“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
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
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It’s not only parts of the documentary, it is the only part that got made out of all the film material shot at San Quentin. It has never been showed to the public before!
John Reilly planned to make a commercial documentary but it was never completed.