Fantasia and Realism

Jan Kott, the Pole with "Shakespeare Our Contemporary", once remarked that when he wanted fantasia, he read Brecht, and when he wanted realism, he read Beckett, and here's down-to-earth evidence of Beckett's realism. Khalid, a Mosul University professor told me that on the eve of 2003 war in Iraq, Mosul University professors were ordered to keep night sentry duty, reminiscent of Marcellus when shouting at the very beginning of "Hamlet": "Who's there?", and in the following morning, Khalid went on, they had to write a report on the occurrences of the vigilance. In the morning of his night-watch, Khalid had nothing to report as the situation was like in "Hamlet", "not a mouse stirring", but that he had to write something, he wrote, in his own Arabic translation, Vladimir's words at the opening of "Waiting for Godot": "Nothing to be done. Nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful." Khalid's superior in the sentry who was also a senior party member, after reading Khalid's report, got extremely alarmed, reminiscent of Pozzo's remark: "This is becoming very alarming", and told Khalid furiously that it was an uncanny report and he wanted Khalid to tell him what it meant. Khalid explained that it was a quotation from a foreign play. The party member, pulling himself together, told Khalid not to write such an unnerving report, especially that the country was on the brink of war