Session Six: Week 13

Tuesday

Tonight before we began, an ensemble member excitedly told me that she’d found a biography of Henry VIII and was excited about how much of the history she already knew from working on this play. She was fairly vocal about her excitement in the day room of her unit, and she said that another person in the room thought it was weird and put her down to the extent that she actually left the room crying. Another ensemble member and I reassured her that, yes, what we do and what we get excited about can seem odd to some people, but we need not let that get us down. We’re just interested in different things, and that’s okay!

During check in, one woman stated that even though we’d said we were going to try not to talk about politics, she just couldn’t keep in her fear and anger about the current political climate. The air in the room was one of trepidation – it seemed like no one quite knew what to say or do. I thanked her for her honesty and said that it’s impossible that she’s the only person in our group who feels that way. I reiterated that our group needs to be a safe space for the entire ensemble, which is why we try to eschew politics, but that some things will inevitably creep in, especially given current events. I encouraged everyone to continue to do the good work that they are doing on themselves – the goal of our program is for the people in it to become empowered, and when they do that, the positive outcomes that they experience as individuals ripple out to those around them – and that is an impact that they can all make in times that may make them feel powerless, especially being incarcerated.

We decided to continue working scenes in our circle, and the first person to volunteer asked to read the Richard/Anne scene with Kyle – but with her playing Anne, a major departure because she has a very hard time identifying with women. As this was her first time reading a female part, I asked everyone to make sure to be completely supportive – she was making herself very vulnerable and really trusting us. There were no snide comments and no giggling, and the group gave her a good amount of time in the scene before tagging her out.

We moved onto Act Four, scene four, which is long and great for this style of scene work. Nearly everyone tagged in to the scene at some point, and there was a lot of generosity in terms of the length of time each person was given in the scene. There were varying degrees of emotional commitment, but the participation was great. One hilarious moment was when a woman tagged in as Richard, then turned the page and realized the next line was the beginning of a huge monologue, turned to me and said, “No!” in mock horror. We had to pause to laugh.

That scene with Elizabeth is really something else – the group loves to work with it and discuss it. One woman who is rather quiet was particularly powerful as Elizabeth – there was something about her soft voice speaking so forcefully that was jarring and intense.

Reactions to the scene vary – some people think Elizabeth is just going along with Richard about his marrying her daughter, while others think she’s being manipulated. Everyone, however, is disgusted by the way Richard talks to her – we were particularly revolted by the idea of replanting her dead sons in her daughter’s womb. The phrase “nest of spicery” appears to be the new “Twerks-berry,” and we riffed on that for a while. All in all, we are aghast at Richard’s choices in this scene – who talks like this? It will be interesting to continue to work on once we’re cast.

We took some time to talk about that casting process before we left. We’ve decided to try yet another method – this year, I will be pulling sides (short pieces of scenes) from the play and providing them to the ensemble in packets to study. Everyone will let us know how they prefer to be cast (at least three roles to try to avoid total disappointment), and then after two weeks or so, everyone will audition and vote anonymously.

I’m hopeful that this will work well. The first three seasons, we were able to cast just by discussing things as a group, but in season four that didn’t work well and led to some infighting and tension. Last year’s pseudo-auditions (really just more circle scene work) and anonymous voting were undermined by some behind-the-scenes politicking, which again led to problems. We’ve asked that no one campaign for themselves or anyone else this year to try to avoid that. We’ll see how it goes!

Friday

We took some time tonight to do the first written interview of our case study. No one refused to answer the questions, but several people commented on how challenging it was – the questions are very open ended. “I don’t usually share this stuff,” said one woman after being reassured that no one will see these except for SIP staff. “You’re lucky I’m in therapy – I’m able to answer these questions pretty quickly!”

We then went through the list of characters, and everyone interested in each role raised her hand. We didn’t have much time left, then, so we played Freeze till we ran out of time.

During this game, the officer at the desk came to observe us through the window in the door. When I glanced out at her, she was laughing. One woman was the last to leave with me, and when we got to the desk, the following exchange occurred:

Officer:    I had no idea you were such a performer!
Frannie:    She is SUCH a good actor.
Inmate:    I love Shakespeare!
Officer:    Well, good job in there.
Inmate:    Maybe you can come see the play this year.
Officer:    I’d love to!

