The wait begins! Two-time Tony Award nominee and multiple Olivier Award winner Jamie Lloyd returns to Broadway with a new production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter. This marks Lloyd's first Broadway project since his acclaimed revival of Sunset Blvd. opened in late 2024.
This is not Reeves and Winters' first project together. The pair has a friendship that spans 35 years and began during the filming of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure in 1989.
Waiting for Godot is a landmark play by Samuel Beckett, first performed in 1953. It is a quintessential example of absurdist theater, exploring themes of existentialism, meaninglessness, and the human condition. The play revolves around two main characters, Vladimir and Estragon, who spend their days waiting for a mysterious figure named Godot. Godot never arrives, leaving the pair in a perpetual state of uncertainty and inaction.
The minimalist setting—a barren landscape with a single tree—reflects the stark simplicity of the play's themes, while the characters' repetitive dialogue and absurd actions underscore the futility of their wait. Beckett’s work challenges traditional narrative structures, focusing instead on the absurdity of human existence and the struggle to find purpose in a seemingly indifferent universe.
The play is open to various interpretations, making it a cornerstone of modern theater and philosophy. Some view Godot as a metaphor for hope, faith, or a higher power, while others interpret the play as a commentary on the cyclical nature of life and the inevitability of death. Despite its somber themes, Waiting for Godot contains moments of humor, often derived from the characters’ interactions and wordplay, which provide relief from the existential weight of the story.
Beckett’s groundbreaking approach to storytelling has cemented the play as a timeless work that continues to provoke thought and discussion among audiences and scholars worldwide.
Reeves and Winter make you feel it when the men embrace—as if one is holding on to the life raft embodied by the other—and when they quietly care for each other, strange day after strange day. If this is stunt casting, then it is stunt casting with a sweetened depth. Their Didi and Gogo are a plausible flipside to Bill and Ted, for whom loyalty and friendship were the bedrock of their heroism. Whether Beckett intended it or not, and no matter the forces of nihilism assailing them, you feel this Didi and Gogo are going to be excellent to each other for eternity.
The pleasant prospect of seeing Reeves and Winter together makes this production to some extent critic-proof—and anyhow, this is a play in which “Crritic!” is the worst insult that Estragon can think up. But although Reeves and Winter are the main reason most people will go to this Godot, it is this revival’s other assets—the direction, the set and above all Dirden and Thornton—that keep it from being an exercise in meta stasis. For me, those elements make the production worth seeing, but the nice thing about Waiting for Godot is that it just keeps coming. This is the play’s third Broadway revival in the 21st century, and there have been numerous Off Broadway versions in recent years, too. If you decide to skip this one, you won’t have to wait very long for another.
| 1956 | Broadway |
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| 1957 | Broadway |
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| 1988 | Off-Broadway |
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| 2005 | Off-Broadway |
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| 2006 | Off-Broadway |
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| 2009 | Broadway |
Roundabout Revival Broadway |
| 2010 | West End |
Return Engagement [West End] West End |
| 2013 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Broadway |
| 2015 | Off-Broadway |
Gare St Lazare Ireland and Dublin Theatre Festival Production Off-Broadway |
| 2017 | West End |
Arts Theatre Revival West End |
| 2021 | Off-Broadway |
TFANA's Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
| 2023 | Off-Broadway |
Theatre for a New Audience Off-Broadway Production Off-Broadway |
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| 2025 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Production Broadway |
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