Session Six: Week 14

Tuesday

Tonight we conducted an oral interview with the group for our case study. I can’t publish the interviews here, but they were extremely insightful.

We also briefly discussed auditions and casting again. The group is in agreement on our method, sides have been distributed, and we will begin working with them on Friday.

Friday

Tonight one of the women pulled me aside to talk about concerns she is having about her daughter. She has a life sentence and is trying to cope with feelings of helplessness where her child is concerned. It hit home for me, as a mother, very hard. She apologized for “burdening” me, and I reassured her that it is no burden – that I’m there to listen to and support everyone in the group.

We spent our evening rehearsing the sides we’ll use for our auditions. We focused on the basics – identifying what the character wants (the objective) and how to go after it (the tactics). We also tried to find appropriate movement and delved slightly into vocal techniques.

Two different women read the scene in which Clarence meets Richard on his way to the Tower. Their interpretations were vastly different. The first played him as trusting in his brothers to do the right thing, while the second interpreted him as being feisty and angry. Both of these takes worked on their feet. It will be very interesting to see where we end up once the role is cast.

One of the women showcased an impression she does of me when I’m about to do a monologue. That got a lot of laughs. I do some kind of weird acting prep, and I don’t hold back in order to give others “permission” to do whatever they need to do. It is funny, though, and she does the impression very well. At first, this ensemble member, working on Richard’s opening soliloquy, was very focused on objects in the room that she was miming. We encouraged her to let go of that. Another longtime ensemble member reminded her not to judge her character, and I asked her to work with the objective of getting us (the audience) on her side. Her subsequent reading was electrifying. Whether she is cast in the role remains to be seen, but it was a very strong performance.

The woman who read Richard had envisioned the scene taking place in a bedchamber, but, because Clarence enters with an armed guard, en route to imprisonment, it would be tough to justify the scene happening in a setting like that. One of the women said she envisioned the curtain opening at the top of the show to reveal Richard sitting in a chair. Some in the group feel that that would work and could still be set outside.

This led to a brief conversation about the locations in the play. Strangely, there are no locations noted in the “No Fear” copy of the play that the women are working with, although there are in the Arden version that I always have with me. We talked about changing locations, and even time period, and what the perks and the pitfalls of that can be.

We ended by deciding to continue rehearsing sides on Tuesday, with auditions and casting next Friday.

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.