Modern Drama — Cheat Sheet

← Hub Past exams Godot 1 Godot 2 Barbara 1 Barbara 2 Both plays, bilingual

★★★ The one thing to understand about this examiner: she keeps the sentence and moves the blank

Dr. Waha writes one question and then reuses it for years, changing a single word in the stem or swapping one option. When she does, the correct answer changes with it. Learning a letter is worthless; learning the pair is decisive. Every one of the following pairs has been printed on real papers.

The stem, with the moving word	Version 1 → answer	Version 2 → answer
When was Waiting for Godot ______ (in French)?	WRITTEN → 1947–1949	PERFORMED → 1953
When was Major Barbara first ______?	PERFORMED → 1905	PUBLISHED → 1907
When Estragon slept for the ______ time, Vladimir…	FIRST, Act I → woke him up	LAST, Act II → let him sleep
What does Estragon ask ______ for?	VLADIMIR → a carrot	POZZO → the chicken bones
What is ______'s reaction when Pozzo says he'll sell Lucky?	VLADIMIR → none of the above	LUCKY → he begins to cry
Who ______ the habit of confession?	ENCOURAGED → all of the above	CRITICISED → Cusins / Bill Walker
In the play's language styles, ______ are…	THE TRAMPS' TALK → fragmented	POZZO'S SPEECHES → poetic
Every man is a potential ______ based on their ______.	blank 1 → SCOUNDREL	blank 2 → CIRCUMSTANCES
Who is associated with ______?	NIHILISM → Nietzsche	FIRST EXISTENTIALIST → Kierkegaard
Beckett shares with ______ his preoccupation with the limits of…	JOYCE → language	PROUST → perception

And she moves options, not just stems. “What is the greatest of evils?” is keyed Poverty when poverty is on the list and None of the above when it is not. “Cusins sells his soul for…” has been keyed reality, truth and power, and both A and C on three papers. Read every option before answering from memory. On this paper “None of the above” and “All of the above” are real answers, not filler.

⚠ The keys that are wrong, or that two papers dispute

Question	Printed	Defensible
Does the boy meet Pozzo & Lucky?	Yes, both acts	No, never
Undershaft's character type	Antihero (Paper A)	Pragmatic idealist (Paper B)
Who asked for a job at the shelter?	Snobby Price (A)	Peter Shirley (B)
Who criticised confession?	Cusins (B)	Bill Walker (older)
“Three principles of drama”	Scribe	Zola (the stem describes Zola)
Plot progression term	Fragmented (A)	Non-linear (B)
Shaw's Nobel age	“75” in the handout	69 — born 1856, prize 1925

Rule for the hall: if the item is one she has printed before, answer as the grid did — the grid is what scores you. The reason to know the truth is that the same fact turns up in other questions where the key is not broken.

★ Every date on the course

Godot written (French)	1948 (paper: 1947–49)
Published in France	1952
Performed in France	1953
English text, New York	1954
Performed in London	1955
English text, London	1956
Major Barbara performed	1905
Preface written	1906
Published	1907
Turgenev, Fathers and Sons	1862
Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground	1864
Nietzsche, The Gay Science	1882
Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus	1942
Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd	1961
Ibsen, A Doll's House	1879 (English in Britain 1889)
Shaw, Candida	1898
Shaw, Mrs Warren's Profession	1893
Shaw's Nobel Prize	1925
Shaw	1856–1950, Irish
Beckett	1906–1989, Irish
Scribe	1791–1861, French
Zola	1840–1902, French
Ibsen	1828–1906, Norwegian
Kierkegaard	1813–1855, Danish
Realism, active	mid-19th – early 20th c.
Naturalism, active	1865–1940

Four names, four movements

Nietzsche	Nihilism. “God is dead”, The Gay Science 1882, §125 “The Parable of the Madman”.
Kierkegaard	The first existential philosopher, the father of existentialism.
Sartre	Existentialism. “Existence precedes essence.”
Camus	Absurdism. The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942.
Turgenev	Brought nihilism into literature, Fathers and Sons, 1862.
de Beauvoir	The feminist existentialist.
Esslin	Coined “Theatre of the Absurd”, 1961.

Nihil = nothing. Absurdus = out of tune, discordant.

