(with apologies to Samuel Beckett)
A country road. A tree.
Evening.
Estragon, sitting on a low stump, is trying to take off his boot. He pulls at it with both hands, panting. He gives up, exhausted, rests, tries again. As before.
Enter Vladimir.
Estragon: (giving up again) Nothing to be done.
Vladimir: I’m beginning to come around to that opinion.
Estragon: I think I have COVID toe.
Vladimir: You’re upsetting yourself.
Estragon: My toes are purple, with tender or itchy bumps. Are yours?
Vladimir: No.
Estragon: Then my feet are sick. (returns to struggling with his shoe)
Vladimir: There's man all over for you, blaming his feet for the faults of his boots.
Estragon: I thought I had a dry cough yesterday.
Vladimir: What of it?
Estragon: And shortness of breath.
Vladimir: Still breathing, then? Mind you don’t waste your time.
Estragon: And fever. I had fever!
Vladimir: It may have just been passion. They are hard to untwine.
Estragon: And I can’t taste a thing!
Vladimir: Then the taste of failure won’t linger in your mouth.
Estragon: What if I am dying?
Vladimir: (scoffs) You are not dying. You are simply getting acquainted with the corpse that dwells within you.
Estragon: I need a test.
Vladimir: We are all tested, every day. And most fail.
Estragon: I need help. Let’s go.
Vladimir: We can’t go. We have to wait.
Estragon: To wait? For whom?
Vladimir: We are waiting for vaccine.
Besides, you must be well, even if you feel badly.
Estragon: Do you think so?
Vladimir: Say you are well, even if it isn’t true.
Estragon: I am well.
Vladimir: So am I.
Estragon: So am I.
Vladimir: We are well.
Estragon: We are well. Ah, that’s better! (Silence.) What do we do now, now that we are well?
Vladimir: We wait for vaccine.
Estragon: It should be here by now. They said it would come today.
Vladimir: It might.
Estragon: And if it doesn’t come?
Vladimir: We’ll come back tomorrow.
Estragon: And then the day after tomorrow?
Vladimir: Certainly. Where is your mask?
Estragon: (looks under his hat, sighs resignedly) I don’t know.
Vladimir: Have you washed your hands?
Estragon: These? (looks at his hands) I can’t tell.
Vladimir: Do you avoid crowds?
Estragon: (looks around) They have avoided me.
Vladimir: Have you coughed into your sleeve?
Estragon: (looks down his sleeve) I don’t see anything. Or is that the future? I will die, like the others.
Vladimir: What others?
Estragon: All the others. The caregivers. The meatpackers. The downtrodden and dispossessed. The children of the powerful. The powerful themselves. They are dying, all of them.
Vladimir: (sententious) To every man his little cross. (he sighs) Till he dies.
Estragon: You see! (he grabs his throat) So I do have it! I knew it! (he falls to the ground and begins taking off his boot again) I must see my toe!
Vladimir: Your toe is fine.
Estragon: But something is wrong! I know it!
Valdimir: How do you know that?
Estragon: I have deduced it.
Vladimir: How did you do that?
Estragon: (proudly) Vaccine is 95 percent effective, is it not?
Vladimir: So it is said.
Estragon: Then five percent of me will be beset! My toe, my tongue…somewhere, the five percent will undo me. (he shakes his head sadly) To live is to learn how one will die.
Vladimir: You are not dying. And when the vaccine comes, you will not die yet again.
Estragon: Then, in the meantime, what shall we do?
Vladimir: We will wait. We will wait for vaccine.
Estragon: They said it would be here by Election Day.
Vladimir: Are you saying Election Day was a fraud?.
Estragon: They said it would be here by Thanksgiving.
Vladimir: There were no thanks to give.
Estragon: They said it would be here by Christmas.
Vladimir: Our Lord and Savior. Let us pray.
Estragon: (puts his hands together, then looks up) What shall we pray for?
Vladimir: It makes no difference. Prayers are unanswered.
Estragon: I will pray nevertheless. (He closes his eyes tightly, then suddenly groans and thrusts his arms forward.) God help me!
Vladimir: What is it?
Estragon. I can’t see! I’m blind! It’s the COVID!
Vladimir: (chastisingly) No, you’re not. Open your eyes.
Estragon: I’m not? (He blinks his eyes and looks about.) I’m not blind! I’ve been spared!
Vladimir: That passed the time.
