Act V: Hamlet transforms high-security prison

What can the production by inmates of one act of a Shakepeare play accomplish in a high-security prison?  Jack Hitt explores this question through conversations with those inmates and Agnes Wilcox, the small gray-haired woman who directs the play, at the Missouri Eastern Correctional Center as they select the cast, rehearse and perform Act V, the “final bloody climax”, of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

The aspiring cast is half black, half white, and ranges from young life-ers in their 20s to old-timers in their 50s …

The man who plays Hamlet gets in character by recalling times he’s wanted to hurt people, like the crime that sent him to prison, in which he shot two people and left them for dead. Big Hutch, who plays Horatio, explains how it would work if you set Hamlet in a prison, and why it would actually improve a flaw in the plot.

If you have an hour, radio show This American Life‘s episode 218 is well worth the time.  The production that Hitt follows is set in a modern context, and the contemplation and enactment of murder offers these men a way to process their own life tragedies and reclaim their own human value.  The role of Hamlet is played by four different actors, all of whom are on stage at the same time, taking turns delivering the lines.

This small gang of Hamlets which mutters to itself and laughs at its own jokes nicely captures that fractured quality of Hamlet’s different personalities. And it’s also bonded the four actors together. They call themselves the Hamlets and constantly talk about their character …

One of the problems of doing any play in prison is that being a good actor is the exact emotional opposite of what it takes to be a successful inmate. Rather than close off all feeling and look tough, you have to open your vulnerable self up and withstand often cruel laughter as you try to find some authentic emotion within you. In this way, a level four, high-security prison is no different from high school.

The play Hamlet provides an array of characters that parallel the living cast within the prison, and the intrigue that runs deep strikes a real cord with these actors.  What these men say about Agnes, “this tiny tough lady, bosses them around”, is that she makes them feel human.  Jack Hitt says, “One guy with a third grade education level said that he was surprised to find out that he wasn’t stupid, just uneducated.”  About this work on the play, Brat Jones, one of the Hamlets, says,

This gives me an opportunity to see a society beyond what I’m used to…  Let me get into something else. That did open my eyes into getting into reading Sylvia Plath and Frost, and Wadsworth, and different other people.

James Word, a young man who discovered his acting talent playing Laertes, said

it was one of the best feelings I’ve ever felt. It was like the day my daughter was born. And it made me want to be better. Not just in acting. I mean, it just opened up a whole world for me. Like man, if I apply myself, I can pretty much do whatever I want.

There are many other fascinating stories in this radio show that illustrate the power of acting to transform a person’s life, simply by putting on the skin of another person and trying to really be them for a time.  And it gives them pride in what they’ve accomplished.  The performance of the play also gives the actors a rare chance to connect with those “on the outside”, and to be seen as something more than a prisoner.

The Philadelphia Mural Arts Program includes a similar type of transformative art-based program:

The Mural Arts Program incorporates the concept of justice involving victims, offenders and the community in the healing process, as an alternative to incarceration and revenge, into art instruction, mural making and community service work within the criminal justice system. Inmates, ex-offenders and juvenile delinquents are afforded the opportunity to learn new skills and make a positive contribution to their communities to repair the prior harm they may have caused. These programs emphasize re-entry, reclamation of civic spaces, and the use of art to give voice to people who have consistently felt disconnected from society.

Nothing highlights this program better than the film Concrete, Steel & Paint, which tells the story of the Healing Walls project at the State Corrections Institute at Graterford, in which inmates, victims of crime, community members and Mural Arts staff work together on common mural projects and learn about each other and themselves in the process.

I believe there is great potential for similar music-based programs within our troubled justice system.  Songwriting can be a powerful, visceral medium for storytelling through music; telling one’s story and being truly heard is a basic need we all have.  We also need to experience the stories of others so that we can live vicariously from another perspective.  Making music together can build lasting bonds between people, helping them feel a common rhythm, a common tune, a synchronicity of humanity.  It can bring us into tune with our interconnectivity with one another, with the sounds that envelop us and with the rhythms of everyday life.  Such a program that can get people from the outside to interact with those on the inside of our prisons will benefit all those involved and their communities.