Saturday, February 22, 2020

A Play About Slavery Pushes Boundaries in a New York Prison

 
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_

No comments: