What the theater can do
It’s hard to talk about the transformative power of being onstage without sounding ridiculous. Sing Sing and Ghostlight show us instead.
About halfway through Sing Sing (directed by Greg Kwedar), a group of actors is asked to perform a scene for a group of potential donors in the hopes of buying new stage curtains. They pump each other up backstage and emerge energized from the wings. Sitting in front of them is a small row of tight-lipped, wealthy, White women. The actors look at each warily for a split second before launching into a melee of theatrical combat from Spartacus.
Anyone involved in a struggling community enterprise will understand the stakes of this kind of performance: they need to convince these donors that the arts are meaningful enough to open their pocketbooks. In this case, though, the actors are all incarcerated at Sing Sing, a maximum-security prison in New York state. Their community theater is a rehabilitation program, and they are performing their humanity as much as their artistic capabilities.
After the performance, the actors wait to hear how it went, ruefully laughing at the shocked horror they imagine the women felt when they saw a group of incarcerated Black and Brown men launch themselves at each other in unconstrained theatrical violence. “I can’t believe you chose that scene,” the superintendent of the prison says, shaking his head as he reappears. “But they loved it,” he concedes, as the men erupt in cheers.