This is one of the effects we hope to achieve through our work in this program – the positive changing of prison culture, one person at a time. This officer and inmate have a new way to connect on a human (and not at all inappropriate) level, and they both feel pride in the program, which is part of their shared community. We didn’t witness or hear about interactions like this for the first few years of the program, but now that it’s been around longer, we observe more and more of this. It’s really thrilling.

Session Six: Week 12

Written by Matt.

TUESDAY 15 NOVEMBER

We had a new member, and she jumped right into the flow of the group.

At check-in, one longtime member of the group talked about feeling less in control of her emotions. “I threw a chair at someone yesterday,” she admitted, and she revealed feeling edgy and revved-up.

A few other women seemed to agree that over the past week or so, emotions in the prison have been running high. We moved quickly through check-in, as many of the women were anxious to perform scenes.

A woman had memorized Queen Margaret’s role in I.iii, a scene in which the exiled Margaret stalks about the stage and excoriates Richard, who attempts to disarm her attacks with a few well-placed words. It’s a scene of high emotion, and it rises over several minutes in intensity, providing a challenge to the actors to pace the emotional arc of the scene. Asked afterwards why she had chosen that scene, the woman playing Margaret said, “Once I started thinking about how she would feel, I realized that I have some of that vengeful feeling in me,” she said. “I found feelings that I didn’t know I had.”

A facilitator pressed her on her motivations, asking her to articulate Margaret’s goals in the scene. Was her goal to hurt Richard or to warn the others of Richard’s evil? The woman decided that Margaret begins with a warning, but by the end of the scene her only goal is to hurt Richard. We encouraged her to do the scene again with that intent, which she did. Her performance was stellar.

In IV.iv, two women performed Richard’s confrontation with his mother, another scene that builds to a crescendo over time. After the performance was over, the group was divided on where the audience’s sympathies should lie in this scene. “I just feel so bad for Richard,” said one participant. “No wonder he’s so cruel, growing up like that.” She and several others placed the blame for Richard’s character squarely at his mother’s feet.

Or did Richard turn out how he is despite his mother’s best efforts? The woman who played the Duchess suggested that Richard may simply be evil. “I played it like she just tried to be the best mom she could and nothing worked.” A facilitator pressed her on her character’s motivations, and she said, “she just wants a reaction from him…any reaction…” Pressed a little further, she said, “It’d be nice if he cried.”

“She’s trying to break him,” suggested a longtime member about Margaret’s goal. A new member followed up, “what could hurt you more than your mother telling you she hates you?” She had a suggestion for tone of voice in that scene. “This is that tone of voice that is disgust,” she said. “Nothing can humiliate you more than the sound of a mother’s disgust.”

Another woman got up to perform Richard’s final monologue, in which he rallies his troops. In keeping with the theme of the evening, this speech also builds slowly to a rousing finish, and the performer went for broke, shouting and leaping up on a chair to finish the monologue. The facilitators encouraged her to emphasize not only Richard’s anger and passion, but also his disdain for his enemies, as the speech contains strong language insulting Richmond and his army. In a second performance, the woman fluidly moved between condescension and high passion, ending by leaping off the chair on the final word of the speech.

FRIDAY 18 NOVEMBER

There was an event happening in the auditorium today, so several women were in and out. This didn’t seem to affect their focus, though, as everyone was really on-point! The tension in the air from Tuesday had dissipated, and check-in was mostly happy, even goofy sometimes. It was unseasonably warm today, but the heat was still on in the programs building, making the air stifling, which seemed at first like it might sap the women’s energy, though that turned out not to be the case at all.

We played through several large, complicated scenes today, but we started small with III.v, in which Richard gets Buckingham to pledge absolute loyalty and, in a shocking turn, Ratcliffe enters with the head of Hastings.

We reprised I.iii from Tuesday, but played the full scene, as Queen Margaret circles a triumphant Richard for several minutes before launching into her impassioned confrontation. After we finished the scene, much of the talk centered on whether or not Margaret is insane, as all around her seem to think she is, and whether being insane and trying to make a legitimate warning are mutually exclusive. One woman commented that Queen Elizabeth, Margaret’s successor, “stands up for herself, and I like that. Until it comes to Margaret, when she just folds.”

