listen, it'll be a cocktail, so how bad could that be? Uh so I I just want to take a minute because I I I think that uh I I believe chat GPT was my assistant on creating this cocktail. So uh very clever. So uh 2 ounces vodka
7:57 clean neutral base equals a barren stage. Isn't that isn't that And then a half ounce dry vermouth for the bitterness of waiting. Right. Not sweet vermouth dry vermouth. And then a half ouncez of creme de cassiss dark fruit deep melancholy. There is a melancholy aspect uh to to the play and then two dashes of orange bitter for some fleeting uh humor and then garnish it with a lemon twist, a spiral garnish, right? that which is you know sort of um
8:33 evocative of the endless cycle not only of the play but of life. So or and then you could also garnish it with a single cherry or a single blackberry kind of drop dropped into the bottom of the glass uh before you pour the cocktail in. So all of that lot of fun and okay I will see you over on the couch.
9:23 All right. So, here we are. And uh so uh this is this is the play Waiting for GDAU again by Samuel Beckett. You can see one of the characters. This is um I think this is uh Estreon uh here and you can see the stage the stage is bare and uh it's uh you know the the play by the way is very short so you could you could read it easily in one sitting. This particular volume is you know 85 pages long. Uh and uh it it's it's just it's
10:02 just a marvelous marvelous play. So uh a little bit about uh the play you know unlike some other plays uh where if I told you the plot it might you know dampen uh your enjoyment uh waiting for GDAU is more of a slice of life play sort of right the difference the difference between a regular drama where there's a beginning a middle and an end and in the end everything's kind of worked worked out. You know, slice of life is is literally that. It's just a a
10:39 you you go into the lives of some people, you sort of start here, end here, and you're just seeing what happens during that time. There isn't there isn't the formal structure of a beginning, a middle, and an end. uh and um some let's see some I'm slice of life became very popular in kind of the latter half of the the 20th century and and um I think waiting for GDAU would would be you know among the best examples of that particular type of
11:16 of dramatic play or well it's it's interesting because even that just it's It's a difficult play to describe because it's a drama, but it's kind of a comedy. It's maybe a black comedy, a tragic comedy, except for, you know, it's very it's it does it's it it defies being easily categorized. And that's one of the reasons why I think the play uh has has endured and in many ways is so beloved. It's interesting. I don't if
11:51 you can see the picture behind me, but it's a little bit reminiscent of Waiting for GDAU. It's It's a It's like a coat and a hat kind of hung up. It actually looks like sort of a worn out person on a coat rack. It's kind of makes me think of it. Anyway, so just some some real basic uh information about waiting for a GDO so you can get more of the flavor. Uh it was first performed in 1953. So, we're talking eight years after the end of World War II. And World War II
12:27 was the cataclysmic event of the 20th century. It literally was a world war. It affected every virtually every country in the world. certainly every large country uh the United States uh India, China, Russia being the four countries with the largest land masses. Okay. But then just dozens and dozens and dozens of of other countries. All of the countries of the British Commonwealth, uh you know, Japan, which was a a
13:03 regional power at the time and seeking to become a larger regional power. uh the the Dutch Empire is collapsed as a result of World War II uh and you know South Africa which was of course uh part of the British comm was involved sent troops to fight uh with the allies, France of course, Germany. Um Spain was neutral but nah not really. Uh so you know Canada of course another large landmass country was on the side of the allies um and the South American
13:40 countries although in some cases nominally neutral there was a lot of espionage that was going on these countries. So the the carnage of World War II, the worldwide carnage in World War II had a tremendously profound impact on the world and how art and drama were displayed post World War II took a significant change and waiting for GDAU was certainly representative of that. So, uh, it it it's, as I've said a
14:15 number of times already, it's a landmark play in, uh, modern drama. It follows two tramps. That's, you know, that's what they were called back then. You know, there was no such thing as homeless people. They were tramps. They were men without a home. Uh, Vladimir and Estreon. And they are waiting for GDAU. That is what the play is about, literally. Um, and they wait they wait by this barren tree for uh, you know, a man named Gdau. And they have a series of conversations.
