Ever Encounter Someone Famous in the Street?

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During the two years I lived in Paris, we used to play a game whenever we saw someone with the slightest resemblance to a well-known person. If a bald-headed man walked down the street, we said, “There goes Yul Brynner.” There was a woman who sold vegetables on the Rue Mouffetard, the longest market street in Europe at the time, who bore an amazing resemblance to Brigitte Bardot, or so we thought.

One day, I was about to cross the Avenue des Gobelins. A tall figure stood ahead of me and to the right. I could only see his profile. Playing the game while we waited for the light to change, I remarked to my friend in a whispered tone, “Voici, Samuel Beckett.”

Slowly, the figure turned to look at me, piercing blue eyes – the face of a hawk – exactly like the photo I knew from the back cover of my copy of what has been called “the most influential play of the twentieth century.” Disarmed, I could only stammer, “Bonjour.” He said nothing.

The light changed at that instant and he crossed the wide street. Halfway down the block ahead, he stopped to shake hands with someone. Having read his novels and plays, so stark, so preoccupied with stillness and aloneness, I remember thinking how surprising it was to see him alive and walking, exchanging words with another human being. Only later, did I realize that in my back pocket I was carrying a copy of En Attendant Godot.

On the night of July 8, 20 days ago, we saw Waiting for Godot in the space once known as Studio 54, starring Nathan Lane, John Goodman, Bill Irwin and John Glover.