Playing II.ii, in which it is revealed to Clarence’s children that he is dead, we discussed how to play the melodramatic lamentation onstage. The Dutchess, Elizabeth, and Clarence’s children wail about the death of Clarence until, at the moment’s crescendo, Richard enters with two cronies. The woman who had played the Dutchess’s final scene last week said that seeing that character here early in the play made her want to do the final scene over again, to find a satisfying emotional arc for this character.

A longtime member and a facilitator played I.ii, in which Richard woos Anne. We’ve performed this scene many times with many different players, and it still continues to reveal new possibilities. When it was over, the woman who played Anne said, “I hate Anne! She’s too easily won!” A new member countered, “But she’s got to be pretty insecure, though.”

A woman who had remained mostly silent throughout the session joined in soberly, “I can actually identify with this scene. It reminds me of the first time my ex beat my ass.” She gave more detail, which I’m omitting here in case it might identify her.

A few women nodded along, and one added, “here you are, at your lowest, and he’s around to bring you back up again.”

But a new member was still confused by Richard’s motivation. “What was his objective?” she asked, “He has her killed!”

We ended the session debating whether Richard’s sole motivation was pride or a feeling of conquest. “He’s trying to see how far he can take it,” said a longtime member.

Session Six: Week 11

Friday

Tonight began with a longtime member of the ensemble sharing with us that, due to a pretty big workload leading up to her release, she will be leaving Shakespeare. A few of us shared what her presence and work has meant to us and to the group as a whole – we made sure she knew how much we have appreciated her. One ensemble member even did a song and dance.

Two ensemble members who have been absent lately told us that they are making a “renewed commitment” to the program. “The first time I laughed good was in here,” said one of them. They have both been having a rough time but feel it’s better to show up and hope for a distraction from the things that are overwhelming them.

Some group members suggested that we play a game, so we did! The game we played is one in which the group sits in a circle and sends questions around, making eye contact and trying to maintain focus, without answering any questions. After we started playing for elimination, it finally got down to the group’s unofficial reigning champion and the ensemble member who is leaving. The latter won, to much applause!

We then decided to do some scene exploration while sitting in a circle. The original goal was to do this tagging in and out of scenes, although we shifted to monologue work and that didn’t end up happening. We also talked a bit about casting – identifying three roles (at least) that interest each person so that if we don’t get our first choices, we won’t be totally disappointed. One woman said she is interested in playing one of the murderers because she has mental illness that causes her to relate. She says she works hard to be positive and constructive, but “on the inside sometimes I feel the opposite. It feels good to let some of it out.”

We then focused on Buckingham’s monologue before he is executed. The first person to perform said afterward that she wants to practice the piece more. I asked her how it made her feel. “To me… It sucks. He really gave up,” she said. Kyle asked her what she thinks the character wants. “He wants the audience to know that it all could have been different,” she said. “He knows he did this to himself by being with the wrong person.” Kyle said that, to him, it’s uplifting that he “gets it.”

The woman continued, “It sucks because he gets it, like, a minute too late… As an addict, I saw people who almost had it but missed it, and they died. I can relate to looking at that reflection and saying, ‘Damn, I did all that?’”

Another woman said, “He knows he did wrong, but he also plants the seed for someone else to do right. He didn’t do anything to go to the chopping block… ‘I’m being sent by somebody I thought was my friend. I’m not innocent, but I don’t deserve this.’ He’s warning other people to beware and make the right decisions.”

That woman then tried the monologue. Afterward, she was disappointed, saying, “I didn’t do it the way I wanted to do it. I knew when those points were… I don’t know why it wouldn’t come out. Maybe because I wasn’t standing.” We assured her that that’s always the way early reads go – they are never exactly how you want them to be – and that maybe she has a point and should stand the next time she works on the piece.

Further pondering the monologue, she said, “When I was in court – you know when you get to say what you get to say before you get here… This feeling I get so well from that day… I thought I would say something better… But I said, ‘I don’t need you to feel sorry for me.’ That day, you die. Maybe a new you is born, but that day you die.”

The first woman then read the piece again. She said it felt better that time. “Seeing other people do it gives you insight into where the rhythm is. There are so many layers in it.”