14:52 Some are somewhat comic, some are somewhat tragic, some are philosophical. Uh, and it's this conversation that they're having and the context of it that makes the play so interesting. Now, you may be thinking, by the way, when I first heard about this play, I was like, "Yeah, that doesn't sound interesting at all. It sounds boring." Um, and and and that was why, by the way, as a teenager, I did not take the opportunity to go see it, which I regret now as as an adult.
15:29 uh the the the especially if it's wellacted the I'm sure the conversations are not just fascinating uh to hear but just entertaining and you know because the the two actors hopefully have a lot of rapport. uh they're they're in the play they're longstanding companions and so of course the interplay of the two actors is is a lot of what makes Waiting for GDAU work. So um and the reason they're waiting for
16:08 GDAU is they think he's going to give them direction or maybe salvation. It's not 100% clear what's going to happen once GDAU gets there. Uh but nonetheless, you feel the desire for him to show up through the characters on the stage. So um as they wait, like I say, they they pass the time in these fragmented conversations. Now, at intervals, they're joined by a wealthy land owner named Poso, um and his uh servant who is named Lucky. Uh, and Poso sort of uh
16:49 drags Lucky around because he has this uh rope around his neck that Poso pulls on. Poso treats Lucky abominably uh while at the same time professing that he couldn't live without him. And of course, all of this is rich with metaphors and social commentary. Uh, Poso and Lucky again bring both tragedy, comedy,
17:24 sort of somewhat crazy philosophical ideas to the play. uh that that it it it it takes what's happening between Vladimir and Estrogon just to another another height. Uh and and um it it it also reflects back to Vladimir and Estreon somewhat of what of what they're experiencing. So again, the interplay of the four actors when uh when Poso and
18:00 and Lucky are on the stage becomes even more fascinating. So the the the the the um the play is in two acts and in many ways the second act is it's it's sort of a replay of the first act which is where this idea of the sort of cycle comes in. And yet, of course, it's not because um I I I I wish I could remember the the French, but right, the more well, this is the opposite. The more things change, the more they stay the same. In this case, the more they seem the same, the
18:38 more we're not paying close enough attention and we realize there are always at least subtle differences even in what we think is the same. Uh so even in something as as highly manufactured as some glassware I have and I I have a set of these uh red glass uh water and and wine and and uh either dessert or or coupe glasses uh ostensibly they're all the same but if you look at them closely there are minor differences in them right and and that is I think one of the
19:16 themes that waiting for GDAU uh brings to us. So, um, and, uh, as you might guess, um, if you're at all familiar with, uh, with with slice of life plays, the the play kind of ends where it began, which is, uh, Vladimir and Estreon are still waiting for GDAU and seem to be just as enthusiastic about his coming as they were when the play started. So obviously there's
19:53 comments on life there as well. Okay. So I I uh I I came up with uh six thoughts uh on the play uh that that um I want to share with you all reasons why I I hope that should you that that you will uh that you will get a copy of the play and read it. Um, I do think it it it would enhance seeing the play to have read it first. I I'll put a a link to the play uh in the show notes. It'll of course be an affiliate link and if you click
20:29 through it and buy a copy of this, I think I get, you know, three cents. Okay. So the the first sort of theme and reason to um and and why the play is important and why I encourage you to read and hopefully see it is it really is a pioneer work of drama. So, um, it the it it there's a a a school of theater called the theater of the absurd. And almost everything that happens in the
21:05 play is it's just absurd, right? You're you're you're you're reading, you're thinking like this is just why are these guys doing this, right? And part of the reason for continuing to read it is is to is is to answer that question. And I think you do get answers. Um but but it is it is it it it is absurd. It's farcical. And and I think you'll find yourself uh sympathizing and laughing with not so
