SPRING 2007

THURSDAYS WITH BECKETT

MARCH 22 AND 29

The Northwest Film Forum and The San Quentin Drama Workshop (SQDW) are proud to present THURSDAYS WITH BECKETT, the Seattle premiere screenings of SQDW stagings of Samuel Beckett’s ENDGAME on March 22 and WAITING FOR GODOT on March 29. The screenings coincide with the touring Broadway production of Twelve Angry Men starring Alan Mandell, who helped found SQDW with life sentenced inmate Rick Cluchey, who will appear in person at the screening of ENDGAME. THURSDAYS WITH BECKETT reunites these founders of an extraordinary prison experiment to share their work with Seattle.

Alan Mandell, the former general manager for the Lincoln Center and consulting director at the Los Angeles Theater Center, had acted in the first performance of Waiting For Godot in San Quentin. It was after that performance that Cluchey and Mandell co-founded the SQDW. Mandell began a long mentorship with Cluchey; for more than six years, he made weekly visits to San Quentin, teaching directing, acting and writing.

Rick Cluchey, age 73, has been the mainstay of the San Quentin Drama Workshop for over 49 years and a directorial collaborator of Samuel Beckett’s. At the age of 21, was sentenced to life without parole in San Quentin Prison for his role in a botched robbery in which his victim was injured. Twelve years later he received word of Governor Jerry Brown’s pardon for him in Samuel Beckett's presence in the midst of their working collaboration.

SQDW is the only American company Beckett himself has directed, most often in ENDGAME and WAITING FOR GODOT. Both productions with SQDW toured throughout the world to wide acclaim. Before his death in 1989, Samuel Beckett’s visions of his famous plays were filmed for television (GODOT) and film (ENDGAME). Both productions featured players from SQDW. Series directors Walter Asmus (GODOT) and Alan Mandell (ENDGAME) acted as guarantors for Beckett’s directorial vision, which he would phone in on a daily basis. The resulting minimalism of the camera engages the viewer on a level that can only be described as Beckettian. These screenings mark the long overdue Seattle premieres of these important records of this influential social experiment.

MARCH 22 Thurs at 8pm

SEATTLE PREMIERE

ENDGAME

(Alan Mandell, USA/France, 1988,16mm, 96 min.)

SAN QUENTIN DRAMA WORKSHOP Founder RICK CLUCHEY in attendance

"Endgame" is the term used in chess to describe an ending where the outcome is already known. In this, his favorite play, avid chess fan Beckett draws a parallel between the chess endgame and the final stages of life. Death is the final outcome, regardless of how a person plays the game. The relationship between the characters, which alternates between slave/master and son/father, is mutually beneficial as well as destructive. The film was shot on 16mm color film and released in both color and black-and-white versions. Beckett’s chosen aesthetic was the latter, the version NWFF presents here.

MARCH 29 Thurs at 8pm

WAITING FOR GODOT

(Walter Asmus, USA/France,1987, BetaSP, 137 min.)

Film will be introduced by Richard E.T. White, Theater Dept. Chair at Cornish College of the Arts

The first American staging of WAITING FOR GODOT was in 1956 for a Miami audience expecting slapstick. Unfortunately, the play immediately bombed. A year later it was performed in California’s maximum-security prison at San Quentin, and the 1,400 inmates who viewed it reportedly loved it—especially empathizing with “the wait.’’ The prison newspaper awarded it a glowing review. The production inspired the San Quentin Drama Workshop, and it can be said San Quentin is where GODOT got its actual American launch. Thirty years later, an SQDW-performed version was captured on film in Paris. Another twenty years on, NWFF is pleased to present this work to local audiences.

"Perhaps the best GODOT of all time." –NEWSWEEK