“Oh, no. This is not what I’m gonna sound like when I die,” said the second woman who read the piece. “Does anyone ever feel like they’ve gone too far in life?”

“That’s why we’re here,” another woman said quietly.

Session Six: Week 10

Tuesday

Written by Frannie

Last week, the group discussed how much they admired the depth that the men in the Shakespeare Behind Bars documentary achieved in their acting, and we talked about how we might approach our material to get that effect without having to re-live trauma. I am very fond of Michael Chekhov technique as a safe and liberating method of acting, and I asked everyone if they’d like to give it a try. They did.

So tonight we began with a Chekhov warm up to get our energy flowing and our bodies active. When we were done, I asked everyone how they felt. They said they felt more energized and connected to their bodies, and some expressed a feeling of relief and freedom. “It took away my anxiety,” said a person who has shared with the group that she has pretty debilitating anxiety.

After I explained a bit about where we would go from here with the technique, and everyone agreed that they want to keep exploring it, we got back to our reading of the play. We are eager to get through to the end so we can begin putting scenes on their feet.

Act Four, scene five, didn’t engender a lot of discussion. We made sure everyone understood the plot points and moved on to Act Five, scene one, in which Buckingham is led to his death and ponders his own responsibility in his downfall. Many participants said that they liked the way he processed everything. “You’d never catch Richard doing this,” said one woman.

We moved on to Act Five, scene two, which is very brief and introduces us to Richmond. Some felt that the scene could be cut, and we discussed why it’s there in the first place – the pacing of the play really picks up toward the end and the focus bounces back and forth between Richard and Richmond. “We’re getting to know Richmond better,” said one person. “We’re seeing that there’s an option other than Richard.”

Then we read Act Five, scene three, in which we go back and forth between Richard’s and Richmond’s camps and the ghosts of Richard’s victims haunt him and praise Richmond. This scene engendered a lot of discussion.

The woman who read Richard’s conflicted monologue following the visitation said, “I felt like I was looking for something that I need and cannot find.” Another woman said, “He’s getting soft. It’s not like him to be scared – or feel anything.”

“I think he’s covered with guilt and it’s haunting him,” said someone else. “These people are showing up in his dreams and want him to die.” Another woman said, “This is the first time he’s actually faced his deeds… This is the first time he realizes ‘I did all this… for this?’”

“… and I still don’t have what I want,” continued the first woman. “He had just one goal and didn’t think it through. I don’t see someone like that as remorseful. I just don’t.” Kyle pointed out that Richard wouldn’t feel the stress if the ghosts hadn’t shown up. “I should feel bad,” said one woman. “Kind of like an addict.”

“In the beginning, he was alone. He ends how he starts. He’s angry, not afraid,” said another woman.  She said that this is her favorite part of the play, and we asked her why. “Because the ghosts finally have a voice against evil,” she said. “And it’s fair to say that even though he’s not remorseful, it’s the first time these people matter – he finally stops to think long enough to feel bad about it. I don’t think he’s vulnerable. I think he’s angry. Things just didn’t go his way.” Another woman agreed, saying, “He’s very disturbed.”

The woman who made the comment about Richard being like an addict drew another parallel and said, “I was angry at the court when they took my kids away because of my addiction. I was the martyr of the world because everyone was against me.” She readily admitted that she had actually been the one at fault, and that she now has clarity that she didn’t have in the midst of her addiction.

“I do the opposite,” said another woman. “When people are upset and I should be understanding, I find myself saying, ‘I’ve been through all this and can wake up and put a smile on my face.’ But why do I do this? I should never compare.”

“I relate to Richard,” said someone else. “All my life, my family would tell me that I was bad, so I acted bad. It gave me an excuse to do vile things. I started thinking that I was evil and did really bad stuff - because people told me I was bad. It took a lot of therapy to realize that that’s a choice I have to make. I’m not evil. I’m good, and I have a good heart. I’m not Richard.”

The woman who said this is her favorite scene pondered whether Richard is making excuses or justifying what he did. The group believes it is both.