21:41 much at Vladimir and Estreon when you read the play. So, Becket really dramatizes at the same time both the meaninglessness of or the the seeming meaninglessness of life, the uncertainty of human life and its antidote. So, I don't read hopelessness in the play. Quite to the contrary, I think the play is an is an a rather astonishing statement of hope. Now perhaps that is
22:19 my reading uh because that's my perspective on life. You may get a different reading out of it. Uh and and of course that is one of the great aspects of truly uh enduring a truly enduring play is we we all experience it a little bit differently. Uh and so uh you know because it's this sort of slice of life um it rejects plot um or at least traditional plot. um it doesn't have the kind of character arcs that you
22:54 often see in dramas where it seems at the end you know the characters have learned some great lesson there's no resolution in the sense of you go out and go okay you know done I' I've watched it I've read it okay don't have to engage in that ever again quite to the contrary it it will it will be an enduring source of contemplation for you uh and and its influence the influence of waiting for GDAU can be traced uh can be traced in the work of um Harold
23:30 Pinter Tom Stopppard these are other great avantgard uh playwrights of the especially the second half of the 20th century uh so I think that's that's one uh truly wonderful aspect uh the next is it is theater of minimalism M. So whereas it's it's antecedent of you know couple hundred years earlier would be you know uh opera which is very
24:05 elaborate elaborate sets typically large casts a lot of things going on. This really hearkens back to Greek drama where there while you might have some sets uh you know it was really done in an amphitheater uh the props and the sets were they were fairly minimal compared to what we what we saw especially a theater in the first half of the 20th century. This takes it even beyond that. it is truly minimalist
24:42 in that it's a bare stage with this sort of you know tree this leafless tree in it. Um and in that sense um if you've ever seen uh Pippen the the great musical Pippen uh Steve Schwarz I believe is is the composer and and lyricist uh and I think he wrote the book as well of memory serves. So uh uh waiting for good is a is sort of a harbinger of the minimalism in which theater
25:19 engaged starting in the mid to late 1960s in shows like uh um uh Pippen uh God Spell, JC Superstar uh you know a more elaborate productions have been done of those plays later, but the original plays were very very minimalist and the intensity of the drama and in the case of these musicals, the music is really what and and and of course the
25:54 performances is really what drove these these plays and these shows as opposed to being aed by the sets. So, I remember when I was a teenager, uh, this would have been kind of mid to late 1970s, I went and saw a play called The Devil's Disciple. I believe it was starring Rex Harrison. It was at the Music Center in downtown Los Angeles. And frankly, I don't think it was a good play. One of the reasons why I concluded it
26:29 wasn't a good play was because it had this elaborate set that turned for each act and people would applaud for the set changes but not for what was happening on in the play itself. And to me that is the opposite of how it should be happening. If the best thing happening on stage are set changes, that's a problem, right? And so I think that Waiting for GDAU was a response to the
27:05 elaborateness of theater and and by the way, not necessarily the first. So our town for example which uh Thornton Wilder I believe our town 1920s or 30s not as minimalist as waiting for GDAU but it was more along those lines. And so this is part Waiting for GDAU is part of a a way of of performing theater of of conceiving theater that really puts the focus on the actors and actresses as opposed to the sort of pomp of a show
27:41 like Hello Dolly. Now, of course, Hello Dolly, the the the beautiful costumes, the the luscious sets, they're all part of creating the gestalt of that show, right? But that's not necessarily the best atmosphere for every play and for every message and thought that theater can convey. Okay. So the radical minim minimalism another reason to engage with waiting for gdau. Uh uh the next one is waiting for good
28:17 really engages in foundational questions of the human experience. Things like like faith like existence. Should one believe in God? Uh how does one engage with the existential questions, the philosophical questions of life? Uh and and even not not in a partisan way, but just politics as a
28:56 force in human endeavor that people, you know, oftenimes put their hopes in, perhaps wrongly so, right? Uh and so to wrestle with these aspects of human life, it is both frustrating and fulfilling in this and especially I think in in in in these times when we're so used to
