The Theatre Times: From Shakespeare to devised work, theatre has long been practiced by those who are incarcerated. Rob Pensalfini, author of Prison Shakespeare, cites that drama “in a prison context goes back in written record almost a century, or over two centuries if we include the Australian convict theatres of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (Jordan, 2002).” Whether it is for recreation or rehabilitation or a combination of both, the impact of theatre in prisons is a positive one and demands closer investigation.
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This piece goes to show that theater can reach places and people beyond our imagination. We often take our freedom for granted and miss the little things that are considered important to people that are not free or imprisoned. I really enjoyed reading this article and learning abut the impact theater has had on inmates and the way they experience it. It is also refreshing to learn how co-operative and supportive the prison administration has been. Generally, prisons in the United States have been concerned about money not rehabilitation so it is a relief to see one in support of an initiative like this. Theater is supposed to be a form of catharsis and as artists theater helps us face and work through those emotions no matter what part of the process we are involved in. Just like Moller says in the interview "Emotional management is extremely important as is self -presentation. These are interpersonal and social skills that appear to be enhanced through theatre."
For me, it is refreshing to see prisons actually allowing the process of rehabilitation of felons to actually progress rather than stifle it and make the lives of the people in prison worse. It seems that all I read about in the news and on discussion boards is how so many prisons are not run by the state, but by for-profit companies which penny-pinch and reduce programs while making prisoners live in barely lovable conditions. These things only increase recidivism rate, which seems to actually be the plan for these prisons, since they'll just be making more money from them again. These sorts of programs, that encourage creativity, and personal growth through art and expression are so valuable to actually help rehabilitate people who are incarcerated, rather than just keep on putting them through the correctional meat grinder over and over again without care.
With so many controversies, bias, and atrocities you seem to hear about the prison system this article is a welcome change. It challenges me to think about the incarcerated population as artists, collaborators, and writers, as opposed to their crime. Personally I haven't really explored the idea of theatre therapy. With theatre being such a huge part of my life I just kind accept its shaped my beliefs and who I am positively, acting as a life coach constantly. I have no doubt this is consistent with these inmates theatre experiences, I hope the project can eventually be expanded in the manner explained in the article. With that, they will need outside support and that will be a challenge with the limited monetary contributions to these projects. There is so much money going in the wrong directions in the american prison system with costs reaching over 70 billion annually. Simply put it seems kind of insane the volunteers are likely to get nothing. I don't believe this will be a magic “fix all” for the prison system but every person's life matters and if this can help inmates rehabilitate its worth it.
I have read many articles about how theatre will help people regain their social abilities, and this is another encouraging one to me. The most important part of the article to me is that Moller and Levitt both mentioned that some of the inmates are "hungry" for learning. I think theatre is a unique path of learning new things. During the learning of theater, inmates can bring their past on stage or in the script again, thus refine their experiences and look at their choices in a whole different view point. It is not that inmates are especially in need of this kind of training, but every person in the society needs it. And introducing this kind of learning to the people who may never have chance to do so, is a truly caring deeds in my opinion. Also, the comparison between inmates and ordinary college students is an interesting thing to me. It reminds us that the resources are not distributed evenly, and we should always look out for the ones who fall behind.
I thought this interview was very enlightening on how theatre can make a positive impact in people’s lives in unconventional ways. I think the programs that these people are leading are fantastic and hopefully giving these people a way to focus creative energy and intellectual drive in a constructive manner. I loved the point about how college students take our education and classes for granted- I know too many people here who skip classes all the time and complain about how much they hate it, while to many people in the world we are living in a situation they could only dream of. We are incredibly privileged to be able to be here right now learning the things that we are and having these opportunities to succeed, and I hope that when we leave we will be able to spread our knowledge in a productive and beneficial way. These prison programs have demonstrated how theatre can be a positive impact in the lives of people who often have no means of accessing it, with some very powerful takeaways.
I enjoyed that this article interviewed, in depth, someone who works with the inmates. I felt like a lot of the articles focused on either the inmates or the program itself. This was definitely very enlightening to see from the other perspective. The mention that they have a Prison Theatre class at Cornell and that they bring students along to the prison workshops a couple nights a week was so cool to me! I believe I saw elsewhere that University of Michigan even has a whole department dedicated to it. I was a little taken aback at the disses toward college students ("Traditional college students often lack maturity as well as focus. First generation parents push their children to take advantage of college as a launching pad to a successful career they could only dream of, but the students themselves sometimes lack readiness," for example), but I do understand the point that we can take a lot of it for granted. There are so many people who didn't get the chances we have. In my experience, I've met quite a few people who were so proud that I'm going to college and expressed that they wished they got that chance too. It is such a privilege to have this education, and it's important to always remember that. I enjoyed seeing that the men were able to create their own writing for the performances, and the fact that they wove Shakespeare in with the inmates' original writings sounds so cool!
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