Season Two: Week 8

Tuesday / August 14
 

The first order of business today was deciding that we are not going to take a break in September as originally planned. We can’t even really remember why we talked about doing that, and none of us want to do it, so we’re not!

Our goal for the day was to do a couple of monologues and then get back to reading, but things didn’t go quite the way we anticipated. The man who’s been on my case about performing a monologue went first just to make me do one. He did part of Hamlet’s “What a piece of work is a man…”, but he hadn’t had access to the entire piece, so it was lacking some context that would have been helpful. I had a Complete Works with me, found the piece in it for him, and handed it over so he could read the whole thing.

I warned everyone that I was going to take a few minutes to prep using some of Michael Chekhov’s techniques to physically call up whatI needed to perform Hermione’s “Sir, spare your threats…” from The Winter’s Tale. My performance went all right, but I didn’t feel fully connected, particularly later in the piece (when my scene partner noticed a change in my pacing). The guys gave a lot of positive feedback, though. “I hate to see people cry; maybe it’s prison,” said one person. “But seeing what you did really touched me… I felt it 100%.” Another ensemble member said, “I could feel the horror of it… but when you stood up, it was more empowerment than sorrow.”

Which led me to ask for some legit constructive criticism (though I was glad they enjoyed it!). The note that struck a chord with a number of people was about my physicality (which, admittedly, felt awkward to me). Two people said they thought that my head had moved too much, given how stiff my posture was; another suggested that I combat that with a little more movement. Another man said he didn’t agree; that the movements of my head reminded him of women in his life when they’d been upset. Another said that it rang true for him, too, but for a different reason: it reminded him of the “shaking” and overall lack of movement he remembers from interacting with Holocaust survivors in his youth. Building on that, one of the men who was concerned about how stiff I was said that we could still see those people breathing hard from pent up emotion, so that was an element I could add.

One of the guys—whom, for the sake of clarity, we’ll call Poet A—then said, “You said you feed off other people’s energy, right, Frannie? Want me to do something of mine to charge up the room?” Of course we did. He performed an original spoken word piece—an absolutely beautiful, gritty, sad narration of and reflection on all the things in his life that led him to this point: incarcerated for several more years and trying desperately to find a new identity. “What inspired you to write that?” asked one man. The author replied, “That’s my monologue… That’s all the things that actually happened to me… It’s those snapshots, you know?”

Two men said that they liked this—and spoken word like this—more than they like rap; they feel it’s more authentic. Another man objected to that, saying, “That is hip hop, man. That’s where it started… You’re just not listening to the right rap.” One of the guys clarified that he does like rap, he just doesn’t like it when it’s shallow or inauthentic, “like what some of these guys on the yard are doing.”

People identified with the piece on a very deep level. One man said he particularly connected with the feeling of being left alone. “You expressed it in a way I’ve always wanted to, but haven’t been able to,” he said. Another said, “That was amazing. I’m not the biggest fan of rap and poetry, but as soon as you started talking, I was hanging on every word of it.” A third man—whom we’ll call Poet B—said he related to the feeling of isolation, particularly as a result of substance abuse. “I’m an ex-junkie… I understand the abandonment, being dragged through the gutters and everything…” He also spoke of being in the hole, and how that intensified those feelings for him. “I can definitely relate,” he said.

Poet A said he’d been nervous to perform this piece because of how vulnerable he had to make himself. “I can tell you all day who [NICKNAME] is, but if I try to tell you who [NAME] is, I’m lost.”

Another man broke in. “I know [NAME] just from the little bit of time we’ve spent together in here. I know you.” He described Poet A as kind, generous, talented, and funny. Everyone agreed. They asked him what he was doing about getting his work out there, and he said he’s been published in PCAP’s annual review twice, but he’s suspicious of others who’ve reached out to him.

Poet B then hesitantly volunteered to read an original piece of his own. “It’s kind of long,” he said apologetically. It was extremely powerful—gut-wrenching—and he occasionally had to pause to keep his crying in check. He apologized several times, to which a number of people responded, “You’re a human being, man.”

When he’d finished reading, he apologized again, and, again, nearly everyone vocally and passionately reassured him that he had nothing to apologize for—that he’s a human being, and human beings cry. Two other men said they’d had similar experiences; one said that his empathy ran so deep that it had been difficult for him to hear what Poet B so perfectly articulated. Poet B then apologized again for getting emotional, to which several people responded that it takes more strength to show emotion than to hide it, and that he was in a safe place for that.

The men of them broke the tension, then, by joking that they’d really only shared these things “to give Frannie gas” for my monologue, to which I sarcastically responded, “Yeah, I’m getting nothing out of this,” to some much-needed laughter. But we couldn’t really let ourselves off the hook—this ensemble is full to bursting with people determined to make huge changes in their lives, and that includes being able to talk honestly about their emotions.

“Being able to talk gives emotional closure,” said one man. Not talking “feels like walking on glass, but smiling like everything’s fine.” He said their writing had inspired him to maybe do some writing, himself—to find a way to express everything he’s feeling. Poet A encouraged him, saying, “It validates who you are when people mirror who you are, because it shows you’re not the exception—the pariah. You’re not alone. You’re human. You might be damaged a little bit, but you’re human.” Poet B said they were all bonded through shared suffering.

Then one of the guys asked me if I “felt it” when Poet B was reading. I replied (carefully—always carefully) that I felt deep empathy, and that I recognized those emotions as much as I could from my experience, my understanding of people, and my work with this man in particular. I turned to him and said, “But I haven’t had the experience you’ve had—I haven’t lived what you just described—and I would never say that I know that feeling. Because I don’t.” Poet B replied that no one in the outside world could understand, and the others agreed. I said that this is part of the value of sharing what they’ve experienced and learned—that, even spending as much time with incarcerated people as I do, I still only have a glimmer of understanding of what they go through, and that most people on the outside have even less knowledge than that. Several others agreed, saying that when they’re ready, they all should share their experiences. Even if people never understand, at least these storytellers will have been humanized.

There was a slight lull, and a younger ensemble member asked, “Can I make a fool of myself?” He is a somewhat prolific poet and had been inspired by these two men to write his own piece right then and there. He performed it for us. It was a beautiful, raw piece about his “rise and fall,” and we absolutely loved it. “I don’t know how y’all do that,” said one man to these three writers, shaking his head.

They asked if I was ready to perform again. Honestly, I was exhausted, but so is Hermione, so I gave it a go. I felt even more disconnected this time—like I’d come close to the target but hadn’t hit it. Several people said they’d noticed that, but that my physicality had been better (I’d started sitting down and stood up midway through). They asked why I thought it wasn’t working, and I said that I wasn’t quite sure—it’s a piece that’s full of contradictions (weakness vs. strength, sadness vs. anger, etc.) and I was finding it difficult to strike a balance.

Several people mused a bit on the contradictions in the piece and said they understood why that would be so difficult to navigate. But there were elements that worked. “It’s more like you were having a last stand kind of thing,” said one man, and another suggested that I lean more heavily on the character’s defiance—that’s what he found compelling.

We only had about 15 minutes left at that point, and we decided to use the time to play a game and lift each other up. We chose “Hot Spot”, a game I recently rediscovered. We stood in a circle, clapping, snapping, and singing along as one person at a time jumped into the center and sang a song, being tagged out by another person inspired to sing something else. This game is a ton of fun, and very silly. We left on a high note, rocked by the emotional afternoon we’d just had, but better for having bonded, once again, so strongly with one another.
 

Friday / August 17

Today we were thrilled to welcome two new people to our ensemble: Catherine Coffey, who is one of our facilitator apprentices, and Curt Tofteland, founder of Shakespeare Behind Bars.

Without planning or even discussing it, we found ourselves going around the circle, introducing ourselves and sharing why we’d joined the group. Of the 22 people present, only six had signed up without having been recruited—and most of those were people who’d seen one of our performances and were intrigued by the camaraderie they saw. Seven people had been recruited by a single person—and he had initially been tricked into joining!

It turned out that we couldn’t meet in the gym, so we walked over to another building and settled into a classroom. We finished up our check-in, learning that one of the men is working on translating some Shakespeare into ASL, and that all of the college students in our group made the dean’s list! As we lowered the Ring, we noticed that the clock was making a chirping sound over and over. As soon as we’d silently finished the exercise, one of the guys said, “Man, that thing is annoying! I felt like I was killing Tweetie!”

We circled up and read Act III, scene iii, on its feet. It was a little tough for some of us to follow the scene’s logic (this is the “mock trial”), but we all agreed that we loved Edgar’s closing soliloquy. One man interpreted it as Edgar wanting to help Lear. Another said it’s more about Edgar’s empathy for Lear making his situation bearable: everything is relative, he said, likening it to the length of one’s sentence. “For some guys coming in, 15 months is a real long time. But for me, looking at three years left—I’m more than halfway through my sentence, so that doesn’t feel like a real long time.” Another man noted that this soliloquy a show of compassion that, thus far at least, is rare in this play.