29:33 solutions being served up very quickly to in a war to to living in a world of just busyness. GDAU waiting for GDAU is it's a way station. It's an oasis where for perhaps a couple of hours we can just contemplate these larger questions of life and it gives us
30:09 the nutrition to chew on so that we're not having to come up with it all on our own. But it in a good way challenges us to engage with these questions. So another of the of the uh enduring issues with which it deals is that of companionship. And I think especially in these these postcoavid times, the question of companionship, the value of companionship where so many people in
30:45 our society are so cut off from other people for seemingly long periods of time, waiting for GDAU gets to the heart of companionship. And this is perhaps the most important issue with which we can wrestle we can engage in this time in human history at least in the United States. Okay. Um so
31:21 next is waiting for GDAU is really an innovative use of time in the sense that it is both immediate and timeless at the same time. I'm using time a lot. Right now I'm reading uh Einstein's short book that explains special and special relativity and general relativity. And that book is essentially a discussion of time from a scientific
31:58 perspective. But of course time is not just a scientific phenomenon. It is a philosophical phenomenon and and to consider time fully, we need to do so in all of its aspects. And waiting for GDAU is a an ideal vehicle through which to consider the philosophical aspects of time. So it it it engages in
32:35 contemplation of the cyclical nature of existence that I talked about a little bit earlier. It it also engages with the sort of emptiness, if you will, the the endlessness of time and yet the emptiness of it and and yet at the same time the necessity to engage in time productively uh to because in the end a human being's time on earth is limited, right? So,
33:12 these are what do what do we do about that? Uh should we use our time wisely and if so, how do we do that? And if not, what is existence really about? These are the kinds of of philosophical questions around time that waiting for GDAU comments on and draws us into. Okay. Uh, next, and I I' I've mentioned this just briefly, uh, because when I said it's a drama, it's it's it's it's
33:47 also tragic. It's comedic. It it really blends the two, but not in a traditional black comedic way. Uh, it it it it's I've never quite I've never read another play that quite meshes the two in the way that Waiting for GDAU does. It's It's not a tragedy, although there are tragic moments. It's not a comedy, although you will fi I
34:22 think you will find yourself laughing. It's not a tragio comedy. It's not a comic tragedy. It's it is life. I mean it it is an authentic expression of life and and the way these things come up. So to give you an example uh so this holiday I mentioned that just ended yesterday Roshashana. So, it started uh uh uh Monday night at sundown and my expectation was I was going to
34:59 just go into the holiday kind of smooth sailing. I had was on top of my work. Didn't have a lot of worries there. Didn't have any loose ends that I was rushing to tie up. And then less than 24 hours before the holiday started, I got a message from a a a long-standing friend of mine that a a a a tragedy or a near tragedy had happened in his family and could he come and uh stay with me because it required him being here in Los Angeles as opposed to
35:34 where he lived, right? And so here I was just kind of going along, relaxing, looking forward to engaging in the holiday in in a somewhat festive spirit and you know glad that my friend contacted me think knew knowing that he could rely on me to help and and and and life changed in you know in that just moment. moment of receiving that message, right?
36:09 And and and that wasn't the first tragic thing that happened over the next uh 24 36 hours, right? That's that is the nature of life. Life is life is like that. And yet uh something happened uh you know yesterday that was just comic and I found myself laughing out loud. That is life and that's I think the brilliance of Samuel Beckett's writing
36:44 of waiting for GDAU. It's it it it is a reflection if not an it's not actual life but it's a reflection of of of the authenticity of how life is. Okay. Uh so that blending of comedy and tragedy, comedy and despair. Uh and and there is there's sort of this I don't know existential dread at bottom, you know. I mean, is something horrible going to happen if GDAU shows up or if he doesn't show up?
