Season Two: Week 11

Tuesday / September 4

Written by Matt

Act 4, scene 4, briefly re-introduces Cordelia, this time at the head of an army and invading her country of birth. The men all reacted to her power, and to her absence from the play between the first scene and now.

“Everybody got different ideas about her from the first scene,” recalled a new member, reminding us that our reactions ranged from admiration to frustration. “Me,” he grinned, “I think she was a Rockstar.” Another man added that he believed Cordelia had been planning the invasion all along. Her decision to marry the king of France, he said, could be entirely explained by Cordelia’s desire to eventually invade and take revenge. There was some discussion of this point, before one member cut in with a question: “What was the king of France’s motivation to marry her?” Which caused four or five men to flip back to the first scene to remind us all of the circumstances. Ultimately, we were divided on the question of Cordelia’s motivations and perplexed by France’s.

These details could all be worked out in performance, several people noted, but one man felt like he was on to something. It was Cordelia’s genuineness that drew France to her, and also that allowed her to leave the stage for so long. “Everybody else was just putting up a front,” he said. “Cordelia was just who she was, so there was no reason to spend more time with her, to figure out who she really was.” She only really needed to return when the others had revealed their true characters.

One of the men was really struck by Cordelia’s care for her father, which pervades the language. “This really shows her compassion for her father, far more than any of her sisters could ever say.”

We moved on to Act 4, scene 5, in which Regan conspires to kill Gloucester and begins to realize (perhaps) Edmund’s betrayal of her. Several of the men were struck by her desire that Gloucester be dead and the description of people’s hearts turning against her and her sister after seeing the eyeless man wandering around.

“You have to be careful with that brutality,” explained one longtime member. “It’s like ISIS. They really split the Islamic community.” He went on to explain how the public brutality of ISIS had inspired some hardline support, but it mostly drove a wedge into the community. “Same thing with taking the eyes of Gloucester,” he said. “These people have seen killing. They have seen execution. But the eyes?” he shuddered. “They made a martyr out of him, and that turned the minds of the people against them.”

“It’s also because of what he stood for,” another chimed in, reminding us that Gloucester was well respected. “How he’s influencing people is what’s scaring her.” The man who had mentioned ISIS replied, “Yeah, but a lot of people are scared to kill someone political like that because then they become a martyr.”

Another man, who had been silent so far, took a big-picture approach. “When the people see that the ones leading them are ignoring them to the extent that they’re torturing people or arguing over who ‘gets’ Edmund, the people get mad!”

“Yeah,” yet another agreed, “sometimes, someone does something so vile that it rallies all these other people against them, and [Regan] would have been better throwing him in the moat or whatever.”

After an hour and a half of sustained seriousness, we were ready to get up and play some games! We played a couple of standard improv games, but in the middle of the session, a group of the men proposed a new improvised scene they had invented in recent days.

What they unfurled was chaotic and confusing but really brilliant. They set a scene (a motorcycle club) and assigned each person in the scene a character type or archetype. Then the “lead” in the group began improvising a monologue that laid out a conflict, calling on the others to jump in.

“You know [the outcasts from the club] broke the code,” he said.

“Yeah.” the men murmured.

“Yeah!” one shouted. “All four parts of the code!”

“All four!” the leader affirmed.

The one who had invented the four parts looped the others in. He pointed at one of the men. “We all know the code. Brother, what is the first part of the code?”

“Uhhh……” the unsuspecting man stalled, before going on to help invent the code.

The scene fell apart after four or five minutes, which partly obscured all of the things that were right with it. It was not only an ingenious and novel way to being fresh improv to the group—the man who invented it said that he really wanted to do some improv that wasn’t about getting laughs—but it also showed the sense of ownership and agency that these men have built up. They want to make Shakespeare in Prison their own, to leave their mark on it, and they empower each other to do that with abandon. The other ensemble members were open with their critiques, but generous with their praise, and not one person discouraged the activity or judged the men who had performed, and everyone said that they wanted to see more of that sort of work.

We went on to do other improv exercises, but that new “game” stood out as a great example of what the members of our ensemble can do to push themselves and each other. It happened in the space we have all created, but without any guidance or encouragement from facilitators.

