“Twin” and “Happy,” two prisoners at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, experience, during their long sentences, an encounter with culture that forever changes their lives. They are reluctantly cast in the prison’s theatrical production of Waiting for Godot. With the backdrop of daily violence and complete deprivation of freedom, the yearlong rehearsal becomes an isolated space for contemplation and self-reflection. The leap to the theater stage is not as far as Twin and Happy imagine; afterall, their upbringing in a gang environment has already laid the groundwork for a form of acting—roles that they did not choose themselves, but that have led to the crimes that landed them each with a thirty-year sentence.

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