Keanu Reeves was deep in some narrow library stacks, wedged between biographies and Ph.D. theses, when — not for the first time that April afternoon — he started channeling one of Samuel Beckett’s most famous works. “Do you see me?” he said, standing tall with one hand outstretched and declaiming in the style of Estragon, from “Waiting for Godot.” “But do you see me?”

Beside him was Alex Winter, his friend of nearly four decades, the everlasting Bill to his most excellent Ted, ready to jump in and finish the thought. They had traveled to the University of Reading, in England, to tour its comprehensive Beckett archives, as they prepared to star this fall in “Waiting for Godot” on Broadway.