Sunday, February 14, 2010
The Director Arin Arbus and Her Woodbourne Prison Project
NYTimes.com: "AT 31, Arin Arbus, the associate artistic director of Theater for a New Audience, is already something of an Off Broadway luminary. She made her Off Broadway directing debut last year with a critically acclaimed production of “Othello,” which the theater plans to revive commercially next season. And her latest production, “Measure for Measure,” which features Jefferson Mays, Rocco Sisto and Elisabeth Waterston, opens at the Duke on Sunday."
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7 comments:
This has to be one of the most interesting, and forward thinking ideas concerning inmate rehabilitation that I have heard of. Beyond giving the inmates a new outlet for their energy and ample time that prison issues it's inmates, the idea of giving inmates access to something that they normally would never have had interest outside of prison is a brilliant idea since it furthers the art form and provides a initial jumping off point for theater as a whole. They say hard times breed good art, and it seems like prisons might be a good source of completely new and inventive theatrical works.
While this idea of doing theater as rehabilitation is not a new one, it is one of the more interesting. I would love to hear about this program and similar ones from the point of view of the inmates. I have never heard what they thought of these types of programs. I imagine people in prison as those who probably won't enjoy theater, but that is definitely a stereotype and I would be happy to be proven wrong. The article made an interesting point about the inmates using the shows and acting to understand and come to grips with what may be some troubled life experiences. Another point that I found particularly intriguing is how harsh the audience is on the work. They show when they are bored. This could be a testing ground for new theatrical ideas that may not be economically viable yet or are still in development. Also, theater in prisons provides an interesting opportunity for a study of human behavior by understanding how the inmates look at the script.
This sounds to me like a pretty terrific project. For starters, the face-value goal of providing a constructive, expressive framework for inmates to work within is a powerful form of rehabilitation. At least as importantly, though, bringing some attention to the folks who are in prison seems like a good thing to me. The tendency in America is to ignore prisoners, when in fact we really ought to be confronting the number of criminals that our society breeds, and the way that we treat them. Talking about this issue has proven to be fairly ineffective, but actually integrating the prison population with a form that the outside world is comfortable with could help.
Most intriguing to me was the mention of inmates as audience. They must be a very interesting crowd to play to - folks who are probably the exact opposite of a 'polite audience,' people willing to completely separate themselves and give very little feedback.
Whether the purpose of acting is for education or rehabilitation, that activities involve valuable experience. To replace myself with other people in certain situation, one can use his every imagination to feel the the pain and happiness. Of course that feeling is only virtual, but trying to think about other people by acting and also communicating with others through the acting is an important training to establish the self in conjunction with society.
This director's activity is wonderful. There must be people who was forced to go through the hardship in their life among the inmates, who did not necessarily come to a jail if everything had gone just normal. They might have their unforgettable memory, which we can never imagine in our regular life. If inmates could ease their pains and find the solution by sharing them with others, that come to have a great benefit.
This project sounds amazing and like a great new idea to help inmates with rehabilitation. I have never heard of anything like this. It is unbelievable that she started this project and through it she has been able to help these men deal with past issues through theatre. Arin Arbus definitely achieved her goal of getting to the core of what makes theatre so meaningful. When I fist started reading the article, I thought it was just about some up and coming director but she cares about this type of theatre and is finding meaning along the way.
Things like this are what makes the arts so powerful. It's just like the argument for a lesser punishment of the imprisoned child. As a rehabilitation technique, this seems like something that can really help out. In roles, people may age tenfold merely by having to go through different experiences that they need to for the roles -- in their minds, of course. However, this all depends on if they are trying Method acting or not.
I really liked this article too! Gosh, you'd think I'd get tired of reading the same things over and over for this, but I am thoroughly enjoying the new information each one brings to the table for me. There were a couple things I really liked, like this quote: "where acting was stripped to its essentials, without sets or elaborate costumes; where audiences loved to laugh but if they were bored didn’t hesitate to show it —was such a context." I thought that was a great way to put into words what a performance like this is like. I'm sure the plays are hardly believable, but that's really not the point, and I think everybody knows that and is willing to suspend their disbelief for the show. I also think a non-theatre-going audience who doesn't know the etiquette and unwritten rules is very interesting to see. The fact that they wouldn't hesitate to say they were bored is something that I almost find refreshing? The amount of times I have seen a show so pretentious and boring that it makes me want to just get up and leave but I can't show that because it'd be rude? Gosh. Too many. I feel like a prison performance just takes all the pretentiousness out of theatre, and I think it's because I love theatre so much that I'm willing to insult it like that. It's out of love. But anyway, a prison performance just leaves theatre in its raw form, whether that's comically bad or powerful or a combination of both, I think sometimes you just need that.
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