Laurel & Hardy Meet Samuel Beckett: The Roots of "Waiting for Godot" (Past Times Film Close-Up Series Book 1)

“Waiting for Godot” bombed in its 1956 American debut in Miami, where it was promoted as “the laugh sensation of two continents.” The two-act tragicomedy survived to become the most widely analyzed and discussed play of the 20th century, and helped win Samuel Beckett the Nobel Prize for literature.

For all its avant-garde trappings, “Godot” would have provided a fine vehicle for Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. After all, the play was largely inspired by the popular comedy team, or so it seems. Many of the stage directions sound as though Beckett is quoting from a Laurel and Hardy shooting script or cutting continuity: “He takes off his hat, peers inside it, feels about inside it, shakes it, puts it on again.”

Estragon’s attempts to pull off a boot in the play’s opening scene recall Ollie’s belabored efforts to do likewise in “Be Big.” The tramps’ talk of suicide suggests L&H’s attempts in “The Flying Deuces.” The seriocomic ending deleted from the comedy team’s short, “Laughing Gravy,” but used in the French version—and now available on DVD—is played closer in tone to “Godot” than anything else Laurel and Hardy did.

Literary scholars have been digging for the roots of “Godot” for nearly 60 years. The intersection where Stan and Ollie met the esteemed playwright, figuratively if not literally, is as good a spot to dig as any. It’s also a dandy place to celebrate the 85th anniversary of L & H’s first unofficial teaming in the 1927 Hal Roach comedy, "Duck Soup.”