Friday / September 7
Written by Frannie

We spent today on Act IV scene vi, a long scene in which Edgar convinces Gloucester that he’s at a cliff, Gloucester “kills himself”, Lear enters (mad?) and runs off, and, eventually Edgar kills Oswald. But we didn’t get to that last part of the scene — there was too much to talk about first.

We read bit by bit, pausing for the first time just as Gloucester kneels. Why is Edgar doing this? Maybe it’s to convince Gloucester not to kill himself, one man mused. “To get him to second guess himself.” A second man agreed, “It seems like he’s giving him another chance to say, ‘Eh, this might not be the best idea.”

But maybe not. Another man drew our attention to the language. “He’s talking heartfelt,” he said, and another man added, “It’s almost got a soothing cadence to it… ‘It’s okay, you can go. If that’s what you gotta do, you can go.’”

Another man thought that this was all to keep Gloucester from guessing Edgar’s identity. Another thought that guilt played into it somehow — that watching someone jump off a cliff would have to make one feel guilty. “But he didn’t lead him to a cliff,” one person responded. “I think there’s extreme sorrow for his father’s condition, but no guilt.” Another man added, “I think [Edgar] is living right in the moment, and that’s why his voice is slipping.”

We read on through Gloucester’s “fall” and Edgar’s interaction with him after. And we paused. “What kind of fall is this?” I asked everyone. “Remembering that this is a play… What does this look like? How do you see this being staged?”

One man thought there would be a physical cliff, and that it would be about five feet tall. Others said they, too, thought there would be something to fall from, but they didn’t agree on its height; one man said it should be very low, like when you miss the last step coming down the stairs. But does Gloucester actually, physically fall? One man said no — that it’s more a sense of disorientation; of not knowing what a fall like that would feel like if it truly happened.

Another man said, again, that he thought there should be something several feet high for Gloucester to fall from. But one man — who has emerged as a natural and respected leader in these discussions — said, “You’re not taking into account the actors — or even Gloucester. He’s just been traumatized… It’s like a placebo… You gotta understand his mental/emotional state… Think of all the stuff that built up to that fall.” I agreed, kneeling to see how it would feel to collapse just from there. I looked back through the text, pointing out that all of Gloucester’s language is about falling, shaking things off. “If you think about somebody jumping or leaping,” said one man, “there’s an energy behind it. But he’s kneeling and falling.” Another said, “You also have to look at the mixture of trauma… He could even pass out momentarily.”

Matt pointed out, too, that Gloucester had asked to be taken to this specific cliff, and that he probably already knew what it looked like. “Has anyone ever been to a funeral before?” asked one man. “He made this finality with himself… Maybe he’s a little disappointed that he’s still alive.” Another said, “How about this one: how many people have come to prison who have lived a traumatic experience and years later still haven’t accepted it?”

One of the guys added that the power of the mind can make the body do things it usually can’t; i.e., a mother lifting a car off her child or a paraplegic suddenly walking in order to save someone from danger. “When you’re committed, you’re committed, and he’s committed,” said one man. “All that pain is just stewing with him right there.” Coffey added that, in a way, Edgar makes himself the edge of the cliff by both suggesting its presence and taking it away.

Just before we began the section when Lear enters, I asked the group to keep in mind that — no matter each person’s interpretation of the character’s madness, senility, dementia, or whatever — the guy also hasn’t slept in quite awhile, and, because it’s in the text, that has to be a part of our interpretation of this scene. Sleep deprivation is also a great “way in” to Lear’s state of mind for pretty much everyone, even if they haven’t experienced it to this extent. The proverbial light bulb turned on for a few people — I could see it without them even speaking.

“It’s worth remembering that Lear is suffering from several levels of madness here,” said one man. “Him putting the crown on is crowning his madness, adding a layer.” Another said, “He’s clearly not as mad as you would think he’d be — he’s dropping a lot of little dimes here.”

Another man, whose love for this play is seriously explosive, said, “Lear is trying to navigate that cloud of madness… In Lear’s madness, he can see the truth of things, and in Gloucester’s blindness, he can feel the truth of things… [Lear’s] feelings cue that storm that he was going through. But [Gloucester’s] feelings are bringing him to reality.”

Another man said, “It’s the thinking that drives you crazy,” and then he and the guy to whom he was responding got into a bit of a debate about the primacy of thinking/feeling. Is it the thinking about a situation that controls your perceptions, or your feelings? After a few minutes of this, a third man said, “How about, instead of focusing on the emotion, we focus on the trigger?” What is the immediate cause of the reaction?