I’m not sure how this started, but someone brought up Lear’s being egocentric, and another man challenged him on his use of the word. These two have been intellectually sparring pretty regularly, and the first man smiled and said, “Are we gonna argue semantics again?” We all laughed, including the guy who’d started the debate. Another gently clarified: “We perceive others to be more egocentric than we, ourselves, are. There, is that good?” It was.

One of the guys built on that, saying that Lear is in the room with people who love him, but he’s fixated on the people who don’t. “We deal with that a lot, don’t we?” said one person. “This scene is a crossroads for all these characters,” said another man, gazing down at his book.

One of the guys said, “I think we’ve stumbled on the secret to socialization… [Lear] really just wanted validation from his daughters—and not fake validation, but real validation… And that’s the secret to socialization. You gotta validate people, and you gotta do it honestly.” I didn’t write down the rest of what he said, but there was something that struck people as funny, and he responded that he wasn’t sure why they thought he was joking. Another man stepped in, saying, “I feel what you’re saying—you’re making a good point. A lot of people laugh at what you say, but they don’t really hear what you say. I feel you, though.” The others agreed. The man thanked him and said that he appreciates that they know he’s not trying to be funny, and that they value his opinion.

Curt said that what he finds interesting in this scene is that one character is going mad, while another is pretending to be mad. Which character is more or less real? One of the guys reminded us of the talk we had about illusion vs. reality. He said that he thought the byproduct of emotional turmoil seems like madness, and “I think he’s going through what a lot of us have dealt with when our pride got taken from us.”

“Whenever I felt like I was going downhill, it made me a better person,” said one man. “Stepping back and looking at King Lear—how he’s yelling at the storm… he’s realizing his own demise, and that’s what’s causing him to descend into madness… I wouldn’t say losing control and going mad aren’t the same thing.”

Another man said that the delusion of madness is madness. He shared that when he was in the hole, he knew that one of the guys there was faking (as opposed to those who were actually losing their minds), and that this guy “actually ate his own feces—which is mad in itself.” Sadly, no one even blinked. This isn’t anything new or surprising to them. “If you’re really trying that hard to feign madness, you are mad.”

Another man, who’d been listening intently but not sharing, said, “I relate to Edmund in real life, being a bastard child, but also a bastard in the situation I’m in, and having to feign madness… If I peek out from behind that madness, I’m gonna be discovered… Once you pretend for so long— I find myself very committed to the act of pretending to be mad; I’m beginning to become mad—something I was pretending to be. The difference becomes hard to see. You can’t see your way out, and the madness begins to take over. I have to find a way out of that before it cascades into what I’m actually trying to do… It’s becoming more natural now because the madness is actually starting to take over.” One of the guys gently responded, “Madness is a matter of perception to those who are around you.” He said that Edgar is trying to stay in control but perceived to be mad (i.e., “cloaked”), while Lear is actually losing control.

Another man said, “I’ve been on both sides of the spectrum…. True madness is something you can’t pull yourself out of… You can poke your head up to catch a breath, but madness will pull you back down… You can’t fully grasp not being that way after you’ve been there so long… I believe [Lear’s paranoia] is the worst kind of madness… because you’re going to snap off at somebody… But I believe putting on the cloak of madness is always worse than falling in.”

“Madness was my whole entire life before I came to prison—not caring about the effect of my actions. That was my Lear,” said another man. “When I came to the penitentiary, I could choose to be Lear or choose to be Edgar… to continue to hurt people and hold that cloak over me… It’s a choice every day I have to make for myself.” Curt responded, though, that Edgar is using “madness” for good, which is dissimilar from that man’s experience.

Another man said, “I’m a product of my environment, and my environment when I was growing up was bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Real bad… What got me here was that madness—what I didn’t know.” He said that at a certain point, he knew he had to make a change. He also said that he didn’t think Lear was born in an illusion; that everything he knew coming to an end was simply shattering. He also disagreed with Curt’s interpretation of the scene as dealing in polarities. “Lear is just having  a really bad nervous breakdown,” he said. “And only a king would know how it feels.”

He wasn’t the only one who felt that way; another man said he thought that Lear’s madness comes from grief. The realization that no one loves him, and that no one can help him, which he understands because of his experience in solitary confinement. “He feels isolated from the love of others. I went through it, too,” he said. Another ensemble member agreed, saying, “Maybe he’s not going through madness, it’s just this intense pain—because this got thrown in his face… and it blew up.” Yet another man built on that, “The madness is that they’re trying to cling on to what they already know isn’t true.”

One of the guys said some of the answers are in Edgar’s first soliloquy. He read parts of it aloud. “He’s mentally preparing for madness… He lets go of who he has to be in order to survive… He’s got a lot of mental fortitude to be able to go there, and then go back to ‘This is who I am.’”

One of the men then suggested that we do some monologues. Since there wasn’t much time left, we decided to try something new and do them “rapid-fire”: leaving discussion for next time to allow as many people as possible to have a turn. The man who’d suggested this asked another ensemble member to do Edgar’s first soliloquy so he could “feed off his energy.” That ensemble member complied, and then the first man gave Macbeth’s “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…” a go. He already knew the piece; it seemed like he needed to do it. And it was beautiful.

The guys then demanded that Matt perform (to be fair, he’d been warned), and he chose Hamlet’s “O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt…” He went up on lines in a big way, and, as he tried to get back on track, the ensemble quietly encouraged him as he would have done for them. A few suggested that he start over, and he did. He got stuck again and, not wanting to take up all of our time, said, “I’m gonna tap out.” He got a lot of applause anyway! “I learned more with that than I have with a  lot of things because of how you stuck with that,” said one man.

Then another guy stood up, saying, “Disclaimer: I’ve never done this one before.” He took a breath and launched into “Friends, Romans, Countrymen…” By the time he got to the first “Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,” he was totally locked in. He had no context for this piece—he hadn’t read the play, and we hadn’t even really talked about it—and yet he totally “got” it. It was thrilling. Another man performed “To be, or not to be…” using a prop “dagger” he’d made by rolling up a newspaper. He’s been working hard on this piece, and it shows—he was so grounded and focused that he didn’t even react when an officer walked through the room.

And then we wrapped up, thanking Curt for joining us even as he thanked us for allowing him into the circle.

Season Two: Week 7

Tuesday / August 7
 

One of the guys pulled me aside right when we arrived today. He wanted to let me know that he’s been thinking a lot about what he can do to ensure SIP’s longevity at this facility. He said that the structure of the program makes it unique, and that its being long term means that the men who’ve got more time to do will be the ones to shape it; and that’s something he’s committed to doing. I couldn’t have been happier to hear it. He has a natural ability to interpret and articulate his interpretations of Shakespeare; but, more than that, his empathy and compassion for others, exemplified in the way he explains things and navigates discussions, will provide invaluable support of others’ goals even as he pursues his own.

After check-in and the ring, we decided to play a game for a bit. I introduced “Beat Poet”, which has several variations but essentially asks each actor to free-associate in the form of a poem or spoken word piece—which is encouraged to be bad!

It started off pretty silly. Facilitator Kyle volunteered to go first, and was given the title suggestion of “The Ant”. His poem was… interesting. When he finished, we asked him to share about the experience. “I want the words to speak for themselves,” he said, to a big laugh. The next bunch of poems worked to varying degrees; one person had to stop and start over because going with his instincts was so difficult, while other pieces were pretty cohesive, and one man embraced stream-of-consciousness so fully that the poem ended with a plea to another ensemble member to give him the answers for their accounting homework.

Some poems went in interesting directions. One called “Caterpillar Graveyard” became a meditation on stunted growth: caterpillars that should have been butterflies but were, instead, dead in a graveyard. Another, called “Blades of Grass in Trash Cans”, found the actor fully invested in making it performance art, which he attributed to past experience in dance groups. “I connect the verse to the actual moves,” he said, stating that he loves doing this kind of thing “just to have fun with it. To be free.” He added, “Movement inspires thought as well,” and invited all of us to explore that more for ourselves.

And then things got kind of serious. Poems with titles like “Soda Pop Murder”, “Spicy Meatballs”, “Purple Shoelaces”, “Mirror”, and “Blinded” were all thoughtful and personal, and a couple were legitimately good poems.

“It’s hard to do this ‘cause it’s pointless,” said one man. I said that that was interesting; that, yes, the poems themselves might be pointless, but I asked everyone what they thought the point of the game might be. The ideas came back: spontaneity, inspiration, exploration, problem-solving, creativity, and support of the ensemble. “It gives one person the confidence they need to stand up in front of one person. Twenty people. It gives them the courage to stand up in front of 1,000 people,” said one man. He turned to a man who joined the group last fall. “You were from a much higher security level, right? But you’re here… You know what I’m saying?”

Another man added that he thought the goals included relaxation and chemistry. “Not only does it build confidence in here, but it builds confidence out there [on the yard]... It doesn’t stop when you go out the door.” He talked specifically about being able to express feelings and assert oneself in a constructive way. Another said, “It gives us the confidence to express that safely.”