“Richard feels his pain,” said one woman who’d been rather quiet. “I identify with him in that way because when I was little, people would say mean things [about her skin color; she is very dark skinned], and that’s why I know how to fight. After a while, I just took it. But then I started amplifying it majorly. And I would sit and think about how I could hurt you. If I felt not dominant, not number one, if you were stronger than me, then I would attack you physically. And that’s how I feel Richard is. I see him holding in things that have hurt him and amplifying it out onto everyone else. And he doesn’t tell anyone."

… Except the audience, we reminded ourselves. Unfortunately, our conversation was cut short, as we’d run out of time, but it’s clear that this play is going to continue to bring about very personal insight and understanding of ourselves and others, which is exactly what we want.

Friday

Written by Kyle.

I went in alone tonight, which always makes me feel self-conscious, like I’m going to mess the whole thing up in one night.  Everything went off without a hitch, but the ensemble knows how I feel about it and likes to poke fun at me being the substitute teacher.

The conversation with a long-time member that was very frank.  She is considering quitting the program because she is having so many personal and family problems. She says that she doesn’t want to put the group through that again and bring all that negativity to the group.  I told her that the group would be fine and she could show up no matter how she was feeling.  I tried very hard to be impartial about the whole thing and not lean one way or the other.  I told her that I didn’t have the answer to her problems, and that no one did, but that keeping an open heart and mind would be the key.  So she should engage in the behaviors that would keep those two things open.  At the end of it I told her that she should give herself a deadline.  If she still feels this way by Christmas she will have spent half the program wishing she would quit and that would be her answer; if not, then she will be glad she didn’t rush the judgment with something irreversible.  It seemed to help, and I wonder if we will see her again on Tuesday.

We finished the play tonight and had a small discussion about how Richard was not afforded a death speech.  The consensus was that it depended on how we staged the final fight scene, but that according to the text it ends kind of abruptly.

After the the play finished, an ensemble member asked immediately if she could get a scene up on its feet.  You could tell she was waiting to do this scene and chomping at the bit to perform it.  She chose Clarence’s death scene.  I was glad she asked, and it is cool to see the ensemble so excited to perform.  I challenged them to use the whole space, figure out what their character wanted in the scene, and to stay focused from start to finish.   At the conclusion of the scene one of the newer members said that she didn’t like being a murderer, and didn’t know if she could do it again.  It was her first time performing anything, so it was nice that she gave it a shot- even if she felt a little uncomfortable.

The woman playing Clarence also had an interesting take on her begging for her life.  She said that it reminded her of being in front of the judge.  There were nods of agreement and people swapped stories and asked if they cried or not.  She said that she had wrote three or four speeches where she was going to beg him but then threw them all away.  In the end she said she told the judge and her family not to pity her.  She then left, freaked out, couldn’t believe she said that to the judge, and wished she had begged.  I couldn’t write down all the responses that came from that comment, but there were lots of concurring and swapping of sentencing-stories.

The group dwindled slowly, and we finished with me and another member playing the Richard and Anne scene, with her as Richard and me as Anne.  We said that we would try again next week with the roles switched- and I know makes her uncomfortable playing a woman.

All in all it was a wonderful night, and at the same time a rank and file kind of night.  I’m glad the ensemble is so willing and eager to begin to perform the scenes they have been reading and I can’t wait to see more.

Session Six: Week 9

Tuesday

We began our session by reflecting on the Shakespeare Behind Bars documentary that we watched last week. The first thing that was noted was how amazing it was for the men to be able to perform for friends and family, which is something that we are not allowed to do. There was also an extremely positive reaction to one man’s journey to healing through a character who had many similarities to his own experiences. The women were also impressed by the honesty in the men’s acting.

One question was whether it is harder for men to play women than for women to play men. “It’s harder for men to put down their guard and be vulnerable. Women are strong when they toughen up,” said one woman. “Where else could I play Lord Capulet?” said a longtime member. “You get used to it. But women are more accepting.”

We talked a bit about the changes in physicality that are necessary when playing a different gender. We talked about how women are socialized to be quiet, take up little space with their bodies, and make themselves appear to be weak. We contrasted that with men’s physicality and talked about working together to become physically more powerful as we work with our play.

Several men in the film share the crimes that they committed. One woman said, “It was depressing, hearing what they did. The guy who killed his wife… I killed someone, but it was an accident. But I still get labeled.” Another woman said, “To watch them and to hear what they did but to still have this sense of liking them because of who they are… It’s a journey of learning about myself.”

