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In Act One of Waiting for Godot, just before Lucky delivers himself of his famous sentence, Estragon asks if he would dance for them, and Pozzo commands, "Dance, misery]"(1) There are no stage directions to indicate the nature of the movements which are to follow; we are told, "Lucky puts down bag and basket, advances towards front, turns to Pozzo. Lucky dances. He stops" (26b). After the cry of "Encore]" we are told that he "executes the same movements, stops" (26b). How each actor playing Lucky chooses to dance his dance must be invented for each production, the only hints coming from the dialogue which follows Pozzo's question, "Do you know what he calls it?"
ESTRAGON The Scapegoat's Agony.
VDIMIR The Hard Stool.
Pozzo The Net. He thinks he's entangled in a net. (27)
In the French, the dialogue which precedes the naming of the dance is different; after Pozzo asks, "Savez-vous comment il l'appelle?" Estragon replies: "La mort du lampiste," and Vladimir adds: "Le cancer des vieillards." But the name of the dance remains quite the same: "La danse du filet. Il se croit empetre dans un filet."(2) The only other clue(3) comes from Estragon's surprise at the end of Lucky's first performance, "Is that all?" which prompts Pozzo's command, "Encore]" All we can surmise from this is that the dance--however it looks--is brief and somehow disappointing (unless, of course, "Is that all?" is delivered ironically, after a very long and complicated dance).
The analyses of Lucky's monologue are many and various, but Lucky's dance is barely mentioned by Beckett scholars and critics. And the actors who played Lucky have not talked about how they performed the dance or how they arrived at the movements. Nor have the famous directors directing Godot--Roger Blin, Walter Asmus, Alan Schneider--spoken to the point.
Jack MacGowran, whose Beckett performances--including playing Lucky--were legendary, had frustratingly nothing to say about the dance, despite the fact that his biographer writes:
The role
of Lucky
was one of great difficulty, and MacGowran sought Beckett's assistance early in rehearsal. The physical requirements of the part, to be played largely in mime, were comparatively easy for MacGowran--although the former athlete told a reporter it was "like running a four-minute mile twice in an evening."(4)