One man asked what everyone’s biggest fear is in terms of performing. One person immediately said that it’s the fear that people will think he’s not doing a good job. Another said, “Mine is dropping my lines as soon as I connect with someone” during a soliloquy. One man suggested that he look above people’s heads, and this man said, no, he wants to challenge himself to get over it. Another man said he’d read poetry for an audience before, but he’d never done theatre. He said he had a speech impediment as a child, and his biggest fear is always that people won’t understand him.

“Fear allows us to check our motivation,” said one person. “Why are we doing this? Self-esteem. It drives us to push ourselves forward and keep going 100%.” Another man said that you might not need self-esteem to do that; you might want to work on not caring about what other people think. “You gotta give people power to harm you,” he said.

Kyle and I shared that much fear comes from doing something private in a public space, which requires vulnerability. We want to find a way to express emotions that are true, but not real—and that takes practice. “We always have these conversations when Kyle is here,” said one man. “Kyle takes it deep.”

We read Act III scene iii of our play, with the readers on their feet. We spent all of last week on monologues, and the first comments after this reading were performance-based. I asked everyone to take it back to the text: let’s figure out what’s going on, read this whole play, and get into the weeds of performance later.

“Edmund’s a scurvy little fellow,” said one man. “He’s not playing any games, dude. He’s going straight for the jugular.” Another man asked us whom we thought had sent Gloucester’s letter, sharing that he thought it was Cordelia. One man suddenly sat up straight and said, “The letter thing—it’s a little like the handkerchief thing in Othello.” I asked him to say more about that. He explained the context to those who hadn’t read the play, saying it was “proof that she was messing around, when she really wasn’t.”

“There’s no bounds, no loyalty,” said another man. “His father is already making him legitimate, but it’s not enough… He just keeps reaching for more and more.” Another added, “Most people who win the lottery go broke within five years… Once you get a taste of power, it’s insatiable. It’s never enough.”

Looking ahead to Act III scene iv, we decided to leave it for our next meeting, rather than interrupting it, since it’s so long. Instead, a couple of guys volunteered to work on monologues.

The first man to read had been building up to this for awhile, including all of the work he did during the Tempest workshop. He is very intimidated by performing, but he’s committed to pushing himself to get better at it. He chose one of Brutus’ speeches from Julius Caesar and gave a solid, straightforward reading. He said afterward that he’d done the piece when he was 14, but this was “night and day” because now he has some experience with Shakespeare. One man asked if he “felt like [he] put a lot of emotion into that.” The man said no, but it’s not an emotional piece. Another man suggested that, even if that’s the case, he could go for a “more conflicted feeling.” The man who asked about emotion said that it was clear the reader had a good intellectual grasp of the material, but it had been reading rather than acting. “But you got up here and did it,” said a man who’s been in the group longer. “And you never would have done that before.” I asked the man who’d performed if he could have seen himself doing this when he joined. “No,” he said firmly. “So this is huge,” I said, and we all gave him a big round of applause.

The next man to perform worked with Edgar’s first soliloquy. He took a few moments to prepare, and then he dove in, taking his time, and really feeling it. He was shaking; it was intense. When he finished, nearly everyone said, “YEAH.” He said he had wanted more anger, but he was feeling calm today and couldn’t quite get there. “There’s a frustration in Edgar that I kind of relate to,” he said. “He’s being targeted, he’s being labeled, but he doesn’t know where it’s coming from. There’s an anger to him… He doesn’t know where to go with it. This bedlam is fake; he’s conflicted between the two.”

One man said he liked how this interpretation contrasted with the last one we saw. “He made it his own apart from [NAME’s]. [NAME] set a bar, and then he raised it up with his performance.” Another man said, “You hit it on the nail as far as I was thinking of it.” He said it brought us back to the theme of pride and a fall from nobility. “When we first started reading, I passed judgment on everyone. But reading it and seeing it starts to change my perspective… but you can’t just shake that off in two weeks.”

Another man said, “The time that you took to set that scene—the imagery… You salivated on every single word and tone—it really brought me into it… That was amazing.” Another said, “I was sweating. And it’s not ‘cause the fans are off.” Another man pointed out, “Even when you got soft and quiet, we could hear everything you were saying because we were so in tune with you.”

Kyle then did a piece from Julius Caesar that was new to him. He didn’t like how it went, but the others encouraged him. One in particular said he appreciated that Kyle kept going, even when he lost lines. “It shows everyone else here that you hiccuped, and it makes us feel like it’s not a big deal.”

Before we left, the group unanimously said that I would have to do a monologue on Friday. I said I would, but I didn’t want to be the only one, and I didn’t want to go first. They turned their attention to a fairly quiet man, who said he’d consider doing a piece from Julius Caesar that he likes, but he wanted to go before me because, “If I’m gonna bomb this, I’m gonna bomb this real good.”
 

Friday / August 10

After we settled in, before we began our reading, one of the men asked if he could give me some constructive criticism, which, of course, I welcomed. Last week, I’d admonished another person and myself for talking too much during group feedback, and this man wanted to tell me that that was wrong, at least in my case. “A lot of us take this stuff really seriously, and you’re usually the only professional here, so we want your feedback. Every time.” This was unanimous, so I thanked him for the criticism and said I would do what they were asking.

We read Act III scene iv, in which, during the storm, Lear, the Fool, and Kent discover Edgar in disguise as a madman; Gloucester then shows up and guides them to shelter. It’s an intense and complicated scene. One man said that Lear feels like the storm is justice—that he didn’t treat his subjects with compassion, and now he’s suffering like them. “He’s coming to see how the other side lives,” said another.

We got a little hung up on Lear’s actions: is he ripping up his clothes or tearing them off? And how do we portray that, given our limitations (the need to wear costumes over clothing, etc.). “How do we preserve the sanctity of the play?” asked one man, and I suggested that it’s really more about the way we decide to tell the story, rather than the text being sacrosanct. We tossed out a few ideas of how some of this could be accomplished, and then we moved on—these conversations are really better had once the whole play has been read.

A few people wondered if Edgar is playing a part, or if he’s actually crazy. We found our answer in the text: when no one is listening, Edgar snaps from prose back into verse. It’s just a really good act. He has to do this well because his life is at stake.

“Anybody notice how Edgar got super nervous when his father came into the room?” asked one man. “He was really trying to show that he was this person… I can sense a nervousness in the words, like, ‘Is my dad gonna recognize me?’” Another said, “It’s a form of mirroring, too… He’s trying to show him that, ‘Hey, hey—I’m here, too. You’re not alone in this.’” Another man pointed out that the language definitely changes from having a certain arrogance to being total nonsense.

One of the guys asked if this was ever done with multiple people playing Edgar (one person per disguise). I said I wasn’t sure, but if we decide to go that route, we need to make very certain that what we’re doing is clear to the audience. There are so many possibilities. I brought up Peter Brook’s “empty space” and said that the benefit of performing in the gym is that, without a physical stage, we have a ton of options. One person described how we’d defined the playing space for The Tempest. Another said, “Sometimes having no stage is the best thing.” He talked about starting with an idea and then going from there to get the best result. “It’s like drawing… If you do a rough outline and slowly fill in as you go, you’ll end up with a piece of artwork.”

We moved on to monologues, with the man who’d said he was “gonna bomb this real good” going first, reading Antony’s “O pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth” from Julius Caesar. He was extremely nervous and said, “If I pass out—just leave me there!” He also said that his knees were sweating. He got through it, though, and at the end, without even pausing to breathe, he said, “HOLY SHIT!” and literally spun around as we all applauded. “It felt weird,” he said. “I don’t like talking in front of people.” Especially this many people; it makes him want to blend in.

“It breaks a barrier though, right?” said a man who’s struggled with the same thing. Several people shared advice about how not to let the audience intimidate or distract him. “I’m proud of you,” said one man. “I am, too,” said another, and we all applauded again.

One of the men challenged him to “give it more emotion,” particularly at the end. He was still quite nervous, and I suggested that he pick one focus point and shut out everything else. He decided it should be the guy who’d challenged him. (This man is just incredible about supporting and encouraging the others, and we all deeply appreciate it.) He didn’t end up looking up at all, but his voice was more engaged and powerful, and he built the intensity beautifully—step by step, like going up a ladder. It rose to a fever pitch and went out on the same “HOLY SHIT” as the first one. We absolutely loved it and lavished him with praise. One person said that the effort had “paid off exponentially.”

That man was the next to perform, using a compilation of various expressions of grief from Shakespeare. It was clear that he connected with the material, which he delivered in a seemingly effortless way. There were moments, though, when he disconnected, and he seized on those immediately when he’d finished. He hadn’t done it the way he’d wanted to, and that bothered him because he feels the piece very deeply and has used it to help process his own feelings.

One of the men said that feeling disconnected is a feeling. He expanded on that, but unfortunately the acoustics were such that I couldn’t get more than the gist of what he said. The man who’d read, though, responded that losing the words shut off his emotions. Another man broke in to say that there had been a breakthrough anyway because he’d showed emotions, something no one had been expecting.

