Waiting for Godot 2026

By HarryC

Sun, 11 Jan 2026
  • 175 reads
2 comments
 

An absurdist tragi-comedy for the modern age, in two acts.

(image: mine)

 

 

ACT ONE

A country road. A tree. Evening.

Estragon, sitting on a low mound, is scrolling through content on his phone.

Enter Vladimir, looking at his phone.

The entire act continues with Estragon and Vladimir continuing to interact with their phones without acknowledging one another. They variously sit, stand and wander around as they do so.

Pozzo, Lucky and Boy wander onto and off of the stage at various times during the act, each engaged with their phones. Pozzo is the only character who actually speaks - delivering a loud, long, unbroken, wholly improvised monologue into his phone, which he holds in front of his mouth like a slice of pizza.

None of the characters ever acknowledges one another, except whenever they come close to bumping into one another.

This continues for one hour.

CURTAIN

 

INTERVAL

 

ACT TWO

Next day. Same time. Same place. Same characters. Same action.

This continues for one hour.

FINAL CURTAIN

 

 

Certificate PG
Other
Phombies
Unclassified

Comments

Submitted by GlosKat on

Spot on Harry.

I've just been to the gym and sometimes I'm the only one in there not staring at a phone. I mean most people are actually using the equipment whilst scrolling and staring.

I suppose you could say nobody goes to the gym to have a conversation, but I noticed at Gatwick last summer that nobody was chatting to the person sitting waiting next to them, because they were all glued to a screen.  Ditto the coach, the station and the train.

I like to chat whilst waiting for something, but I'm beginning to feel like a real old dinosaur. 

Video killed the radio star, and the mobile has killed conversation.

 

Submitted by HarryC on

Thanks for reading and commenting, GlosKat. Yes... the most successful and most drastic social engineering and social control experiment ever conducted - by a handful of guys in Silicon Valley against billions of people. And look at how quickly it's happened. Less than a generation. I look at people clutching on to the device for dear life, using it for everything, and think why the fuck have we allowed ourselves to outsource so much of our lives to commercial tech infrastructure? What's the matter with making decisions, taking chances, using cognition, remembering things, learning things... enjoying a quiet, private moment of reflection? Daydreaming? We've sacrificed so much for the sake of convenience - not least virtually the entireity of our private lives. As an autistic person, it always strikes me as ironic that the general population now seems to have adopted the behaviours that were always traditionally (and erroneously) attributed to autistic people: self-absorption, social isolation, communication difficulties... and rudeness. No turning it back now, though. I just think it's been a disaster for the human race. I am encouraged, though, to hear more and more young people saying that they not only wish they could have grown up without the internet... but that they wish it didn't exist at all! I think the real low point for me, though - and such a striking sign of the times - was the footage from that horrendous club fire in Switzerland at new year. The flames were spreading. And were people trying to do something about it, or trying to help others, or trying to get out? Several were holding up their phones and filming it - doubtless thinking about the 'hits' on social media. I thought it was thoroughly sickening.