Emotion and Absurdity Between Stage and Screen. A Comparison of Theatrical Techniques and Mockumentary Aesthetics in Waiting for Godot and Waiting for Guffman

This paper explores the parallels between Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1953) and Christopher Guest’s Waiting for Guffman (1996), two works separated by medium, tone, and historical context, yet bound by a shared dramatic structure: waiting. Through a comparative analysis, it examines how theatrical techniques and mockumentary aesthetics generate emotion and absurdity across stage and screen. Beckett’s play presents existential futility through minimalist performance and cyclical time, while Guest’s film transforms the mockumentary form into a study of aspiration, delusion, and human vulnerability. Both works use absence, specifically the unseen figures of Godot and Guffman, as a central narrative force, revealing how performance itself becomes a response to uncertainty. Ultimately, this study argues that in both theater and film, the act of performing, whether as endurance or self-invention, constitutes a profound form of resistance against meaninglessness.