The Godot cast, in one line each

Vladimir (Didi) — the MIND. Hat. Bad bladder. Remembers, therefore suffers. Still hopes, therefore anxious. Refuses to hear Estragon's dreams.
Estragon (Gogo) — the BODY. Boots. Sore feet. Beaten nightly in a ditch. Forgets everything. Wants to eat and to sleep.
Pozzo — the master. Rope, whip, chicken. Poetic speeches on the tears of the world and the fall of night. Blind in Act II.
Lucky — the slave. Carries the bags and never puts them down. Thinks only with the hat on. Dumb in Act II.
The Boy — minds the goats; his brother minds the sheep and is beaten. Same message both acts. Never meets Pozzo or Lucky.
Godot — never appears. Beckett refused to say what he means.

The Major Barbara cast, in one line each

Andrew Undershaft — millionaire cannon-maker, Barbara's father. Religion: money and gunpowder. “A Mephistopheles of capitalism.”
Barbara — Major in the Salvation Army. Loses her faith when the Army takes tainted money; ends preaching to the well-fed.
Lady Britomart — the estranged wife; summons Undershaft to settle money on the children.
Adolphus Cusins — professor of Greek, nicknamed Euripides. Plays the drum only for love of Barbara. Inherits the firm as a technical foundling.
Stephen — the son who cannot inherit; the firm goes to a foundling.
Sarah & Charles Lomax — the other engaged couple.
Peter Shirley — honest workman, sacked for age, asks for a job, ashamed of charity.
Snobby Price — loafer, fake convert, invents beating his mother, takes the bread. “Like the socialists, I take what's going.”
Bill Walker — strikes Jenny Hill; tries to buy his guilt off with a sovereign. “Wot prahce salvyshon naow?”
Rummy Mitchens — invents sins to confess.
Mrs Baines — Commissioner; accepts the donations.
Bodger — whisky distiller; offers £5,000 if five others give £1,000. Undershaft supplies the last thousand.

★ The quotations she actually sets

“Nothing to be done.” — Estragon, the first line, about a boot.
“A country road. A tree. Evening.” — the whole set.
“The tears of the world are a constant quantity.” — Pozzo.
Night “bursts upon us pppfff! just when we least expect it.” — Pozzo.
The sky is “pale and luminous.” — Pozzo. (The moon is “pale for weariness” — Estragon.)
“The blind have no notion of time.” — Pozzo, Act II. His blindness is “a form of death”.
“They give birth astride of a grave” — Pozzo; Vladimir echoes it and adds “and a difficult birth”.
“Habit is a great deadener.” — Vladimir, final speech, after Pozzo and Lucky's last exit.
Thoughts are like leaves, sand, feathers, ashes — never waves.
“Loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown” — Lucky.
“Yes, let's go.” They do not move. — both acts, speakers swapped.

“Our first duty, to which every other consideration should be sacrificed, is not to be poor.”
“Money represents health, strength, honor, generosity and beauty.” (Its want represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness, ugliness.)
Money becomes a curse when “cheapened to worthlessness for some and made impossibly dear to others”.
“‘Poor but honest’… as immoral as ‘drunken but amiable’.”
Poverty is “the greatest of our evils and the worst of our crimes”.
Not “opulent villainy vs humble virtue” but “energetic enterprise vs cowardly infamy”.
Tainted money is “an unpractical individualist superstition”.
The armourer's faith: “to all who offer an honest price, without respect of persons or principles”.
Cusins sells his soul for “reality and power” (also keyed truth and power).
Cleanliness needs no justification. War: it doesn't matter if it's wrong if it's true. Democracy won't go with anxiety.
“Every man is a potential scoundrel based on their circumstances.” — Barbara.
“Wot prahce salvyshon naow?” — Bill Walker.

The preface, all seven parts

First Aid to Critics — critics are ignorant; they credit foreigners. (examined)
The Gospel of St Andrew Undershaft — money, poverty, the first duty. (examined)
The Salvation Army
Barbara's Return to the Colors
Weaknesses of the Salvation Army
Christianity and Anarchism — against punishment and prisons
Sane Conclusions — “a revolutionary writer”. (examined)

The three pairs in Part 1 (foreign name the critics cite / British name Shaw credits):
Disillusionment: Ibsen / Charles Lever (A Day's Ride: A Life's Romance)
The female image: Schopenhauer / Ernest Belfort Bax
The illusion of religion: Nietzsche / Stuart-Glennie
(Also credited: Samuel Butler, Strindberg among the foreigners.)