“Back to Shakespeare’s poking at aristocracy,” said the man who’d been practically jumping out of his seat. “When you strip away the prettiness… It’s all about showing the humanity. They’ve all got pretty things to hide their ugliness. Gloucester is road-weary, bleeding from his eye sockets — and, without his eyes, this is probably the purest form of himself he’s ever been in his life. Lear, mad and ranting — this is the purest he’s ever been.” Another man added, “People, instead of living life, think that living according to an image, role, or title is life… you take it away, and they don’t know who they are.”

One of the guys called our attention to Lear’s “every inch a king” line, relating it to something he learned about “toxic masculinity” in a class: that men generally identify by their jobs, whereas women identify by their relationships. “We get caught up in what we do, not necessarily in who we are,” he said. Another man shook his head and said, “Poor Lear. He needs a hug.” The first man continued, “He’s holding onto his title to the bitter, bitter end… It’s like — you catch air, and you’re up there for a second, but then you’re right back down under there. It’s like a broken fucking merry-go-round.”

Another man nodded. “You see guys here walking around, trying to hold onto something that they were once and they just ain’t anymore… It’s men. We get wrapped up in these titles, and we get bent out of shape when they get stripped from us.” Another added, “And that’s without the power.” The first man chuckled and said, “Lear had a horrible 401k program…”

Another ensemble member redirected us back to Lear and his clinging to his title, even when his crown is made only of flowers. “He was the most powerful person in Britain… Think how hard it would be to switch that off.” But what can anyone do? “The worst thing you can tell someone with dementia is, ‘No.’” said another man. And being king is core to Lear’s identity. And his rage at having that taken from him in any way leads to a misogynistic rant.

This discussion got so intense and fascinating and exhilarating that I stopped taking notes — and I never do that. Being in a room full of such brilliance drives home what many of us (inside and out) know to be true: that dismissing incarcerated people out of hand because they are currently invisible, or returned citizens because they made bad decisions in the past, is, simply put, bananas. There are folks behind those walls who have so much to give, and who want so much to offer it. We’re fools if we don’t take them up on that — if we don’t at least give them a chance.

/endrant

Season Two: Week 10

Tuesday / August 28
 

Since today marked the beginning of our tenth week, we spent our time on a sort of program check-in. This began with setting some goals in terms of our timeline: we’ll finish reading the play by the end of Week 13, and we’ll spend no more than three weeks exploring it on our feet before casting. We will spend less time on these things if we start to feel like we’re spinning our wheels, but we want to be sure that a) we don’t feel rushed in group discussions and b) everyone has a chance to read the characters they’re interested in playing.

The conversation then turned to “airing” concerns that folks have had about some group dynamics. This is something that many of our ensemble members hadn’t done before, so we took a few minutes to talk through strategies to help things go smoothly: think about what you’re communicating physically (i.e., don’t cross your arms), and keep in mind that we all have the same objectives: to keep our ensemble strong and the program working well. Be honest, open, and compassionate. Speak and listen respectfully — don’t get defensive. Let people know if they’re coming off in a way you know they don’t intend.

The first thing that was discussed was that a few ensemble members sometimes seem to be bossing us around or otherwise dictating what that we’re doing. These ensemble members, addressed by name, explained that they don’t mean to come off that way, apologized, and explained that everything they do is in service of the ensemble. Now that we know what their concerns are, we can “police” ourselves more. They promised to be more transparent going forward.

There was also talk about staying respectful of others at all times. One thing that people have noticed is that sometimes when one person is sharing for awhile or a discussion is lasting a long time, others exhale loudly or talk under their breath. It makes people feel like they can’t share, and we can’t have that.

There was also some concern about the number (and length) of one-on-one conversations with facilitators. This is a tough one to navigate because those conversations are so vital to our process — people need to know they can come to facilitators with individual concerns and goals in order to make sure everyone has the support they need. What we really needed was to talk openly about this — what people perceive vs. what’s actually happening — and for all of us to keep these things in mind so we can limit the length and frequency of some of those conversations. We’re going to try to leave some dedicated time at the end of each session for individual/small group work and chats with facilitators, and we’ll see if that helps.

