Theatre I: En Attendant Godot, Fin de Partie, Acte sans Parole I, Acte sans Parole II

[Paris]: Les Editions de Minuit, 1971. Hardcover. Fine. Buckram over boards; 12mo; pp. [232]. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the title-p., "For Rick / with love / from Sam / Sept. 88." Cluchey's ownership signature on FFEP. Fine. In custom grey cloth box, with gilt-stamped lettering in red leather spine label.

Rick Cluchey is a playwright, actor, and director, who co-founded the San Quentin Drama Workshop (notably Beckett’s American theatre company of choice) in the mid-1950s, while serving a life sentence at San Quentin State Prison for robbery and kidnapping. After his sentence was commuted, he toured Europe with his play "The Cage." There, in the 1970s, he began his seven-year collaboration with Samuel Beckett, serving as the playwright’s assistant director on a production of "Waiting for Godot" in Berlin. Cluchey eventually persuaded Beckett to direct him in "Krapp’s Last Tape" and "Endgame" – stagings he later remounted around the world. The two men collaborated with each other until Beckett's death in 1989. Cluchey’s life and work at San Quentin inspired John Hancock’s 1997 prison drama Weeds, starring Nick Nolte. Cluchey himself wrote and acted in a play, "Rick and Sam," which chronicles his relationship with Beckett. He received an Obie Award for David Mamet’s "Edmund," a Singapore Festival Award for "Krapp’s Last Tape" and was the first American to receive Italy's prestigious Premio de la Crítica literary award.