Innominabile ‘27

The #SIneNOmine Company, active since 2012 within the Spoleto Prison, presents a new production dedicated to Samuel Beckett, conceived in dialogue with the theme of “Roots,” which runs throughout the entire programme.

The project interweaves some of the author’s most emblematic works – from Waiting for Godot to Endgame, from Krapp’s Last Tape to The Unnamable – into a choral, immersive structure performed by inmates, emerging from a theatrical workshop conducted within the prison.

The performance is deeply rooted in the history of prison theatre, whose founding figure can be identified in Rick Cluchey. While incarcerated at San Quentin, Cluchey was profoundly struck by Waiting for Godot, which he heard from his cell in 1957, recognizing in Beckett’s vision of waiting a reflection of the condition of imprisonment. From that experience arose the San Quentin Drama Workshop, the first prison theatre company in the world, and a path of personal transformation that led Cluchey to parole and to a direct collaboration with Beckett.

In Italy, the dialogue between theatre and prison found a pivotal moment in 1982, when the Festival dei Due Mondi hosted Sorveglianza speciale by Jean Genet, performed with the participation of inmates from Rebibbia prison. Since then, the Festival has continued to explore detention as a space for artistic inquiry and civic reflection. Since 2013, it has consistently hosted the work of #SIneNOmine, a company founded by the Associazione Teodelapio, distinguished by its radical and experimental approach grounded in collaborative writing with inmates.