The idea that came to young Swedish actor Jan Johnson’s mind was a strange and difficult one. After evaluating his chances, he went to the Kumla maximum security prison, one of the largest in the country, and presented the warden with the idea of staging Beckett’s Waiting for Godot featuring a cast of prison interns. A few rehearsals were enough to prove the potential of his vision, which was capable of connecting the finest theater with prison’s own feelings of waiting and enclosure. Born out of witnessing the enthusiasm of the people involved, Johnson’s next idea wasn’t –one should say– that brilliant: he would take the play outside the prison to a theater in Gothenburg. But the warden who accepted the proposal without considering its risks was even less smart. With a sober camera that interviews the people involved and reconstructs the decisive moments, Les prisonniers de Beckett follows the clues of one of the most curious incidents perpetrated “for the sake of art” in the entire history of theater. –Mar del Plata International Film Festival
