Behind Bars

Hello friends. Sorry it’s been so long. My life has been a “crazy town” in the words of Mallory Jones.

I’m a bit intimidated now because I have just learned that my professor and guru, the one and only Tim Herrmann is now a follower of my blog. My blog has always been family friendly, but now I think I am going to be more conscious of my spelling and grammar. From now on expect all blog posts to be in perfect APA*

But anyway, now on to what I was planning on writing.

I went to see Shakespeare behind bars two days ago. What is that you ask? It is a bunch of inmates in a prison who perform Shakespeare. What? Steve attending something to do with Shakespeare? Did the acorns really make you that sick? Well, I initially went against my will but after the entire experience I was glad I went. So though I am not a Shakespeare guy by any stretch of the imagination, don’t be shocked with I speak of this experience in a positive light.

I’m not sure what you are envisioning here but let me start off by telling you that this is not a traveling act of white collar criminals on probation. You have to go to a prison to see this show. These actors (all men) were really, really into it. They sounded like a professional troupe of actors who had really given their lives to Shakespeare. Because in some ways, they have. This program has given them something to live for and a chance to be remembered for something other than their crime. There was a twenty minute Q and A following the performance. You should have heard these men talk about how Shakespeare has transformed their lives.

Some of the actors played the role of women. When asked how they did it so convincingly they explained how this process had taught them empathy. Truly truly taught them empathy. It gave them a greater understanding of their crimes and the way they had treated women before entering prison. I think most about the character whose actions in the play caused his wife to die with grief. In the second act (16 years later) he was so repentant and angry with himself you could see he blamed himself and wished he could change who he had been. That actor murdered his wife in real life and he had been in prison for 16 years.

I think I’m going to need a few posts to really capture what I learned from these inmates. Things were happening on so many levels. If you want to know more about Shakespeare behind bars click here. (Actually, this is not a link to the performance I went to. In 2005 there was a documentary made about SBB and this link is to that documentary.)

But just so you all know, I’m not going to start acting like I like reading Shakespeare now, I’m just glad that something so boring has redemptive qualities.

*Not at all true. APA tells me not to write with footnotes. I tell APA that he needs to get a girlfriend and stop looking over my shoulder to see where I’m putting my commas.