The conversation then turned to something very important, and that’s safeguarding against creating any perception of “over-familiarity” with female facilitators. There has not been a single interaction that was inappropriate, but I think it’s right for us, as an ensemble, to be vigilant about anything that could give others the impression that there is.

It’s about boundaries, one person said: those that the facility sets, your own, and those of others. “We should be working on this as men, not just as prisoners,” he said, noting that a lack of such regard contributed to some of their incarceration. “Being a prisoner doesn’t mean you’re less than a person,” said one man, further saying that even though staff have authority over them, it doesn’t take the onus off of them to, again, “police” themselves.

Another man said he was glad we were talking about this, and that we should continue to openly communicate, but that we need to make sure we’re not blowing things out of proportion. He had a point, but others who’ve been down longer impressed upon him that misperceptions really can lead to programs being shut down, so, even if we know there’s nothing inappropriate going on, we need to always keep outside perspectives in mind.

I asked the guys to let me know if there’s ever anything I do that could contribute to others’ getting the wrong idea. I told them that I really appreciated being a part of this conversation because it gave me vital perspective, and I asked if we could make this part of our orientation every time we add new people — with female facilitators in the room. All agreed; it will also keep male ensemble members accountable in terms of their own actions.

“I really appreciate how productive this was, even though it took our whole time,” one man said as we gathered to raise the ring. The feeling in the room was definitely one of relief, and I think we accomplished a lot. It was exactly the kind of conversation we wanted: respectful, clear, and compassionate. All of this will really enhance our work going forward.
 

Friday / August 31
 

We got back to the play today, beginning with Act IV, scene ii: Albany’s confrontation with Goneril and learning about what happened to Gloucester.

Our initial reaction was that Albany has had it with Goneril — that he was pretty passive before, but now he’s back with a vengeance. And as for Goneril and Edmund, “it’s like sharks with blood in the water,” said one man. “Now that they’ve got a taste, they’re not just plotting — they’re doing.” And now there is jealousy at play between Goneril and Regan over their relationships with Edmund.

And now Cordelia is back, and she’s got an army behind her. A few of the guys said that Cordelia had seemed “soft and gentle” before, but now she’s tough. Others disagreed, and I suggested that we look for clues in the language. The words themselves can often tell you that. We found that Cordelia’s language in the first scene is very “flowy”, while (jumping ahead just a bit), it’s more biting when she returns. I said that this is why you’ve gotta read these plays out loud — much of this fails to come through unless you’re speaking it.

One of the guys said he was confused because he thought that Cordelia was being defiant in the beginning, and he wasn’t sure how to square that with the language being what it is. “Cordelia’s not defiant,” said one man, “She just doesn’t have the gift of speech. She even says it.” Another disagreed slightly. “She was being defiant, period, by saying, ‘Nothing.’” Still another  gave his take: “She’s not defiant. She’s just not an ass-kisser.” He continued, “Are you soft if you’re standing up to your father?”

“I wonder if that’s what [Lear] liked about her in the first place,” mused one man. “But in this particular moment, it’s like a values situation… I think he expected some sort of gratitude for it… He did say she’s his favorite, and I’m pretty sure she’s not changing who she is in this moment.” Another man agreed. “Each personality expresses themselves in their own way, and it’s not always easy for one personality to understand what the other’s saying.”

Another man said this could apply to Goneril in IV.ii. Albany’s line, “Thou changed and self-covered thing, for shame / Be-monster not thy feature,” indicates either that she’s changed or that he didn’t truly see who she was before. Most thought it was the latter, and this man began listing all the people in the play who had similar illusions about others. “Is there a single relationship in this play where both people see each other truly?” I asked. The answer came back: no.

“It’s the duality of man,” said one person, “all the way through this whole play.” Another said, “If you don’t ever look at yourself for who you are… Even in prison, you see people on autopilot here, and they’re not looking at themselves.” You get stuck, he said. And when you don’t see things truly, it’s easy to be betrayed, said another. “Lear’s heart got ripped out; Gloucester’s eyes got plucked out. Because of betrayal.”

I ventured that the opposite happens for Albany: the other side of “out with the old, in with the new” is that he’s liberated to rule in an entirely different way by the end of the play. Connecting this with the first part of our discussion (including being fascinated by the word “milquetoast”), one of the guys, said, “I don’t think Albany was a milquetoast. He was one of those guys that just goes with the flow until something showed him he had to stand up. You can be passive and not be a milquetoast.” He likened this to Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks. At a certain point, they had just had it, and it spurred them to action.

