At first glance, Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Tony Kushner's Angels in America appear to serve as two individual exercises in the absurd. Varying degrees of the fantastical and bizarre drive their respective stories, and their respective conclusions hardly serve as logical solutions to the questions that both Beckett and Kushner's characters pose over the course of their individual productions. Rather than seeing this abandonment of reality as the destination of both works, it should be seen as a method used by both Beckett and Kushner to force audiences to reconsider their preconceived notions when understanding the works' deeper emotional subtext. By presenting common, relatable situations such as love, loss, and how humans deal with change and growth, in a largely unrecognizable format, Kushner and Beckett are able to disarm audiences in the chaos of action on stage. Once the viewer's inclination to make assumptions is laid bare by the fantastical elements of both productions, both playwrights provide moments of emotional clarity that the audience is forced to distill, analyze, and ultimately understand on an individual level. From the moment the curtain rises, Waiting for Godot takes on an unmistakably absurd identity. On the surface, little about the play's plot seems to suggest that the actions seen on stage could or would ever happen. At the very least, the waiting process hardly seems like the ideal focus of an engaging and entertaining production. Yet it is precisely for this reason that Beckett's story of two men, whose only recognizable goal in life is to wait for a man known simply as Godot, is able to connect with the audience's emotions so effectively... .. .list style, gives the audience so little to work with on a plot level that the viewer can't help but search for a deeper meaning. Kushner, whose focus on topical social issues intertwined with elements of fantasy forces the audience to consider the juxtaposition of reality on stage with reality in the real world, and subtly invites the viewer to emotionally participate in the action on stage. Rather than allow the fantastic to distance the audience from the emotional core of both works, Kushner and Beckett respectively eschew traditional elements of bourgeois realism to enhance the audience's emotional understanding of both productions. Works Cited Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot: tragicomedy in 2 acts. New York: Grove Press, 1982. Print.Kushner, Tony. Angels in America. New York, NY: Theater Communications Group Inc., 1995. Print.