The guys asked me to do something, and, because we had only a few minutes left, I chose Richard III’s opening soliloquy in hopes that it would go all right with just a moment or two of prep—I hate feeling rushed and didn’t want to do one of the tougher pieces they’d requested. I felt okay about how it went, but not great; I’d felt intellectually connected, but not emotionally (probably because I knew we were down to the wire). The guys seemed to like it, though. One of them said that when he’d seen the piece done before, it had been by a man who’d been very theatrical about it. He liked the way I’d done it—which was more conversational—better. “The words fit with your face, if you know what I mean,” he said. “Like… you looked the way you were saying you felt. It felt truthful. I liked that.”

That said, they told me I would have to do one of the others on Tuesday, which, again, I said I would if I wasn’t the only one and if we had more than five minutes left. We shall see…

Season Two: Week 6

Tuesday / July 31
 

Today was the last day for an ensemble member who is about to parole, and we took our time with check-in to make sure he knew that he has our support. After we lowered the ring, we gave “wooshes” (uplifting energy) to a few ensemble members, and then Kyle led a game while I checked in with a couple of people.

We had talked about working on monologues today, and that’s exactly what we did. One of the guys volunteered to go first, saying that he was doing this “to goad [NAME] into doing one that he doesn’t want to do.” He performed his piece and then shared that he has a tough time with acting because he’s not good with emotion.

The guy who’d been “goaded” went next. He’d been working on Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be…” and the effort definitely showed. His performance was thoughtful without being hyper-emotional, which was a conscious choice on his part. He said that he thought his pauses had been too long, and we disagreed. The pauses had let us keep up and process the ideas with him. One of the men shared something he learned as a young athlete: that we should avoid slouching. “You’ll get a better breath if you sit up more,” he said. Another man said it had been great, but, “I want you to live in those sentences,” which we clarified as meaning that there could be more spontaneity.

He went through the piece a second time, standing rather than sitting. He flubbed a few lines, but he didn’t break character, and it was great. One of the men drew a parallel between Hamlet’s speech and sort of a stream of consciousness trying to work something out. The man who drew that parallel then volunteered to do Hamlet’s “Speak the speech…” which he learned years ago but hadn’t tried in a while. His delivery was beautiful—relaxed and natural—but he was rusty on the lines. We encouraged him to re-familiarize himself with the piece so he could have more fun with it when he works it again.

Then a man who has mostly been quiet volunteered to go. He had been working on the “St. Crispin's Day” speech from Henry V, which a relative on the outside sent him to encourage his interest in Shakespeare. He loves the play and particularly latched on to this speech. He went through it at a good pace, with a clear intellectual understanding of the words and a nice, loud voice. Several people expressed their excitement at seeing this man up on his feet, reading with such confidence. “I’m shocked,” said one man. “I appreciated that. It was a breath of fresh air.” One man said he’d loved the performance, but that it needed to be slowed down in order to have more impact. We decided to do an exercise in which the rest of us played the army, not wanting to go into battle, so that he would really have to convince us. Half of us were on our feet by the end of the speech, but it had taken that long for us to feel motivated. Why? Because, we all agreed, there hadn’t been enough urgency had until nearly the end. Jokingly, he said, “I was running out of lines!” and we encouraged him to keep with that feeling and intensify it. “You don’t have to be loud and boisterous to have urgency,” said one man. “When you were convinced, I was convinced.”

Another ensemble member volunteered to work on Edgar’s first soliloquy. He took a few moments to prep and then ran to a chair, getting on all fours and going through the speech in an extremely frantic and emotional way. We all applauded when he’d finished. “Can I reach the bar you set last time before you raise it again?” one man joked, referring to how much we’d loved this man’s last performance. Another mused, “I understood the panic, but I never really took into consideration—everything has been stripped from him. He must be unbelievably terrified and sad.” Another added, “What am I willing to do to survive?” Another man said (much more beautifully than this, but I didn’t get it verbatim) that he thought that Shakespeare wanted to do more than just tell good stories: he wanted to teach us what it is to be human.

Still honoring what this man had done, we shared that his sobbing had caused us to lose some of the words. I asked him if he thought he could keep what he’d discovered and allow the words to be clearer, and he said he thought he could just by slowing down. I asked if he wanted to try it again, and he smiled and said it had taken a lot out of him, but, yes, he wanted to do it again. I suggested that he do a little acting exercise in which he’d imagine a threshold over which he could step in and out of the playing space, enabling him to leave whatever emotions came up on the stage.

This second attempt was even more rattling than the first, and we definitely could understand more of the words. I wasn’t super close to where he was performing, but I’m pretty sure there were a few tears; at the very least, he was emotional enough that he had to take a moment to shake it off after crossing the threshold he’d imagined. “Can you tell us about that?” I asked. “I totally lost sense, to be honest with you, of where I was in the moment… The feeling of being abandoned and unloved…” reminded him, he said, of how he’d felt when he’d first been incarcerated. “When I first went to quarantine,  I cried and cried—I didn’t know if I was going to get out… It’s the most forsaken place you can ever be.” He said that it was “a horrible place to live in, even for a few moments.” I quickly went through ways in which we can access emotions on stage without reliving past trauma and emphasized how important it is for us to take care of ourselves and each other as we do so. We want to see clear and recognizable emotions that make sense in the characters’ context, and we’ll do that better if we’re not telling our own stories. He agreed. “When I was in quarantine, I felt sorry for myself. But I put myself there—it’s a different kind of turmoil. Not knowing why is a big deal.” One man thanked this ensemble member for “going there,” saying, “That definitely had a whole new perspective on what I got out of that scene with Edgar… It made more sense the way you did it… You brought out something I didn’t see, and I appreciate that.” I joined in, thanking him for knocking down that fence; it’s hard for anybody to go there until somebody goes there.

Another man volunteered to read Edmund’s first soliloquy, which we know he loves. It was a strong reading. “I read it in the cell all the time,” he said. “I read the scene and then come back to this monologue. I understand completely what he is—talking to his higher power about why he hasn’t protected him. I draw so heavy on what he’s saying. It’s a lifetime thing.” We all agreed that that had come through, but we hadn’t been able to totally connect. One man said he thought that a lot of that was because of how much this man swayed and paced without intention. Stillness would be helpful, I agreed, and I also challenged him a little. “You’re the one who’s always talking about tasting the words,” I said, a little playfully. “The words are like acid, right? I’m just saying… Maybe you might want to take your own notes. Maybe…” He grinned and said he would.

His second attempt was incredibly organic and powerful. We were riveted. When he finished, the room was silent. He looked at me and said, “Woo!” He walked to his chair, shaking it off, saying, “My hands are tingling!” I asked him what it had been like, and he said it had been much more of what he’d wanted. “I’m the one who says to live in the language, so thank you for calling me out on my bullshit,” he said. Another man said, “The words are— you believe them. They’re your words.” Another passionately agreed. “I felt it from the moment you started speaking… You had it nailed on the head.”

Someone suggested that we continue working on monologues on Friday, although a number of people joked that they didn’t know how they could top those last two performances. “Well, well, well,” I said. “It seems the gauntlet has been laid.” All agreed.

Gauntlet laid. Challenge accepted!
 

Friday / August 3
 

Today, I was told, was to be The Monologue Olympics. A number of people had something prepared. That said, one of the guys shared that he was getting bored with the monologues; that it seemed like a lot of repetition, and he wanted to do more improv. Many people were irritated by his irritation, but one man suggested that he compromise by improvising a monologue, rather than working from a script. Another man said that the first man probably was not alone in being bored, but that he should try doing a monologue himself. He said that he’d been bored during a lengthy check-in recently, but he realized that that wasn’t fair and challenged himself to stay. “I decided to be on his side. To hear him as a human being and to be empathetic with him.” He continued, “Try and do the thing you don’t want to do, and see if you become like everybody else.” Another man reminded the first man that we’re not just here to have fun—we’re here to learn. A fourth person said he hadn’t liked the monologue work till he’d done one, and now he really enjoys them. Another guy said that “repetition is part of life,” and that the variety was found in living the character. He cited Oscar Isaac’s Hamlet at the Public Theater: knowing what every word means “and what it means to the character, and what it means to you, now that you own it.”

At that point, one man said that, while we were on the topic of monologues and structure, he wanted to know what we thought about beginning with monologues on Tuesday so that a man who’s had to be absent a lot for classes could see a couple (something he said he was sad to be missing). We all agreed to do that, did a warm up, and sat back down to work some monologues.

The first man to work had chosen Edgar’s monologue in 5.3, in which he challenges his brother to a duel. It was a good reading, but he moved around a lot without much impetus. “Can I lay down a challenge?” said one man. “Let’s not dance.” The man went through the speech again, and it was much more powerful. “As soon as you rooted yourself, you became confrontational—you were really picking a fight,” said another man. It turned out that the man who’d read chose the piece because he “isn’t a confrontational person” and felt that this would give him a way of doing what he “should have done more of” when he was bullied as a child.