We moved on to Act IV, scene iii, in which a messenger describes Cordelia’s emotional reaction to the description of Lear’s current state. I have never been a huge fan of this scene, and I’m not alone. It’s not in the Folio, and it can really disrupt the play’s momentum. I also just have never thought it was necessary, and that I’d rather see and hear Cordelia for herself than hear her described by someone else in a way that elevates her to near-saintly status. But something I truly love about SIP is how others, coming from a completely different place, often alter my perspective  on things like this. And that’s what happened.

We finished reading, and one of the guys leaned back in his chair and said, “That is sooooooo good!” I asked him why. He said it was the language itself. “The way he’s describing what she’s feeling: sunshine and rain… smiles and tears… pearls from diamonds… I got these images that were coming through.” He grinned at one of the others and said, “It’s Duality Day!” This guy is a poet himself, and he just couldn’t stop. “A diamond is beautiful because of its clarity,” he said. “A pearl is not clear and is beautiful. They’re opposites, but they’re still both beautiful.”

“There’s a parallel, too,” said another man. “Both require massive amounts of pressure to be created.” Another man broke in to clarify the process of creating a pearl, and, to avoid a long tangent, we agreed to agree that both are created by outside forces. “Think about the pressure she’s been going through,” the man continued. “Reading this letter, it’s literally leaking out through her tears… ‘All this pressure, I can’t contain it anymore.’”

The first man continued to freak out, pointing out that the language itself — “Just look at the punctuation” — creates the effect, as well as the ideas. He couldn’t believe that it would ever be cut, and I explained that it’s really a theatrical issue and has nothing to do with what he was finding. I said that there are ways of conveying what we learn from the scene without staging the scene itself, but that I now had a much deeper understanding of and appreciation for it because of his enthusiasm. There is just no end to this play’s depth.

“The thing I like about Shakespeare and Lear is — how does can something so old carry over to our age now? The reason why it carries from then to now is because human nature has never changed,” said one man. “Being human never changes. King Lear shows us that, no matter our clothes or dress, labels or titles we put on ourselves or others — including being in prison — it doesn’t alter or change the nature of being. Shakespeare writes of being human, taking note of the politics in his era… yet it all applies in still being human because we are human. So these words will continue, even from now, no matter its subterfuge or masking.”

“I think humanity has gotten worse,” said one man dolefully. He said that there’s so much violence around us, and in the news, but no one cares. “We’ve become so detached from what can be called ‘humanity’ that we’re all like Goneril and Regan.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s worse because of how women and children are treated now,” said another man. “Back then, they had no laws about domestic violence, no child labor laws. A lot of that has changed, and it’s gotten better. It’s just more people in the world, and the things he was talking about then are still relevant now.” He continued, “Shakespeare gets to the deep root of humanity — the core of what it means to be human — and we get so caught up in the other stuff that we forget how to be human.”

“I like to think of things as circular,” said another person. “Right now things are bad out there, but there have been countless times when things have been bad.” He cited slavery, brutality against Native Americans, and other atrocities. “You can see a lot of people fall in Shakespeare — you can see the state of mind and environment altering completely any landscape in which [certain things] erode morality… What I like in Shakespeare is what people can be, and what makes them dissolve… But I really think things are circular. At some point it will come back, and we will return.”

Another man built on all of this, referencing TV, the internet, and social media in particular. “We’re desensitized by our own nature… We’re able to get so much input that, in Shakespeare’s day, they wouldn’t have had… We’ve become desensitized to all those things that should appall us most about our own nature.” He said that the environment we’re in forces us to adapt, and that can be a really bad thing. “Because I know that about myself, the one thing I fear most about myself is me. Because I know what I’m capable of in a given situation.”

Season Two: Week 9

Tuesday / August 21 / 2018
 

There was some tension in the group today. “Let’s circle up!” I called out to the room. “I’ve got a really stupid game for us to play! You’ll love it.”

