Young Actors Take Us Beyond Prison Walls

By Eric George Tauber

CINCINNATI, Ohio — When we watch crime dramas like CSI or Law & Order, the stories end with the bad guys going behind bars. Yet, for those being sentenced, that’s not the end of their story. Their stories continue through incarceration, release and readjustment to life on the outside.

How do you readjust to life as an ex-con? Will you make better choices? Surely, that experience will always be a part of you, but does it have to define you for the rest of your days? These are questions explored in San Diego by Playwrights Project, the SDSU School of Theatre, Television and Film and former inmates of the Richard J Donovan Correctional Facility.

Playwrights Project is an arts organization that teaches non-thespians how to write their stories for the stage. One of their bolder projects is sending teaching artists into prisons to work with inmates. Their plays are workshopped and presented by drama students at SDSU under the direction of Professor Peter Cirino.

The workshops held on the inside had to be put on ice because of Covid. However, Playwrights Project found a way to work with parolees over Zoom. The actors and directors were able to confer with the writers, talking for hours, gaining insight into their humanity and an appreciation for just how dehumanizing prison can be. Different short plays were shown on three different nights. I was able to catch Thursday evening’s offerings.

There and Back by Robert L Wood shows the revolving door of recidivism as inmates get out, get back in the game, get caught and go right back to prison. They got around social distancing restrictions by having identical twin brothers Devin and Drake Robbins playing cellmates. They spoke more to the camera than to each other, but I would like to see more of these young men as I was charmed by the strong rapport and great affection they have for each other.

Shawn Khalifa wrote Prison Is Not Me as a reflection of his own experience of being incarcerated from the ages of 15 to 31, then going to college. At first, he didn’t want his much younger classmates to know that he’d been in prison. But then, every insight that he voiced in class somehow related back to his life behind bars.

Institutionalized by Kamau Talib Sanders shows a man trying to be a husband and father after a long sentence. He is out of prison, but prison is still too much in him, making the adjustment difficult for the whole family.

It’s an undergraduate production over Zoom, so it’s pretty rough around the edges. And fresh-faced college kids don’t make the most believable convicts. However, the workshop still produces some keen insights into the lives of the incarcerated and ex-cons. They tear off the labels, allowing us to relate to the essential humanity of our fellow human beings. And that is why theatre still matters.

To learn more about Playwrights Project, follow this link.

https://www.playwrightsproject.org/productions/community/

Videos of this weekend’s productions will be uploaded onto Youtube.

And that’s Show-Biz!

*
Eric George Tauber, now residing in Cincinnati, is a former San Diego actor and drama critic who follows San Diego productions via the Internet.  He may be contacted via eric.tauber@sdjewishworld.com