By Alice Speri
A group of families and New York state officials gathered on a
workday morning last month for a theatrical performance of a historical
drama about slavery and human freedom. But it was an unusual setting
for a play, especially for one pondering the question of liberation,
because the stage was deep inside a maximum-security prison, and the
actors were a group of incarcerated men, many of whom still face decades
behind bars.
At the end of the play, the two-dozen cast members lined up at the
front of the stage as one actor after the other removed their costumes: a
simple, white T-shirt with the word “slave” or the character’s slave
name written across the chest. Below the stage, in the first row, a
group of suited senior corrections officials looked on uncomfortably.
Then the audience, officials included, broke into a standing ovation.
The cast, someone announced, would be allowed offstage for a few
minutes to greet their families, and for a brief, chaotic moment, the
actors rushed into the auditorium to tearfully hug their mothers, wives,
and children as a group of guards stood close by watching. Then the men
grouped back on stage to be counted, searched, and escorted back to
their cells.
Click here for the full report.
Source: The Intercept_
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