11/28/2004
By Kate Stone Lombardi
Published in The New York Times
THE invitation described “a very special evening of theater,” and certainly it’s a rare performance that begins with the audience undergoing an hourlong security screening in order to see the play. That’s because this production took place inside the walls of Sing Sing Correctional Facility, transforming it briefly into a kind of Broadway on the Hudson (or in this case up the river).
The play, August Wilson’s “Jitney,” was produced and performed by inmates as part of a program called Rehabilitation Through the Arts, which is run by volunteers from outside the prison and financed through private donations and grants. The idea is that theater can be truly rehabilitative, teaching responsibility and imparting a sense of community, as well as valuable communication skills, to men behind bars.
The cast and crew had worked for months on the production. The set had been built in vocational woodworking, costumes had had to undergo security clearance, and the stage manager, Dexter Robinson, who is serving a life sentence, said that even in the last week, he worried it wouldn’t all come together.
“Everything wasn’t running right, and I thought, ‘This isn’t going to work,”‘ Mr. Robinson said. “But I had to just keep pushing on, dealing with the different attitudes. It was a challenge.”
There were four performances: three for fellow inmates and one for a mixed audience of inmates and those invited from “the outside,” many of whom are involved in prison work.
Visitors had Polaroid photos taken, walked through a metal detector, were “wanded” by a guard and relinquished items like pens, train tickets and lipstick. (And that was after having been approved to attend in advance.)
A caged van drove them through the huge, spotlighted prison campus, past the endless rolls of razor wire that line the tall granite walls, and finally to the chapel auditorium, where the performance was to take place. Before the curtain rose, visitors were asked to remain seated after the play, so that inmates in the audience could be escorted out first.
“Jitney” is set in a gypsy-cab station in Pittsburgh, where a group of drivers struggle to earn a living and work out their personal demons. The owner of the business, the well-respected Becker, has a son who is released from prison after having served a 20-year sentence for murder.
The son seeks a reconciliation with his father, who has never visited or forgiven. The father expresses shame that “you were locked up in a cage like some animal.”
“I don’t need this,” Becker’s son answers. “You’ve done marked me. I’m saying I got no hard feelings that you didn’t come see me. I did what I had to do and I paid my debt.”
“I taught you to respect life,” his father counters, looking anguished.
It was eerie watching this drama unfold in a maximum-security prison. Audience members, who had laughed during earlier, comic parts of the play, were silent during this scene.
In the end the cast got a standing ovation. The actors were not allowed to leave the stage, but the visiting audience was permitted to walk up and congratulate them.
Acting out their emotions in the play represented a kind of freedom, several inmates said. Kelly Watts talked about portraying Becker, the unforgiving father.
“It was very hard,” he said. “It’s so different coming from the position of being incarcerated. This is my 17th year. It’s hard from the point of view of a son who has a father, and hard as a father who has been absent from his son. But it does give me an opportunity to live out some of these emotions.”
Mosi Eagle, who played Becker’s son, also struggled with his role. “Because I’m waiting to come out, some of these feelings are real feelings,” he said. “Dealing with these emotions gives me practice for when I do get released.” Mr. Eagle is serving a 25-year sentence.
And then it was time to leave. The excitement from the performance began to wind down. The prisoners were told to step back from the edge of the stage. Still on the boards, they watched quietly as the visitors lined up to climb aboard the vans that would lead them beyond the gates and into the cool November night.