On August 21^st, at 7:30 p.m. at Washburn University, the tragicomedy show Waiting for Godot (written by Samuel Beckett) opened. The set is simple; a rock in the foreground and a tree towards the back. The first act opens with a lone character, Estragon (Colby Cox) on stage, whose friend, Vladimir (Andrew Fletcher) quickly joins him. Vladimir and Estragon begin talking and establish that they are waiting for a business deal with a man named Godot.

As they wait, two men appear, Pozzo and Lucky (Dalton Hane and Devin Denman). Lucky enters, laden down with bags, and with a rope tied around him inhumanely, acting as a leash. Pozzo, Estragon and Vladimir converse, and soon Pozzo prepares to depart, while Lucky quietly scrambles to recollect the bags and items of Pozzo’s distributed throughout the course of the conversation.

Soon after the two depart, a young boy (Abbey Geiss) runs onstage, bearing a message from Godot, who “Won’t be coming this evening, but surely tomorrow”. Vladimir questions the boy about working for Godot, and asks the boy if he had ever seen himself or Estragon before, which the boy says he has not. The boy runs off stage, and the stage grows darker with night. As the two friends depart, Estragon takes his boots off and leaves them.

The second act depicts Vladimir alone in the same setting as the day before. Estragon crawls onto the stage with no memory of the place, not even recognizing his boots. The second act progresses much like the first, instilling a sense of déjà vu. There is another appearance from Pozzo and Lucky, who do not remember anything of their previous encounter, much like Estragon.

When they depart, the young boy reappears, bearing another message from Godot, saying that he “Won’t be coming this evening, but surely tomorrow.”  Vladimir questions the boy again, and again the boy claims to never have seen him before. The play closes as night falls and the two friends depart from the stage.

The play runs about two hours, with a ten-minute intermission between the two acts. The limited cast and the very sparse set all works well to focus more on the dialogue and the interaction between the characters more than on their surroundings. The costumes were well done, portraying a sense of faded glory. The play overall was well done, with everything involved working seamlessly to paint a picture that unfolds word by word in front of the audience.