Beckett

for all the comic absurd elements in Godot, it would be a mistake to brush off the play as the start of all that postmodern meaningless krapp, or as one which is solely playfully ironic. i'm seeing this now because all these recent talk downplaying postmodern literature and the lack of a real narrative is actually just as annoying as what we read these days. we can't place Beckett and contemporary (American) writers in the same context - his existential struggle was very much born out of the war -

from Beckett's diary:

“I want a theatre reduced to its own means, speech and acting, without painting, without music, without embellishments. That is Protestantism if you like, we are what we are”; “Time that stands still, that skips over whole lives, space no easier to cross than the head of a pin, these are perhaps the true false gods of [Godot], if it absolutely has to have some”. Sometimes the focus narrows to the infinitesimal: “‘Toute imparfaite qu’elle fût’ is in my view a serious imperfection, and I have left the indicative”.

(http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article812332.ece)