Reimagining Godot in the Contemporary Cypriot Context

2025/05/27 by Christakis CHRISTOFI
#FOS: Languages and literature

paper · doi:10.48734/akofena.n016.vol.2.27.2025

Abstract

Abstract: By an interdisciplinary approach based on performance studies, phenomenology, and formal ontology, we offer a new reading of Waiting for Godot, focusing on the play’s dis/organized structure and the elusive figure of Godot himself. The geopolitical reality of the divided island of Cyprus will demonstrate how this condition influences the play's production and reception. This study analyzes several contemporary Cypriot and Hellenophone stagings. Drawing on tools borrowed from the digital humanities, such as visual documentation and performance archives, these productions are examined as performative forms that reactivate the political and symbolic potential of Beckett's text in polarized contexts, where Godot becomes a surface onto which collective identities are projected. Keywords: Godot; Cypriot context; staging; fictional characters; cultural reinterpretation.

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