For Seniors : A Dramatic Turning Point for Ex-Convict

Rick Cluchey knew how to do two things when he was discharged from the Army in 1953--jump out of airplanes and kill. He was 20 years old, married with children--and broke. His heroes were the macho men of war who took to hunting animals rather than people, sported tattoos and enjoyed watching boxing matches.

One of his buddies proposed an easy way out of his financial troubles. Cluchey served 12 years at San Quentin for taking that easy route. But eventually he changed heroes--from those who caused pain to Samuel Beckett, who wrote about it.

That changed Cluchey’s life.

Cluchey was convicted of kidnaping and robbery in the first degree, sentenced to life without possibility of parole and locked up at San Quentin, on March 8, 1955. He had attempted to rob a man in a car.

“If the prosecutor had his way you’d be reading my obituary because he asked for the death penalty,” Cluchey said. “But a person can make a mistake. For some, a mistake doesn’t mean life is over.”

Soon after entering prison, his wife divorced him and he later received news that one of his children had died. Cluchey looked for a way out. For a time, he boxed.

“In those days, people from the outside came looking for boxers in the prisons. But the Catholic chaplain I was seeing told me, ‘Look, you’re not getting out of prison by boxing. You’re in prison because of violence,’ so I started using my mind,” he said.

Cluchey went to school in prison. He took UCLA extension courses in literature and drama and began associating with the men who wrote the prison newspaper. There are two dates he remembers: The date he was locked up and Nov. 19, 1957--the day the San Francisco Actor’s Workshop, under the direction of Alan Mandell, performed at San Quentin. No live play had been presented at San Quentin since Sarah Bernhardt appeared there in 1913.

The prison authorities ruled that no play could be performed with women in it. The workshop chose Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.” Cluchey watched with the other 1,400 prisoners.

The San Quentin News, the prisoner-run newspaper, described the scene in the aisle: “The trio of musclemen, biceps overflowing, parked all 642 pounds on the aisle and waited for the girls and funny stuff. When this didn’t appear they audibly fumed and audibly decided to wait until the house lights dimmed before escaping. They made one error. They listened and looked too long--and stayed to the end.”

Cluchey was profoundly moved by the performance.

“When I saw that guy with the rope around his neck, it was me,” he said. “The poetry I heard moved me, made me feel connected. Prisoners understand more than ordinary people the idea of waiting. Beckett wrote the human condition in poetic form. I thought to myself, ‘He knows life. He knows what we’ve been through and he uses the most eloquent language to describe it.’ ”

Cluchey had found his Godot. He wrote “The Cage,” a play about life in prison. He and Mandell founded the San Quentin Drama Workshop. Cluchey acted in and directed “The Cage” and more Beckett plays were performed inside prison walls.

He had also found his way out. The parole board granted him a release with 10 years’ probation. He left San Quentin in 1967.

Cluchey decided to keep the drama group together. As each member of the San Quentin Drama Workshop was released, he would pick him up at the prison gate and add him to the company. They toured 200 colleges performing Beckett.

He married a journalist who covered the San Quentin productions and life had the appearance of success. Then Cluchey left one day. He told his wife he’d be back after a six-week tour of Europe, and didn’t return. He met Beckett and spent the next 15 years following him and learning. “He gave so much to me in terms of his friendship, his uncompromising love and commitment,” he said.

And now Cluchey is back. He’s written an autobiography, “Back from the Dead,” which ends in 1989, the year Beckett died. He’s living in Hollywood and he says he’s ready for his final act. “My final milestone is to stage Godot in Los Angeles. I know what he (Beckett) wanted and I want to make a definitive production. Give it a life no one has seen before. And that would end Act III of my life. I want to go down with something.”

His dream cast? Alan Mandell as Lucky, John Laroquette as Didi, Charles Dutton as Pozzo, and Danny DeVito as Gogo. Why DeVito? Said Cluchey: “Beckett would get a laugh out of that.”