Estragon: It would have passed in any case.
Vladimir: Yes, but not so rapidly.
The Boy: (offstage) Messieurs!
(They both look towards the voice.)
Vladimir: Approach, my child. What is it?
The Boy: (entering) Dear sirs, the vaccine. They have sent me to tell you about it.
Vladimir: Obviously.
Estragon: (violently) What kept you these months?
Vladimir: You have a message about the vaccine?
Estragon: (Mistrustfully) Have you kept it cold?
Vladimir: (to Estragon) Leave him alone.
Estragon: (Advancing to The Boy) Is it cold? It must be as cold. As cold as the deepest void of distant universes.
The Boy: I don’t know of such things.
Estragon: As cold as the Arctic once was.
The Boy: I cannot say.
Estragon: As cold as the heart of God.
Valdimir: Mind you do not exaggerate.
The Boy: I don’t know that.
Estragon: Don’t know! Well, I assure you, lad, look round you. God’s heart is cold.
The Boy: I meant vaccine.
Vladimir: What does he know? He’s only a boy. What do you know, Boy?
The Boy: The vaccine will be coming soon.
Estragon: For whom? For me?
Vladimir: (To Estragon) Let him alone.
Estragon: It’s all a pack of lies. (shaking The Boy by the arm.) Tell us the truth!
Vladimir: Will you let him alone! What’s the matter with you?
Estragon: I’m not well. I think I am ill.
Vladimir: Since when?
Estragon: Why does it matter? I am ill and need vaccine.
Vladimir: If you are ill, you do not need the vaccine.
Estragon: I don’t?
Vladimir: No. it would be too late. The vaccine poses as the virus. If you have the virus, there is no need for the pose.
Estragon: So…if I am sick, then I am cured!
Vladimir: In a manner of speaking. (to The Boy) Well?
The Boy: Sir?
Vladimir: (angrily) The vaccine, boy! When will it come?
The Boy: This month, and if not, the next. And if not, the month to follow. That will depend.
Vladimir: Depend?
The Boy: Yes, Sir. Are you a responder? Are you old? Do you have co-morbidity?
Estragon: I have comorbidity with everyone. We shall all die together!
Vladimir: Are you telling us the truth, boy?
The Boy: As best I know it, Sir.
Estragon: It is the truth, as far as he knows.
Vladimir: What truth isn’t?
The Boy: I will take my leave, then. Wait here and vaccine will arrive.
(The Boy exits)
(Silence.)
Estragon: What do we do now?
Vladimir: We wait.
Estragon: We wait.
(Silence.)
Vladimir: We could wear our masks.
Estragon: We could stay an appropriate distance from each other.
Vladimir: We could wash our hands.
Estragon: We could cough into our sleeves.
Vladimir: We could stay away from crowds.
Estragon: We could quarantine!
Vladimir: Yes! We can quarantine together!
Estragon: Yes! Let us do that!
Vladimir: Yes! We will do all of that!
Estragon: All of it, yes! And while we do it, we will wait!
Vladimir: Wait for the vaccine, yes!
(They stand there, motionlessly and silently.)
Estragon: That’s enough. I’m tired of all of that. It is too much to do.
Vladimir: I am as well. But it passed the time.
Estragon: Wouldn’t it have passed in any case?
Vladimir: We will come back tomorrow.
Estragon: And do what?
Valdimir: Who knows? Perhaps we’ll hang ourselves tomorrow. (pause) Unless vaccine comes.
Estragon: And if it comes?
Vladimir: We’ll be saved.
Estragon: Well then, shall we go?
Vladimir: Yes. Let us go, so we may come back tomorrow.
Estragon: And what will we do tomorrow?
Vladimir: We will wait. For the vaccine.
Estragon: Of course.
Vladimir: Yes. Let’s. Shall we go?
Estragon: Yes, let’s go.
(They do not move.)
Curtain.
Pictured are some of the remarkable actors who have taken on the challenge of Waiting for Godot: Robin Williams and Steve Martin, Burt Lahr and E. G. Marshall (audio on YouTube), Nathan Lane and Bill irwin, Burgess Meredith and Zero Mostel (my favorite, and available in its entirety on YouTube!), Kyle Manzay and Wendell Pierce (in a production staged in New Orleans after Katrina), and Patrick Sewart and Ian McKellen, followed by the author, Samuel Beckett.
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