Alan Mandell(I)

Returned to the San Quentin state prison on the San Francisco Bay near San Rafael to view a screening of the documentary The Impossible Itself (2010), which retells the November 19, 1957 performance of "Waiting for Godot" put on in the prison by Mandell and a handful of fellow actors from the San Francisco Actors Workshop. The one-night show directed by Herbert Blau was so well received by the audience of 1,400 inmates that it inspired a group of prisoners to start the still-active San Quentin Drama Workshop, which Mandell directed for six years.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/22/DDME14SN4R.DTL#ixzz1q5SdMqrX.

There are unique challenges to doing Beckett. The basic acting process is the same, but you have to place yourself inside Beckett's world. When you are doing the plays, having a sense of rhythm and poetry is essential, otherwise you can't do them. There isn't a single word or sound that isn't there for a reason.