The next man had chosen Shylock’s “If you prick us, do we not bleed?” speech from The Merchant of Venice. He prefaced his performance by telling us that, while he hadn’t read the play, none of the other pieces in the monologue collection he’d looked at spoke to him. He said he knew that, in the play, Shylock is speaking to another actor, but he was choosing to work this as a soliloquy and interact with the audience. He took a moment to prepare, and then he began the piece.

My note simply reads, “Ooof.” It was an incredibly truthful and reflective interpretation of a very challenging piece, and we were wowed. “I really enjoyed that one because it’s an emotional rollercoaster: there’s pain, anger, bewilderment, sadness. There’s even humor,” he said. Someone asked why the piece spoke to him. “The one thing I associated with was my difference. My being so different… I’ve battled with this since I was a kid.” He shared what it had felt like, growing up “mixed.” “That, as well as my faults, has pushed me away from others… It’s like, ‘I’m proud to be a Jew, but I’m not.’”

Another man said that he understood that connection; that he’s also mixed, and, “That’s why I sought you out.” He has read the play, and he continued, “I think I had a block as far as how well you did that, because I was thinking about The Merchant of Venice. But I loved how you put yourself into it—you usually have a kind of armor up. But here you were, being vulnerable up there; the only place you can be vulnerable—up there.” Another said, “Where you drew that from really took me to where you were at… It really reached me and affected me.”

I asked if he wanted to do it again, and he said he did. I reinforced that we had all felt his connection to the text—and I challenged him to connect more with us. Rather than looking down between thoughts, I suggested, he could keep his eyes on us. “Don’t let us off the hook,” I said.

This time when he arrived at the line, “I am a Jew,” his voice broke, tears welling up and then trickling down as he continued. I looked around and saw that he wasn’t the only one feeling intensely emotional. When he finished, there was a brief silence as he wiped his eyes on his sleeve, and then several people said, “Yeah, buddy,” as we all applauded and thanked him. One man said, “I’ve got tears all over my face!”

“I love watching you act, all the time,” said one man. “You just achieve this depth. I wish I could go that deep.” The man who’d read, clearly floored, said, “That means a lot, because I’d say the same thing about you.” Another ensemble member praised him for keeping us so connected. “You looked at us, and, like she said, you didn’t let us off the hook.” Another man agreed, and said he had loved the pauses when the man who’d read was simply making eye contact with us.

One man excitedly and emotionally said he couldn’t believe how deeply he’d felt the piece. He said that when he was a kid, “I was put in the box of being a bully when, in actuality, I was being bullied.” And he said he’d done what Shylock does: he’d taken revenge. “Am I not human?” he said, quoting a text he hadn’t heard before today. “I always have trouble expressing this, but watching you—it moved me,” he said tearfully. “That’s what acting is supposed to do,” another quietly replied. “It’s supposed to move people.”

The man who’d read said, “When I practiced the memorization of it, I had to internalize it… When he says, ‘Because I’m a Jew,’ I actually broke down on the bed… because I remembered why I was bullied: because of not accepted. Just because I was me.”

The man who’d commented earlier about being hung up on his interpretation of the play asked, “Did you notice that that time you made more word mistakes? You got about 18 of the words wrong.” He continued, “But it was arguably a better performance… This is where I’m broken at, is emotional connection. But when you were up there and connecting with us, it didn’t matter, the words you were saying.” One man said this reminded him of what Vanessa shared last week about her experience of seeing King Lear in Russia—that she didn’t need to understand the words because the acting was so powerful and clear. “What drove us to see us in you, and share the same feelings.. the second time, that empathy transcended into compassion.  It transcended everything,” said someone else.

Another ensemble member then rose to share a poem he’d written. He’s shared his work with us before, and he’s extremely well-loved and respected, so everyone immediately quieted and gave him all of their focus. He reminded us that he has a difficult time allowing himself to be vulnerable, but that he trusts this group. And then he read a gorgeous, aching, angry, and incredibly sad poem about his experience of being locked up for an extremely long time, lacking the ability to fully articulate or express his emotions and not having a space in which to learn to do that, and his fear of being fully institutionalized—his fear of being unable to break out of that.

He wept as he read, and many others were crying, too, by the time he finished. “It’s really hard in this prison to find even one person who cares how you feel,” said one person. “And for you to come here and share something like that—that’s deep.”

“A lot of us grew up here,” said the man who’d read. “I’ve been down since I was a teenager, and I’ve got more memories in here than I do on the outside. And now my memories from being free are being replaced by prison memories. In my dreams, the places and situations, I see a C.O. here and an inmate there. And there’s a sadness there. There’s a loss.” He continued, “Feeling so much, and not understanding what the feelings are, so it all comes out as anger. That just frustrates me even more.” He said that that’s what makes prison so violent: people keep all of their feelings bottled up, and then they just explode, often for seemingly trivial reasons.

“I’ve been here since I was a teenager, too,” said another man. “And if there’s a silver lining to all of this, it’s that at least you can still feel. I can’t feel anything at all.”

“All that we are absorbing in here—it won’t go to waste,” said another ensemble member. “There is someone out there waiting to hear our stories. Your story, and your story, and your story, and your story, and your story.”

The last man to read had initially wanted to work on Lear’s first monologue during the storm, but he said he couldn’t get the anger out. Instead, he’d decided to read one of Napoleon's letters to Josephine, in which he rails against her supposed infidelity. He read the first five words or so, and then had to stop, overcome with emotion. He turned to the man who’d read his own poem and said, “I’m sorry; you got me all messed up.” He took a deep breath and began again. This man’s stated objective is to become more comfortable with being vulnerable, starting simply by pushing himself to read aloud in front of others. His reading was clear, and he showed glimmers of emotion, particularly on certain words and phrases that seemed to resonate with him.

When he finished, he began to sit back down, and multiple people said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!” and “You’re not sitting down yet!” One man smiled and said, “We’ve got questions!” They asked what had made him choose the piece, noting how he’d seemed to begin to connect and then backed off. He said the content rang true for him, and that he loved the language—it reminded him of Lord Byron, his favorite poet.

“Don’t you think these people back then—Shakespeare and all—would have been a lot less flowing if they had emojis?” asked one man, to a burst of laughter. We left on a high note, even with the emotional depth we’d experienced. One man said he understood that we need to return to the play, but that he hoped we could have more monologue days. “I’m learning so much,” he said.

Season Two: Week 5

Tuesday / July 24
 

It was a joy to welcome Vanessa Sawson to the circle today! Vanessa was a facilitator in the women’s ensemble several years ago, and she’ll be joining us when she can going forward.

When we walked in, most of the guys were circled up and playing tape ball—and we jumped right in. It was awesome to see Vanessa fold into the group like that, so easily. During check-in, as she enthusiastically described what it was like to see King Lear in Russia, one of the guys leaned over to me and said, “You know when you’re looking for new facilitators? That’s who we need: it’s her.” He shared that with the ensemble, too, and they agreed. The rest of check-in was similarly high energy. One of the guys chuckled and said, “I find it ironic that I come to a drama group to escape the drama.” Another replied, “No drama here—just Shakespeare!” 

We started reading Act II, scene iv, in which Lear arrives at Regan’s home, sees Kent in the stocks, and becomes more and more upset as Goneril and Regan defy and betray him. One of the men asked if we could work in a proscenium set up, rather than in a circle, and I reminded everyone that the reason we work that way for a while is so that people who are intimidated by a traditional set up will feel safer and volunteer more. This method also removes the pressure of creating aesthetically pleasing stage pictures: our focus is just to connect with one another. We decided to read the scene on our feet in the circle, stopping and starting to be sure we’d all be on the same page.

Regarding Lear’s reaction to seeing Kent in the stocks, one man said that he saw the exchange as a comedic tug of war. Another man emphatically said that that’s not what’s going on; that Lear is shocked and in disbelief. I suggested we take it back to the text to figure it out, and there are clear indications there that Lear is incredibly upset. “Lear takes talking to himself as a meditation, almost… He was saying it before, but now we’re seeing it,” one man said.

“The Fool hates Lear. He thinks he’s a joke,” said another. “Does that mean he hates him?” I asked. “Maybe not,” he replied, “But he thinks he’s a joke.” No one agreed with him about the Fool hating Lear—he’s just a truth teller, they said. “A true friend will tell you the truth,” said one person.

“We’re underestimating the power of pride,” said another man. “This dude was a king, and now he’s turned low… Of course he’s upset, because his pride is hurt so bad—and from his own people… There’s a lot of emotion going on. Of course he’s choked up.” Another agreed, “His ego got popped.”

One man asked what the story of Lear’s downfall was, in terms of actual history. I reminded everyone that Shakespeare took vast liberties when his plays were drawn from actual events, so, while it’s great to have that information, we often have to set it aside. Another man said that the historical context of when the play was written matters more. “It comes in like that for a reason,” he said. “He flipped it to show what bullshit that social structure was from the beginning.”

