Waiting for Godot at San Quentin

This is part of a documentary made at the set up of a theater production, played by prisoners, at San Quentin State Prison in California. The play was open to the public and premiered 1988.



This unique video has not been on show before.

Director John Reilly

Produced by John Reilly and Global Village for the Beckett Project

Vladimir: Donald James

Estragon: Reginald Wilson

Pozzo: Spoon Jackson

Director: Jan Jönsson (Sweden)



""Godot in San Quentin" (1987) documents the production of "Waiting for Godot" by a cast of inmates from San Quentin Prison. Producer and director John Reilly and a crew spent four weeks at the maximum-security facility; rehearsal and performance sequences are intercut with footage of daily prison life and discussions with the principal characters.

Reilly has said that the inmates "do not `act' because they are not trained actors, but they feel the parts because they have lived the lives of Beckett's characters."

The Chicago Tribune http://articles.chicagotribune.com/19...



Read the story about the theater production from the point of view of one of the actors Spoon Jackson in: "By Heart, Poetry, Prison, and Two Lives" by Judith Tannenbaum and Spoon Jackson

Get it here: http://www.newvillagepress.net/book/?...