A middle-aged woman, half-buried in the earth, chatters away to a taciturn man, who lives in a hole behind her. Later, she is buried up to her neck, and the man does not seem to be about.

Hamm is blind and unable to stand; Clov, his servant, is unable to sit; Nagg and Nell are his father and mother, who are legless and live in dustbins. Together they live in a room with two windows, but there may be nothing at all outside.

Two tramps wait for a man named Godot, but instead meet a pompous man and his stooped-over slave.