We picked up our books and kept going. There was a widespread vocal reaction to Lear’s lines, “Those wicked creatures yet do look well favoured/When others are more wicked; not being the worst/Stands in some rank of praise.” That one hit home.

“They’re picking him apart,” said one man. “He’s so upset, he loses his logic,” said another. Another man pointed out that Lear is now being treated the same way as Edmund has for his whole life. It’s like the storm in Act III, said one man. “Storms don’t just come out of nowhere. They build up. We see them coming.”

Another man agreed, taking it back to pride. “One time it’s about his boy in the stocks, but everything else is about him. It’s that pride… Pride is a bad dude. You got guys in here that’d rather be maxed out than let down their pride, and that’s crazy. But that’s pride.”

One man said he thought that Goneril and Regan began to resent their father after they got married (assuming he chose their husbands), and that they’re following his example. Another man added that the women are definitely in charge, saying, “I see Cornwall as wrapped around Regan’s finger.” Everyone agreed, and I asked, “What about Albany? He’s not even in this scene. Where is he, and what does that tell us?”

“He’s back at the house,” said one of the guys. “Goneril and Regan are very strong-willed women, and they have things in hand—to say the least. He’s housesitting.” We all agreed that the two of them don’t behave the way women normally would in that time. “They don’t give a damn about what the culture says is right or wrong,” said one person. “‘We’re going to get what we want’—no matter what is standing in their way.”

Another man said he liked that way of thinking about them because it helped him to empathize with their situation. “They’re not just monsters,” he said. Another guy agreed, saying that likening the sisters to Edmund, as someone had earlier in the session, was what helped him. “[They parallel Edmund because] Edmund was working from a place of hurt… These girls don’t have a mother. Where’s the mother at?… Cordelia was doted on, but not them… I find it easier when I parallel them to Edmund."

Another man said we could easily find evidence in the text, though, that this is nothing new for these women—they’re just taking it to the next level. “The skill with which they handle their father is not new,” he said. “They know exactly what to do [with Lear], so you can assume they weren’t forced into any marriage… They’re used to getting their way. They chose men who were subservient to them… Lear’s starting to realize that he’s a joke… because they don’t need him anymore. But he’s always been a joke.”

Vanessa brought up how high the stakes are in this scene, and I brought it back to a comment one of the men had made when Kent was put in the stocks: that the play was building in its desperation. “The next time we see Lear, he’ll be out in the storm,” I said. “And you’re right: that doesn’t come out of nowhere. There’s a steady build, and we need to keep that in mind as we figure out how we want to tell the story. We’ve gotta earn the storm.”

Someone brought up fear as being central to this scene. “If they didn’t have fear,” one man said, “They wouldn’t be trying to take away all this stuff from him.” Another man agreed but said he thought it was more about anger. “They see the opportunity to strip him completely as they have been their whole lives… They’re getting even.”

Another guy said it’s both. “This scene is all about fear. Anger is always caused by something else… They’re afraid of his men, so they’re trying to take his men… He sees them trying, and it makes him afraid, which leads to anger." Another man nodded, saying, “He’s king—we gotta strip him of everything… It’s not just his knights… I think that what they’re stripping away is his title as king.” A third man built on that: “The knights are the representation of what he is. It’s not the numbers. It’s the icon.”

Someone else didn’t quite agree. “You gave this to us, and we want you to know that we’re in control,” he said. “Never at any time do I believe it’s fear. It’s more of a power struggle.”

There was a question about why Lear’s knights would be sticking around at all. Most of us thought it’s a money thing, while others thought it has to do with loyalty, or simply having food and lodging. “No one knows,” said one man. “Maybe that’s what the fear is.” Is Lear used to being surrounded by “yes men?” Who is he left with at the end of this scene, as compared to the first one? Fifty knights left at a pop once Goneril made it known she wasn’t going to put up with them—or with Lear.

We decided to read the scene on its feet again, switching up the people who’d be reading. I volunteered to play Cornwall, which was new for me! We took our time and focused on connecting with the text and each other.

I’ve spent a lot of time with this play, but I hadn’t realized just how impotent Cornwall is in this scene till I literally walked in his shoes. I kept trying to break in—the text seemed to want me to—and just couldn’t manage to make myself part of the conversation until Gloucester came back at the end, and even then the women dominated the scene. It felt like a gender thing—it felt exactly the way I’ve felt many times in groups of men when I KNEW I could contribute something useful to a conversation or a project, and it was so interesting to be a woman-playing-a-man having that experience with two men-playing-women. It also made Cornwall’s increasing brutality ring true in a totally new way for me.

I shared that with the group when we’d finished reading—I love when I learn something new just from working with them, and I always let them know. One of the men asked how it felt, as Frannie, to be glad the women have a voice but to be playing a man in that situation. “It makes me feel that gender is irrelevant,” I said. And, I said, it reinforced the value not judging a character and staying open—that’s how you learn your way in.

“If you understand everything, you can forgive anything,” said one man. Empathy. It is always about empathy.
 

Friday / July 27
 

Today marked the return of Kyle Grant to the men’s ensemble! Kyle led our pilot last summer, and the members of the Original 12 who are still in the group were overjoyed to see him. One of them felt the need to apologize to the group for “fangirl-ing.”

One of the men began a lively discussion about social constructs, which proved to foreshadow the rest of the session. We moved to the gym, played a game, and sat down to read. At first, the energy in the room felt low. But, boy oh boy, did it ever pick up.

We arrived at the first of the scenes in which Lear is out in the storm. There was silence when we finished, till one man simply said, “It’s sad.” Another man said it reminded him of his first heartbreak: “I remember the first time a woman ever broke my heart. I remember how it felt. All those feelings… It was horrible… You know, and you’re like, ‘Why you hurt me so bad,’ like 30 times. You think the world is ending… I feel for him… I really feel for him.”

“He almost seems to pity the Fool and Kent a bit,” said one man. Another jokingly responded, “So you’re saying he pities the fool.” That got a good laugh. “This is the first time I think I’ve seen Lear actually show affection for the Fool… He was actually concerned for the Fool’s wellbeing. I thought it was pretty dope,” said one man. Another man took it a step further: “He’s realizing that things are different now. Lear is mortal man, not king—look at all these people suffering because of things he did.” Someone else likened the situation to one he experienced when some of his relatives had to take care of an elderly family member, and how awful it had seemed for that person as he lost control of his mind and body. “When you old, think about how hard that is on a person. You go crazy.”

“Storms serve two purposes: destruction and rebirth,” said another person. “In the midst of the storm, in the midst of all this, he found some hope.” Another agreed, saying that Lear might have seen this coming but been in denial. Another man said he wasn’t sure. “We gotta go back to what [NAME] was saying the other day about pride… I believe he wholeheartedly had faith in his rearing as a king that his daughters would dote on him, and now he’s left with a peasant and a fool… That’s a sad situation.” Kyle suggested that all Lear’s really losing is the illusion that things were otherwise than they are.

And then philosophy class began.

“You don’t know if people giving you what you want because of fear… Now he don’t have anything to give ‘em, he’s seeing the truth of everything now,” said one man.  “Reality isn’t based on our perceptions. Our perceptions are based on how we view reality," said a man who I’m going to call Philosopher A for the purposes of describing this discussion. “Yeah, but I’m talking about subjective truth,” said another, and they went back and forth for a minute or so.

One of the men said that when we put the scene on its feet, we shouldn’t “look at this with any kind of hindsight bias.” He said that before prison, many of them were “presented with a metaphorical storm,” and they should draw on that experience. Lear doesn’t know where this is going, and we need to keep that in mind. He likened it to Othello’s struggle. I said that there are definitely similarities, the big difference between Lear and Othello being that this play is incredibly theatrical and the other isn’t. I brought up, again, the insistent emotional build of this play, and the need for whoever plays Lear to give himself over to that theatricality and chaos—without reliving trauma—in order to tell the story truthfully. That person needs to trust that the ensemble to take care of him, and we all need to be ready to do it. Kyle added that even though there’s no magic in Lear (as in Macbeth and The Tempest), “it’s at that pitch.”

He then asked if Lear is better off with the illusion of love or the reality of unlove. One man said the reality is better, but his point got kind of muddled. Philosopher A said, “Which is better: everything or nothing? … You gotta choose the best illusion and go with it.” He brought up patricians and plebeians, giving a really good explanation of how patricians couldn’t understand how plebeians could be so happy, when they themselves were often dissatisfied. This guy is very well read, and he’s great at breaking down what he’s talking about without talking down to people.

Another man essentially told Philosopher A to hold his horses and took it back to the question Kyle had asked. “If you pertain it to Lear, that’s one thing. But if you bring it out… That could go on forever." Kyle clarified that he had asked the question specifically about Lear. I said that I thought the reality is worse than it has to be because Lear won’t let anyone help him.