“They weren’t who they used to be when they committed the crime,” said one person. We talked about balancing the scales – as one man in the film says, looking at the totality of a person’s life rather than simply the worst thing they’ve ever done.

Another woman remarked that she finds most crimes forgivable, but that it is hard to forgive crimes against children. She said it in a way that sounded judgmental, and another woman jumped in, gently but firmly reminding her not to judge people who’ve committed crimes against children because there may be people who’ve committed those crimes in our group, and we don’t want them to feel alienated. “Consider what you say,” said another woman, “But don’t censor anyone.”

Another woman said she is looking forward to getting feedback on her acting the way the men in the documentary provide it for one another. Several people commented on how inspiring it was to see how invested in each other the men were.

“It’s nice to see other people living the way that we are,” said someone. “It makes me feel better to know that other people are just as miserable as I am.” We talked about the changes the men undergo, despite their circumstances. “I want to be better than I was before,” said one woman. “Shakespeare keeps me out of trouble,” said another woman in her third year of the program. “You learn how to care about yourself and other people.”

We then returned to our play, reading and discussing Act Four, scene three, in which Tyrrel tells the audience of the killing of the princes and the killers’ remorse, and Richard has no such feelings as he prepares for a larger conflict.

“In Othello, the death was more shocking. It’s expected in this play,” said one woman. “We barely know these characters, too,” said another person. “I felt bad for Desdemona.” I posed the question: Why do we really only get to know Richard? Is he isolated on purpose? “He’s isolated from the first soliloquy,” said one woman. “The power causes you to isolate yourself,” said another.

As people left, I pulled aside one member of the group who has been pretty caustic and argumentative so far this season. I asked her if she realized how prickly she’s been, and she sheepishly said she did. I told her that I know she doesn’t want to be censored, but there are ways of expressing her opinions without being hostile. “You want to play Richard, right?” I asked. She nodded. “Then you have to give everyone a reason to cast you in that role,” I continued. She agreed that she need to start “playing nice.” I encouraged her to treat it like an acting exercise when it gets tough: her goal is to play Richard, and she needs to use tactics to get what she wants, the same way an actor does in a play. She was in total agreement and said she felt better having talked about it, and that she is confident she can adjust her behavior going forward.

Friday

Tonight we worked on Act Four, scene four, in which the women of the play mourn the loss of the princes, the Duchess reproves Richard for his actions, Richard pursues a marriage with his niece through Elizabeth, and Richard prepares for battle with Richmond. It’s quite a long scene!

We talked about Margaret’s speeches to Elizabeth in this scene and remarked how, despite being very harsh, she seems now to respect Elizabeth. “It’s a sisterhood of misery,” said one woman. “Margaret doesn’t gloat because Elizabeth talks about the curse being fulfilled,” said another. “She says to take your misery and sorrow and sharpen them like a sword… and kill Richard with it,” reflected someone else. “That’s what miserable people do anyway,” mused another participant. “They amplify their grief.”

We then discussed the way that the Duchess talks to Richard. “How can a child not entertain these things when a mother says them? Think about the impact this woman had on this child’s life. She made him the person that he is,” said one person. “Maybe he’s so heartless because he was treated so heartlessly.”

The woman sitting next to me said quietly that she relates to Elizabeth because she has two sons who were taken away from her. She said she is getting stronger, and is going to fight to get them back.

Regarding Richard, one woman said, “I wish you guys could all read Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. It’s so Richard. If you’re weak, you’re supposed to act strong.” She further reflected, “Doesn’t this happen to all gangsters? You do all this horrific shit, and then at the end you regret what you’ve done.”

Does Richard care about having killed children, we pondered? Several people agreed that he has an addict mentality – that he’s in pursuit of “pleasure, now,” and doesn’t think too far ahead.

“I don’t like the way some of these people react to Richard,” said one woman. “This play irritates me.”

There is a lot going on in this play, and many opinions being voiced. It is going to be a real challenge to work through all of these ideas as we begin to put the play on its feet, which is going to be soon. We may never all agree on everything, and many aspects of interpretation will ultimately be up to the people playing the roles. For now, though, all interpretations are on the table.