"Theatre," says Professor Lorraine Moller, Artistic Director of
Rehabilitation Through the Arts at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, in her foreword to
Laurence Tocci's The Proscenium Cage [pdf], "may well be one of the few antidotes to the de-humanizing climate of prisons." The use of theater in prisons has many forms: from projects designed to let prisoners tell their own stories as shown in the Austrian film "
Gangster Girls" (
trailer in German), to the
elaborate, high-concept costume dramas of Italy's
Compagnia della Fortezza. Some base their work on Boal's
Theatre of the Oppressed, others on Moreno's
Psychodrama, but many programs use a more direct approach: put on classic plays, and let the play do the illuminating. That's the approach of
Shakespeare Behind Bars, the troupe at Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in LaGrange, Kentucky.
Watch the entirety of Shakespeare Behind Bars,
a compelling 2005 documentary that follows the troupe for a season as they produce a production of
The Tempest.
[more inside]
posted by ocherdraco
on Aug 4, 2009 -
8 comments