Philosopher A said that the only way Lear could be better off is “if there’s some other benefit,” meaning redemption or another existential breakthrough. “Torment is a state of consciousness,” he said, stating again that it’s all about perception.

Another man agreed. “Better off in the reality you created for yourself… Now it’s crashing down around him… The illusion when he was on top of the world and everybody was happy…” Now everyone’s illusions are shattered—not just Lear’s. He likened this to The Matrix and did a condensed, one-man version of the “choose which pill” scene. “I was the happiest thing running around till you gave me that goddamn red pill. Now everything’s apeshit.”

One man brought up Buddha and the hardship he chose to live with. Someone else said, “But he had a choice. He chose that." And another said, “Lear had a choice. Jesus had a choice. Moses had a choice… and they all chose reality.” But Philosopher A said that Lear didn’t have a choice—“This was smashed on him.”

One man said we shouldn’t underestimate human nature under the power of a delusion, citing work he’d done with Alzheimer’s patients. He learned that it was much better to play along with their delusions because they’d get really upset if you told them they were wrong. “When it’s not a choice, the human reaction to that is to crush it.”

Another man said, “This is a thought here that everyone should be able to relate to, being in prison.” Another exclaimed, “That’s exactly what I was thinking!” As I feverishly scribbled notes, I heard a bunch of people say things like, “coping strategy!” and “wake up call!” The first man said he’s been down since he was very young. “At some point, you find out what you’re made of. If you can cope with reality or not. At one point, I thought I couldn’t. But now I know I can. I’m a lot better off now as a 40-something year old man, than that teenager I used to be. Instead of letting it crush me, I found I was pretty stubborn, pretty resilient, and I got back up. I didn’t let it keep crushing me…”

Philosopher A said he appreciated that, but he was clearly impatient with all this subjectivity and took it back to logic. Another man tried to articulate an argument, then gave an example instead: “Frannie can’t speak into my world saying, ‘He’s better off for having gone to prison’… Not knowing where I was at before, she couldn’t see my reality… We’re almost arguing a moot point.” Philosopher A exclaimed, “Right!” The man continued, “We are imposing our reality on his situation. And to me that’s not feasible… Clearly he was better off before [the betrayals, the storm, etc.]… Knowledge is a great responsibility and weight upon a person’s shoulders.”

I stepped in, because it was becoming circular, to say that we were having a philosophical conversation about a text that isn’t philosophy and wasn’t written by a philosopher. That it’s a good thing to have the objective viewpoint, but as artists we have to be able to “as if” this, because empathy is about feelings, not intellect. There is no one right or wrong answer. One man said that it’s like the perspective people who come in from the outside have on life in prison, and vice versa. We can have empathy for each other, but we don’t actually know the experience. Kyle talked about conversations with ensemble members, and how he always responds to “You know what I mean?” with “As much as I can, yes." I suggested that we use philosophy as a guidepost, but not the final word.

Kyle’s book was lying open, face down, on the bleachers between one of the guys and him. That ensemble member said that he could only see the front cover, and Kyle could only see the back cover, but it was still the same book, even though they saw it differently. BOOM.

Another man returned to the idea of whether reality is better than illusion, even if the process of enlightenment is painful. He said that he wanted to fight it when he was locked up, but “now would go through all that to be the person I am now.” He described how rough it was, how he just recently had huge epiphany, and joining SIP was among the results of that. If this were five years ago, he never would have been in this group. “When you start seeing humanity—start seeing the beauty in people—I don’t wanna go back to what I was before.”

Another person said he could relate to Lear because, “At least for me, there was always at least one person saying, ‘Dude, this is not a good idea.’ … [And he would respond] ‘Watch this.’ Knee deep in shit. Bitchin’ and moanin’ because I’m knee deep in shit.” Another ensemble member agreed. “Before my bubble got popped, I was content in my misery… I was content in my mess because I didn’t realize it was a mess… And when you realize it—that’s a world of hurt, man… I feel that Lear was happier before. Was he better off? We can argue forever about that. But he was definitely happier before.”

“My reality check made me a much better person and much happier,” said another man. He described the lifestyle he had, even as a young teenager, which led to a drug addiction that took a long time to kick. He told us how long he’s been sober and got a big round of applause.

But another man wasn’t sure that these were solid parallels to Lear’s experience. Everyone described an awakening that led them to better their lives, “but nowhere in this is he going back up. He’s on a downward slide.” One person said the benefit in all of this for Lear is finding the love for/from Cordelia.

I went on a little bit of a rant (I really, really love this play) about how EVERYONE in this play has the blinders ripped off (or gouged out!). Someone said the only person who isn’t under an illusion is the Fool; Kyle added that he’s the only one to see it and the only one who can’t do anything about it.

Then Kyle mentioned that we hadn’t even talked about the language, so we started doing just that! Simply speaking the words as I talked through the music in Lear’s first monologue made me so overwhelmed I had to stand up and shake it off. The intensity of that emotion kind of took me by surprise. We then discussed the technical need to have good breath support because all of this needs to be heard over a storm.

Ring up. Session over.  As people left, a lot of them told me through facial expressions, gestures, or statements that it had been an amazing experience. A few said their “creative juices were flowing.”

It. Was. So. Good.

Season Two: Week 4

Tuesday / July 17
 

During check-in, one man shared that he and some of the others have been talking about how some of the guys read aloud often, while others haven’t at all. “We’re a group, so we can all help in this,” he said. “We can find the balance.” He explained that we needed to find a way to encourage folks who haven’t been reading and ask the others to “slow down a little.”

There was general agreement. One man said, “I’m an introverted, isolated, don’t-like-being-around-people person… I’m trying to get way outside of my comfort zone and read a lot.” He said that he liked the challenge but still had trepidation about volunteering much. Another man said that he agreed that we should encourage more “reclusive” people, but we needed to find a way to do that without pushing too hard.

One man said he thought it would help if each person gave himself a “daily challenge”: a little something to work on each day that wasn’t totally comfortable. “The landscape and texture of everything would look completely different,” he said. Another man built on that, saying that that could be done even outside of regular meetings, and that there wasn’t any reason why they couldn’t read some lines together on the yard to build comfort. He said he’d been wanting to organize something for that weekend and asked anyone interested to let him know.

“As individuals, we need to evaluate why we joined Shakespeare in the first place,” said a man who liked the idea of the daily challenge. “We need to remind ourselves and see if we’re meeting those goals.” Another man didn’t understand why we were even having the conversation: “Why don’t they just do it?”

The man who’d suggested gathering to read on the yard explained, “If you put me on blast and I’m a reclusive person, I might shut down more.” Another agreed, saying, “It’s gotta be on their time.” The first man explained, from a first-person perspective, what it would feel like to be pushed too much. I added my two cents: that this is part of why working over such a long period is so beneficial. It gives people who hold back at first ample time to gain the confidence they need to dive in. Sometimes it takes weeks, and sometimes it takes months. But if people feel supported, rather than pressured, they make strides that are often mind-blowing.

“All of these things are like a puzzle,” said one man. “It all builds to an individual and what they get out of the group.” He spoke of the challenges—and benefits—of having such a diverse group of people together in one room, and he asked if we were familiar with the term “communication bias.” I didn’t get every word, but he explained it as having to do with different backgrounds and learned behaviors making communication difficult. He praised a few men, who’d checked in about things affecting them that might impact their interactions that day, for warning us rather than assuming that we would be able to pick up on their cues ourselves. He encouraged everyone to be transparent, but also to push themselves. “Unless you’re truly not up to it, when she says make a better circle, make a better circle… Do [the improv] because it’s opening you up and bringing your energy into the room. Don’t sit off to the side—it sets a bad precedent.” He used himself as an example, saying that the reading is his least favorite part of the process, but he knows it’s useful, so he participates. “Everybody should take a turn to read. Everybody should participate, however minimal. We should all come into these things that she’s asking us to do… This is how we get to know each other… You have to participate in these activities. That’s the only way we’re gonna build camaraderie.”

There was a request to play the question game, which is played sitting in a circle, asking questions of the person next to you and listening without answering. It’s always a lot of fun, and this time was no different. It’s great for working on quick thinking and bonding with the ensemble.

We settled in to read Act I scene ii, and, per our conversation, began by asking if anyone who hadn’t yet wanted to read. We then asked if anyone who hadn’t read much wanted to, and then we opened it up to the whole group. We got a good mix that way!

This is the scene in which Kent berates Oswald and is subsequently put in the stocks by Cornwall and Regan, over Gloucester’s objections. “Why is Edmund even there?” asked one person. “He’s there to be a shield if necessary,” said someone else. I put it out there that some of Shakespeare’s characters do a lot of good lurking, and that this would probably become clear to us. Another man focused on Gloucester’s words and actions in the scene. “Gloucester is starting to get a picture of what’s going on—what Regan and Cornwall is trying to put down on their father… He becomes more of a patriot because of it,” he said.