There are many names and variations of this game, but the one I fall back on is “Animal Sounds.” It is among the best ensemble-building games I’ve played, and it hasn’t failed me yet. We circle up with one person in the middle. That person closes their eyes, extends their arm straight ahead with a pointed finger, and turns to their right. Those in the circle walk to their right. Eventually the person in the center stops, the circle stops, and whomever is being pointed at has to make whatever sound the person in the center demands. It could be as simple as, “Make for me the sound of an angry elephant.” Or it could be ridiculous: “Make for me the sound of a zebra who’s running late for work but hasn’t had his coffee yet and is stuck in a traffic jam.” The person in the center, eyes still closed, has to guess who’s making the sound. If they guess right, the two switch places. If not, the person in the center takes another spin.

The game completely dispelled the negative energy—I even managed to loop in the guys who’d been standing aside, venting to each other, and within 15 minutes we were ready to move on.

We arrived at Act III, scene vii, in which Cornwall gouges out Gloucester’s eyes and is mortally wounded by a servant who is, in turn, killed by Regan. This is probably my favorite scene in the play—I just love the writing of it and the way it suddenly, brutally pushes the play into an even more chaotic and disoriented—but somehow more lyrical—place. The guys all knew this was coming—I have made no bones about how much I love this scene—and when no one volunteered to read Cornwall, I was all over it.

But we’d gotten really silly with Animal Sounds, and I was admittedly giddy about reading this character in this scene. Having decided as an ensemble to read on our feet, we all got pretty loopy with it. At one point I said, “What is this, King Lear featuring the Three Stooges?” As we sat down to discuss, I apologized for my part in the zaniness and said it might not be a bad idea to read it again once we’d talked a bit.

One of the men said it seemed like the eye-gouging was Cornwall’s way of letting out his anger. “It’s like an angry mob. Once you get a mob mentality, it’s really hard to stop.” Another guy thought it was more intentional. “They were getting rid of an obstacle to all their little plans… ‘We gotta get rid of this guy and keep him from becoming a threat.’”

Another ensemble member said he thought the fast pacing of the writing was appropriate for the level of violence in the scene, and he especially liked the way in which Cornwall’s servant jumped in. The servants are “a voice of patience,” mused one man. But Cornwall and Regan… “Suddenly they are who they really are,” said another man. “They’re actually getting their hands dirty this time. Their true nature comes out. It’s one thing to do what people say—it’s another to actually do the action.”

The man who’d just read Regan asked if we could pause there and run the scene again, this time taking it seriously. We did, and though there were moments that were still a little goofy, we definitely got more of the scene’s impact.

“There is a lot of symbolism in this scene,” said one man, citing Gloucester’s eyes (perception) and beard (honor, loyalty, and respect). Yes—and those themes carry us through the whole play; Gloucester’s been talking about his vision practically since his first entrance.

“Are we seeing a power taking off?” asked one man, who said that he hadn’t read ahead and didn’t know where things would end. “Does it lead to something bigger?” Another man nodded, saying, “It’s out with the old and in with the new.” He re-emphasized, “They’re getting their hands dirty; they’re not just plotting.” The first man then asked what we thought about Regan’s motivation in killing the servant, and a number of ensemble members said that they thought a lot of it was due to class: how dare a peasant threaten a noble? The second man said this was also a symptom of “out with the old, in with the new”: the servants are turning on the masters.

“They’re eliminating the people who can’t help them any further as they’re trying to eliminate Lear,” said one man. “Oh, interesting. You think they’re trying to eliminate Lear?” I asked. Another man nodded, saying, “Their endgame is to kill Lear… They’re trying to find a way to justify it.” Lear was just as rash as these two, a couple of men said.

But one man disagreed. “Did you see Lear plucking anybody’s eyes out?” he said. “He ruled… This is a new way of doing things.” He pointed out that Lear wasn’t totally rash even in banishing Cordelia and Kent—he gave them both time to get away. And the threats may have been impotent in any case. Lear has been stripped of everything, whereas Cornwall and Regan have back up, said another man. “Their fear is palpable, but they don’t know what to do with it.” The first man replied, “They don’t know how to rule,” and the second man said, “Exactly.”

One of the guys asked if these characters reminded anyone of characters we might have seen on TV. None of us could come up with any. One guy said he thought it was kind of a pointless question, but I said that I didn’t think it was: that pop culture can provide archetypes as much as anything else, and if that kind of parallel would provide an “in,” we should explore it. Another man said the closest parallel he could think of would be to Cinderella’s step-sisters, and another said he wouldn’t go too far with that—that those sisters are one-dimensional, and these are more complex. We need to dig through the text to find more clues.