Terms, in the order she asks them

Well-made play	Scribe. Exposition → complication → development → climax → dénouement. Audience leaves satisfied.
Prototype of	The realist play.
Realist ending	Replaces the logical ending with a discussion.
Zola's three principles	Make it true, significant, simple.
Naturalism	Realism + scientific determinism: heredity and environment.
Absurd theatre lacks	Traditional plot, traditional characterisation, logical structure. (It does not lack an unrealistic setting.)
Godot's structure	Cyclical / repetition; non-linear / fragmented. “Nothing happens, twice.”
Beckettian	A darkly humorous vision — a tragicomedy, not merely bleak.
Beckett's trademark	The intellectual tramp.
Critics value Godot for	Codification — giving confusion shape. (Not minimalism.)

Symbols — and what each one means

The boots	The body, physical suffering, Estragon; also “everything external you blame”.
The hat	The mind, thought, Vladimir. Lucky can only think with it on.
The tree	Hope, the cross, the passage of time. Four or five leaves in Act II.
The rope	Bondage and mutual dependency. Shorter in Act II.
Blindness	Death; loss of time; denial; social blindness.
The carrot / turnip / radish	Futility; limited choices. Carrot & turnip Act I, black radish Act II.
Vladimir's bladder	Inability to cope, to forget, to move on — all of the above.
Goats & sheep	Matthew 25 inverted: the goatherd is spared, the shepherd beaten.
Lucky's dance	“The Net” — entrapment. (Also “the Scapegoat's Agony”, “the Hard Stool”.)
Perivale St Andrews	The proof of Undershaft's gospel: feed and house people first.
“The bribe of bread”	Conversion bought with food, which Barbara finally rejects.

★ The seminar block — 8 items, 20 marks, answered A = True, B = False

Statement	Ans
Shaw regarded the art of ruling as the highest art.	A
Shaw inherited his love of music from his mother.	A
Shaw's personal conduct was that of a religious man.	A
The stage is the best instrument for moral propaganda.	A (★★★)
Shaw was a key figure in the Fabian Society.	A
Only good laws make good society.	B
All money can be used for good regardless of origin.	A
Vladimir tried to manipulate Estragon emotionally.	A
The tramps' relationship is codependent.	A
The tramps' relationship is one of independence.	B
Lucky's tirade = anxiety towards an absent mother.	A
…towards an emotionally reliable mother.	B
Vladimir consistently comforts and contains Estragon.	B
Vladimir & Estragon = the intellectual mind and the body.	A

The falsifiers: only, always, never, consistently, exclusively, reliable, independent. An absolute or a reversed adjective in one of her True/False stems is nearly always the tell.

The seminar article, in six sentences

John Robert Keller, “A Strange Situation: self-entrapment in Waiting for Godot”, from The Primacy of Love. He reads the play through the mother–infant bond. Vladimir plays a maternal role and fails to contain Estragon's anxieties — he refuses to hear the dreams. He manipulates: first by insisting Estragon would be “a heap of bones” without him, then by becoming the sufferer himself. Pozzo needs Lucky as “a repository for the bad parts of himself”; the pair are codependent to the extreme. Lucky's tirade is the “intrapsychic consequence of ruptures in the early mother–infant dyad” — a god who loves “with some exceptions for reasons unknown”. Vladimir interrogates the boy to learn why Godot is available to him and not to Vladimir. And the terror of separating from the person you are entangled with is “unbearable”.

The last ten minutes before you go in

The dates. Godot: written 48, published 52, performed 53, London 55. Barbara: performed 05, preface 06, published 07.
The four philosophers. Nietzsche nihilism · Kierkegaard first existentialist · Sartre existence precedes essence · Camus absurdism 1942.
Scribe = the well-made play (on three papers). Zola = the three principles. Ibsen = Norwegian.
The stage = the best instrument for moral propaganda (on three papers).
Poverty = the greatest evil — unless it isn't on the list, then “None of the above”.
Cusins sells his soul for reality / truth / power — never wealth.
Read every option. She moves the blank, and the answer moves with it.