Another man shook his head, grinning from ear to ear, and said, “I just love this scene.” Another person asked him why. He paused before he replied, “How much of a jerk Kent is being to Oswald—for a good cause.” Another man nodded, saying, “All the little scenes are starting to boil over, and now you’re starting to see the action.”

Another man steered us back to Kent, who he said seemed to be taking out his anger on Oswald. “It’s something bigger than Oswald. It’s on Oswald, but it’s at the whole house.” Someone else pointed out that Kent taunts Regan and Cornwall in this scene, too. A man who is generally pretty quiet said, “It seems like there’s a strategy to it, though. He wants to draw all of Lear’s enemies out.”

One of the men said he envisioned Kent continuing to fight while being put in the stocks. He grinned and looked over at an ensemble member whom he’s known for quite some time. “Reminds me of someone I know a few years ago being carted off for running his mouth, still kicking and screaming as they dragged him off.” The other guy, sat up straight and, with an elegant air, said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”

I imagine that that exchange seems pretty dark on the one hand, and glib on the other, but I have to say that, in that moment, it was neither. It was a gentle, funny way of acknowledging the growth this person has experienced since the days when that anecdote would have been anything but a joke. He’s calm and patient now, an avid learner and an excellent mentor. Sometimes the best way to call that kind of thing to everyone’s attention, and to praise it, is with a joke.

After the laughter died down a bit, I returned to the comment that had been made about Kent drawing out Lear’s enemies. “I think you’re onto something,” I said to the man who’d said it. “There’s a strategy here, for sure… What’s Lear going to do when he sees Kent in the stocks?” Someone pointed out what an insult it would be for one of his people to be humiliated like that, and another man said that it might make Lear reclaim his power. But can he reclaim it? Someone else said that it was too late; that all this would serve to do would be to expose Lear’s enemies’ motives so he could see the truth.

We got the scene on its feet, the actors in the center of our circle. Though it doesn’t always happen this way, the actors ended up standing in a circle, too, which meant that, while we didn’t get a stage picture, they were able to connect with each other better than they might have otherwise. When the man reading Kent said, “I have seen better faces in my time than stands on any shoulder that I see before me at this instant,” a man sitting in the circle totally cracked up. The man reading Regan snuck behind Cornwall and popped out for her lines, which was both creepy and funny. His enthusiasm for the character is palpable, and he makes no bones about it, which is fabulous not only because he’s having such a good time, but because he’s clearing the way for others to get excited about the play’s female characters.

We only had a few minutes left after the scene’s end, so we quickly touched base about how it had gone. One of the new members commented on how much he appreciated the big homies reading on their feet. He said that their level of comfort made everyone else feel more relaxed. Seems like, at least for today, we found that balance we’d wanted to strike.
 

Friday / July 20
 

After today’s check in, there was a general feeling of antsiness in the ensemble, so we played a game of Energy Around to get ourselves more focused. As always, it was fun and refreshing. After we lowered our ring, a couple of the guys suggested we play Freeze, and, oh man, I’m so glad they did.

It honestly was so much fun that I didn’t take notes. People let their imaginations run wild, messed with each other in the best possible way, made adjustments when needed, and swooped in to rescue scenes that were getting bogged down. Finally, one of the men tagged into a scene, only to launch into the dance from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video. His scene partner made a valiant effort to join the dance, or to do anything other than laugh, but in the end he couldn’t, and neither could we. Laughing and applauding, we called the game and gathered up to reflect on how it had gone.

“What made it work well?” I asked. “Just being ourselves,” one man instantly responded. “When guys took it far left,” said another, meaning those moments when people said and did the most ridiculous things.   
                
We all agreed that our favorite moment had been when one man tagged into a two-men-in-a-car scene, pointed up and to the right and yelled, “Come on! Let’s go get the dragon!” The other man looked in that direction and, without missing a beat, totally deadpan, said, “I’m not going over there if there’s a dragon over there.” We loved it so much because he’d said yes as an actor even as his character said no. It sparked a lot of ideas. And it was hilarious.

Another man said that it had really slowed down whenever the scene took place in a car (and somehow a LOT of these scenes took place in cars). That said, no scene ever completely died. “The best part was the team work,” said one man. “People were brainstorming on how to come in and save it.” That was what made it entertaining, too. “Each and every person had a different tone and set a different environment for it,” said another man.

One of the men took it back to our performances of The Tempest: how, when he skipped some of his lines, his scene partner covered so well that no one in the audience knew anything was missing. I noted how beautifully the man who played Ferdinand rolled with the punches when I took over the role of Miranda in the home stretch, even when my interpretation was completely different from the man who’d played the role before me.

We somehow launched into a friendly debate about the merits of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet, about which, it seems, most people have strong feelings. One man shut down the arguments (mostly about the quality of the acting) by saying, rightly, that the thing that makes that film great is how accessible it makes the material: the modern day setting, including the weapons, makes it relevant. It did for him. Several others said it did for them, too.

“It’s kind of like how we took The Tempest and turned it into our own thing,” said one man, and then, of course we had to take a minute for our Caliban to do his signature dance. “Because you guys were having fun, the audience was having fun,” said one man.

So those were two “ins” to Shakespeare: a modern day Romeo and Juliet and a really fun Tempest. One man said his interest was sparked by the flashback scenes in The Highlander (the series, not the movie: let’s be very clear on that). For others, it was West Side Story or O.

We decided to spend the rest of our time working on Edgar’s first soliloquy. It’s a pretty complex piece with unfamiliar language and syntax, and it took some work to get into. The first person who read on his feet didn’t like what he had done; he hadn’t fully understood the words and couldn’t connect. We went back through it. As we discussed “poor Tom” and why this would be an effective disguise, one of the men likened it to the way many of us have dealt with homeless people. “It ain’t even that we don’t see them,” he said. “We don’t want to look at them.”

I asked the man who’d read to give himself a literal running start for his second try, only beginning when he was ready and a bit out of breath. His jogging was too casual for one man, who dutifully began to chase him through the gymnasium. When he came to rest by a chair, he read the piece, and it was much more connected. “I get it way better now,” he said. “He’s in the dope house, and the cops are right down the street.” We all agreed. The man who’d chased him said that his being out of breath helped us understand the piece more—that it “put another element on it.”

Another man, who has been pushing himself to read when he’s up to it, and who has been open about how far out of his wheelhouse this is, read next. It was definitely a reading, rather than a performance; he immediately acknowledged that and said that just reading it had felt good, and that his focus had been trying not to rush. “I’m just glad you got up there and did it,” said another guy, and we all agreed.

I want to draw a little attention to this exchange as an example of someone perfectly embracing our value of not holding every ensemble member to the same standard: acknowledging and honoring that each person has their own goals. The man who gave this encouragement, just for reading, is someone whose goals include honing his skill as an actor; he does a lot of reading, rehearsing, and improvising on his own time, in addition to the work he does with us. But he doesn’t hold anyone else to the standards he’s set for himself. He was genuinely happy and impressed that this other man simply stood and read the piece. He’s invested in his success, whatever that looks like.

The man read again, saying happily that he “felt more vulnerable—that’s something I’m working on.” He said he was concerned that he wasn’t saying the words correctly, and we all told him to let that go—”that’s just the way you say the words.”

Another man read, and, while it was clear that he understood the language and content, he paced back and forth so much that we lost the sense of the piece overall. We talked about how more movement doesn’t necessarily equal more interesting, and it would be better if he only moved when he felt he absolutely had to. One man pointed out the need for stillness in such a situation. “I’ve ran from the police—been chased through the woods. Once I find my safe place, I’m listening to everything— I’m listening to the trees, I’m listening to the creek over there…” There was more, but my pen wasn’t moving quickly enough to catch it all! He made a very strong case for being still and listening, though.

One man reminded us that Edgar was a nobleman who is now the lowest of the low. “That’s the psychological change he’s gotta go through to go from here [up high] to here [down low].” The man read a second time, and it was much more effective. “It came out from his heart instead of just his voice,” said one person.

We got into a brief discussion about how interesting it is that Edgar could be delivering this speech while Kent remains in the stocks elsewhere on the stage. What could that tell us? They’re both outcasts, of course. But one man pointed out that Kent disguises himself out of a desire to serve, while Edgar does so simply for survival. Another said that placing both outcasts on stage simultaneously would build our sense of desperation, and another asked if this is the play’s climax. Oh, no, those of us who’ve read the whole play said. This is only the second act of a very long, messy play.

One more man read the piece, seated the entire time. It was an emotional reading, and he said it had felt good: “I conveyed what I intended without feeling stiff or rehearsed.” Another man asked, “Can you visualize the difference between affecting drama and feeling drama?” And the guy who’d read responded thoughtfully that he could, and that he’d felt it more than he’d affected it. “I thought about a time when I was running for my life… That’s where I was in my mind—that’s where I went mentally.” He said that the cops had come very close to where he was hiding. “When somebody walks that close to you and doesn’t find you—that’s intense.”

So we ended the week with a bang! I can’t believe this is only week four of this season. Hang on to your hats, folks...