In 1948 Samuel Beckett wrote his most famous play, Waiting for Godot.  Its American premier, in 1956 Miami, was not exactly an instant classic.  Beckett's avant-garde style de-emphasizes structure and tradition for a new kind of literacy that is marked by silence and awkwardness; and this sort of experimentation did not fit in well with the popular theater at that time.  Of course, Waiting for Godot soon received more attention, eventually becoming recognized as possibly the greatest English language play from the twentieth century.  But somewhere between boos in Miami and the Nobel Prize, Beckett's play found its way to San Quentin Prison in San Francisco.

Last week I attended a lecture by Herbert Blau, during which he read from his soon-to-be-published autobiography.  Blau recognized the genius in Beckett's work before it became renowned, and he is one of the people responsible for bringing Waiting for Godot to San Quentin fifty years ago.

It was in San Quentin that the work of Samuel Beckett, through the production of Herbert Blau and others, was introduced to Rick Cluchey.  Cluchey was serving a life sentence - without the possibility of parole - for armed robbery.  Because of his status, Cluchey was not actually allowed to attend the play, but he was able to listen to parts of its broadcast over the prison radio.  Through that performance, Cluchey and others immediately connected with Beckett's characters...every single one of them was, after all, waiting for something.

So Cluchey and some of his fellow inmates decided to form a theater group.  They performed plays by Beckett and others, staging them in the room that was at one time used for hangings.  Through his involvement in this group, Cluchey was eventually released from prison (despite his sentence).  He continued to be involved with the theater group, eventually touring Europe performing one of Beckett's other plays with a group of ex-convicts.

It was on this trip to Europe that Cluchey met Beckett, and the two formed a relationship that would last up to the playwright's death.  Cluchey eventually took on the role of the one character in Krapp's Last Tape, another of Beckett's most famous plays.  Beckett himself directed Cluchey's first performances as Krapp, and was so impressed by the former convict that he selected Cluchey to play that role repeatedly, even directing him in a filming of the play for PBS (soon after which Beckett died in 1989).

Tonight, one week after listening to Herbert Blau talk about the early recognition of Beckett's work and what it was like to present those plays, I got to watch Rick Cluchey perform Krapp's Last Tape.  After the play Cluchey talked briefly about what it has been like to play this role as one who was famously chosen by Beckett himself...as one who used to be facing the rest of his life in prison.  This is an absolutely brilliant man, whose life was essentially rescued by the creative, literary expression of another person.  As someone who is trying to look for the redemptive, transformative power of God in new places, I cannot help but be amazed by this story.

The more that I read of Beckett, the more I would encourage you to do the same (and, ideally, watch some of his plays).  He often expressed an absurd sort of meaning - and humor - in the silence and awkwardness of his characters.  Last week Blau talked about how Beckett's work challenges the predictability of other plays.  While others sought to incorporate proven formulas ("1, 2, 3...laugh"), Beckett managed to make people laugh without them knowing exactly why.  This brings a very profound humanity to his works...a humanity that often erases the boundaries between humorous and tragic, mundane and profound, silent and spoken.

Cluchey has this to say:

"I found meaning in my life through art...I enjoy the literature of the world and of theater.  And when you can put it on stage, and share it with people who are looking for meaning in their lives, there's nothing like that.  You don't have to go any farther than Sam Beckett.  It's about the human condition: the prose, the music, the rhythms, and the humor, of course...If you study his work, it is bottomless...I still can't find the end of it."