37:21 Right? And and that's oftentimes how we look at life probably mistakenly. So, I think too often we raise the stakes of what's going on to the point where we're dreading and oftentimes dreading it no matter what happens, right? And and maybe the stakes are not that high. Maybe they're not. Okay. Okay. And then last, and I and and I' I've mentioned this already a little bit, but uh waiting for God was tremendously influential
37:56 across literature and art. So again, coming out of World War II especially, uh the the the idea of the sort of fundamentally philosophical play that it's it's not a traditional drama. It's really there to get our brain cells activated. So this became I I want to wouldn't call it necessarily a mainstay per se, but it
38:33 became a way of engaging in art uh in in the latter half of the 20th century in a way that it never really had been before. And there were a lot of people who were very confused, disturbed by what had happened in World War II. and they needed to process that experience. Some people just buried it, other people engaged in it. So, um uh oh gosh. Um
39:11 the there's a a book by one of the leading lights of the beat generation where he just kind of travels around the United States. Uh gosh, I'm going up on the name. It's it's an amazing book, but that was an attempt to to understand what had happened uh in the world. And Beckett was, I think, looking to help people of that time and future generations to really understand
39:48 life at a different level than before. uh and and this this sort of it's not a plot this theme of endless waiting it has it has been used in other works in other plays and films even in art uh and and and so much so that it's become known as the GDAU situation uh at least in some cases so there is there is uh there is power
40:25 in waiting and enga actively engaging in waiting I guess is the best way to put it. So the it turns out I would argue that in the 80 years since the end of World War II, the disjunction caused by the war has not ever been replaced by a sense of, "Okay, now now I know what's going
41:02 on. I've been able to absorb what happened and and and come to some understanding. The pace of change has accelerated in the last 80 years. And I think we as human beings consistently find ourselves playing catchup with the reality of the times in which we find ourselves. Uh, I think we're in a a in a a time like that right now um of of of a a more of greater rapidity of
41:39 of of of change. The change is both cyclical because a lot of what's going on right now is fairly similar to what went on in the 1930s, but it's but it's not cyclical in in like this. It's more a spiral cycle where there's a lot that's the same but things are also changing. And so waiting for gooddau is a tool that I think will help us gain our sea legs
42:15 better as we continue to navigate through these changing times. And so in the end while the play itself was written let's see uh 4767 72 years ago uh or it was first performed 72 years ago. It was actually written 73 years ago 1952. The messages that waiting for GDAU bring to us I
42:50 think are as vital today as they were seven decades in the past. The need for us to engage in the very real human contemplation discussions of what is the meaning of life? what what does it mean to be part of humanity? And and this is not these are not questions that we can discuss and answer and have those answers endure for the
43:26 rest of our lives. They're questions that we need to re-engage with periodically, hopefully with with friends, family, people we we care about, people we love. And so, Waiting for GDAU is also a play to not just read, but reread. Not just go see, but see again. And so, I I I hope that you will. If you have read it before, I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you read it subsequently, I'd love to hear what you think. If you've seen or go to see the
44:01 play, especially bring that experience to me. I'm I'm looking for an opportunity to go see it and and and you know maybe we'll uh a year from now or or you know on on another episode of Jiggers's Place we'll we'll we'll talk about Waiting for GDAU again. Certainly these human themes will come up in future shows. So thank you very much for joining me. Uh, as I mentioned, I think almost every episode of Jiggers's Place,
44:37 th this is the show that I look forward to uh uh for two weeks because it's really a time to engage in what's most important in life. So, I wish you a wonderful rest of the evening and a wonderful rest of the week, a restorative weekend. Uh to all of my Jewish friends and viewers and listeners out there, I hope you have a shatva for the upcoming fast of yum kipur. I wish you an easy and meaningful fast
45:13 and then on into sukus, the joy of that festival. Uh, and it'll be during what are called what's called sukus kokamoa, the intermediate days of sukus that we will meet again here at Jiggers's place. And it only leaves for me to sign off as I always do. Marie darling, you are my bell. Courage at all times, my friends.