Quick questions on Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot: HSC Drama elective

The play opens with Estragon trying to take off his boot. "Nothing to be done." Vladimir enters. They discuss the boots, Estragon's beating, and whether they are at the right place.

The next day. The tree has gained four or five leaves. The boots are still on the stage. Estragon does not remember the day before.

Theatre de Babylone, Paris, 5 January 1953, directed by Roger Blin, in French (En attendant Godot). The play was published in French in 1952 and in English in 1954. The English-language premiere was at the Arts Theatre, London, 3 August 1955, directed by Peter Hall.

Sydney, 1957. Numerous subsequent productions including the Sydney Theatre Company (1999, with John Bell and Bille Brown), the Sydney Theatre Company (2013, with Hugo Weaving and Richard Roxburgh), and many others.

Beckett's estate (the Beckett Trustees) is famously strict about adherence to his stage directions. Productions that have departed substantially (single-gender casts, non-traditional staging) have sometimes been refused performance rights.

The more thoughtful and articulate of the two. Worries about time, theology, and whether they are doing the right thing. Cannot remember things consistently.

The more physical and forgetful of the two. Worries about food, sleep, his boots, and his unspecified pains. Has been beaten before the play opens.

A landowner in Act I, blind in Act II. Travels with Lucky on a rope. Brings a picnic of chicken bones in Act I.

Pozzo's servant on the rope. Carries the bags. Delivers the four-minute monologue when ordered to "think" in Act I.

A messenger from Godot. Comes at the end of each act to say Godot will not come today but will surely come tomorrow. May be the same boy or different boys; the play makes this ambiguous.

Never appears. Never described in any detail. Critics have proposed readings (God + diminutive, a person, a horse from Balzac's play Mercadet, an Italian cyclist Beckett knew).

Beckett chose two acts deliberately. He told Alan Schneider (the American director): "One act would have been too little, three acts would have been too many." Two acts establish repetition without insisting on infinite repetition.

"A country road. A tree. Evening."

Bowler hats. Coats. Ragged trousers.

Slow change from day to night within each act. The arrival of evening is a recurring punctuation.