Waiting for Godot is a play by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, wait endlessly and in vain for the arrival of someone named Godot. The play is filled with enigmatic conversations, absurd situations, and a sense of hopelessness that has made it one of the most acclaimed works of 20th-century theater. The play's title has become a shorthand reference to the experience of waiting for something that may never come. It has been interpreted as an allegory about human existence and the search for meaning in an unpredictable universe.