The Right Way to Say ‘Godot’ is Yiddish

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Dave Itzkoff

Patrick Stewart as Vladimir and Ian McKellen as Estragon
in “Waiting for Godot,” which opens on Nov. 24 at the Cort Theater.

NEW YORK---Maybe Godot never appears because everyone is mispronouncing his name. More than 60 years after the debut of “Waiting for Godot,” Beckett’s absurdist drama about two vagabonds anticipating a mysterious savior, there is much disagreement among directors, actors, critics and scholars on how the name of that elusive title figure should be spoken. “GOD-oh,” with the accent on the first syllable, is how “it should be pronounced,” said Sean Mathias, the British director of the latest a Broadway revival of “Waiting for Godot,” opening later this month at the Cort Theater. Shane Baker, who translated “Waiting for Godot” into Yiddish, said that actors in this version of the play said “god-OH” because “that’s how it’s known in America.” [link]