How did existentialism reach the stage with Beckett, and the therapist's office?

Existentialism reached the stage through the theatre of the absurd, plays that focus largely on existentialist ideas and express what happens when human existence lacks meaning or purpose and communication breaks down. It reached the therapist's office through existential therapy, which treats questions about death, freedom and meaning as part of being human. On stage, the clearest example is Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett's best-known work.

In Waiting for Godot, Vladimir and Estragon spend their days waiting for a man named Godot, who they believe will provide them with salvation. They pass the time with conversations, physical routines and philosophical musings, but Godot never arrives. Critic Martin Esslin argued that the play belongs to the Theatre of the Absurd, a form of theatre that stemmed from the absurdist philosophy of Albert Camus. Common features include broad comedy mixed with tragic images, characters in hopeless situations repeating meaningless actions, cyclical plots and dialogue full of clichés and nonsense. Esslin also wrote that the Theatre of the Absurd provokes not tears of despair but the laughter of liberation.

But the link is not simple. Few absurdists actually committed to Sartre's philosophy, and Beckett, though he liked Nausea, found the writing of Sartre and Heidegger too philosophical and considered himself not a philosopher. He even told Peter Woodthorpe that he regretted calling the absent character 'Godot', because of all the theories involving God that it prompted.

Existential therapy, meanwhile, focuses on the client's lived experience. It holds that distress about death, isolation, freedom and meaning is not pathological but a natural part of the human condition and a possible catalyst for living more authentically. Rollo May first introduced such topics to America in The Meaning of Anxiety, and Irvin Yalom identifies four 'givens': death, freedom, isolation and meaninglessness.