Double-barreled project after Samuel Beckett and Miguel de Cervantes

Two shapes, shrouded in a white cloth that reaches all the way to the floor, remain completely immobile until the light changes and then they quietly quote the first lines from Beckett. Everyone waits. For Godot. The two tramps Vladimir and Estragon hanker for Godot’s arrival and with it for the answers of all their questions and the fulfilment of all their desires. And so they wait, on a deserted road, day for day.

»Waiting for Godot« by Samuel Beckett had its premiere 1953 in Paris and is a work of world literature status. It evolved from a puzzling avant-garde play to a modern classic and is often considered as the beginning of modern theatre as a whole. The Orphtheatre created a refreshing version with an abridged text, which introduces elements of the Commedia dell’arte in the witty exchange of roles between the two tramps and the two other Beckett characters Pozzo and Lucky.

Quixote does not wait but wants to conquer in the world. As a solitary warrior, the eternally wandering knight confronts a doubting world with his humanity and with his trust in the truth. Originality and the power of self-sacrifice allow a glimmer of hope in our time of lost illusions.

The Orphtheatre Berlin is presently one of the few independent professional theatre groups of significance in eastern Germany. It was established in 1990 and searches for alternatives to the conventional theatre schemes. Its productions critically question the societal structures and search for other possibilities to shape life as it is. The Orphtheatre played during many guest performances in Germany an abroad. The consorting continuation of »Warten auf Godot« (»Waiting for Godot«, Premiere 1995) with »Quixote« (Premiere 1996) as a double-barrel project has its first night during euro-scene Leipzig.