One of the guys reiterated that he couldn’t think of any parallels to TV characters, and another said maybe we ought to be thinking more in terms of real people. He said he’d been thinking that MC Hammer’s “rise and fall” story has a lot of parallels to Lear’s.

“It could be as simple as a family reunion,” said one man, describing the types of relationships and backstabbing that can exist within families. “These characters start something but seem to be seeking their own end,” he mused. “The ones that are more flexible continue on.”

I brought us back to Goneril and Regan. “This really is an important question for us,” I said. “If we’re going to tell an authentic story, we can’t look at them as merely being evil. We have to look deeper.” One man said, “But we really don’t know anything. Do we just make it up?” I held up my book. “We have to really comb through this text and find clues, and then we build on those. And we may not ever land on an interpretation as an ensemble, but whoever plays these roles will have to agree on something. So… What are the given circumstances? What do we know about these two?”

Here’s what we came up with:

• It’s significant that their mother is neither in the play, nor is she referred to more than once (or in any detail). What does it mean? Given the age gap between them and Cordelia, is it possible that their mother was not the same as hers? Or that their mother died giving birth to her? Or could it have been something else?

• Their relationship with their father is very cold. Does this have anything to do with the absent mother, or is something else going on?

• They are both attracted to Edmund and end up fighting over him.

We also know that we need to consider the way Shakespeare wrote the characters’ language—how does it want to be spoken, and what features of it can inform our interpretation? And, of course, we need to pay detailed attention to the plot.

“Are there people who just study Shakespeare?” asked one man. There sure are, a number of people replied. One man joked that there are literally “doctors of Shakespeare” and wondered how they’d do in a medical emergency. “But wouldn’t it be awesome to have someone here who, that’s all they do?” pressed the first man. “It would be,” I said, “And we certainly don’t shut out that academic perspective—that’s why we love the Arden!—but it has no more value than any perspective in this room. There’s no question that people who study Shakespeare love it, but study like that can put you in as much of a box as anything else.” I shared how eager some of the “experts” at the Shakespeare in Prisons Conference were to learn prisoners’ perspectives on the plays, which we all thought was pretty cool.

One of the men got us back on topic, suggesting that the marriage between Lear and the women’s mother could  have been arranged—and that that could have led to an emotional disconnect. “So… why is Cordelia Lear’s favorite?” asked one man. Another ensemble member posited that if Cordelia had a different mother, and Lear really loved her, and she died in childbirth, that could lead to him doting on that child. Another man said, “Maybe the the first two were supposed to be boys and came out girls… I mean, their names are not feminine. And Cordelia’s is. So maybe she’s the only one who isn’t some kind of disappointment.”

The man who’d asked about scholars of Shakespeare said he thought it kind of sucked that we won’t ever have solid answers to these questions. Two of the men emphatically (and simultaneously) said, “No! That’s the best part.” One leaned forward and said, “Look at the discussions we’re having. We get to make these plays our own because we bring our own perspectives to ’em—no one has to tell us the answers, because we take ’em from our own lives.”
 

Friday / August 24 / 2018
 

We started off the day by welcoming Jordan Blashek and Christopher Haugh as guests to our ensemble. They’re writing a book about finding common ground in America, and we were absolutely thrilled to contribute to the conversation. More on that below…

Before our check-in, we checked in about our check-ins! These have been lasting a really long time lately, which is largely a result of us collectively going down various rabbit holes that lead us far from whatever was initially shared. Some of these conversations have been really interesting, but they’re really not what check-in is for. I reminded everyone that, ideally, this should take no longer than 15 minutes and should consist of important personal status updates: what’s going on with you today that we need to know about? This could range from good news to bad, or statements like, “I’m having a lousy day, so if I’m a little short, don’t take it personally.” Sharing important facility-wide news (i.e., new programs and policies) is also appropriate. By keeping check-ins brief most of the time, we ensure that we have the patience for those times when someone needs to talk more. But if we always spend the first half hour of our sessions in rambling conversations, people won’t let us know when they could really use more time.

We got down to business by reading Act IV, scene i, in which Edgar encounters his father, now blind and being led by an old man, and agrees to take him to a cliff. Though the reading was a little rough (they love doing these on their feet, but it’s challenging for folks who haven’t read ahead), we were all still deeply moved. It’s an incredible scene.

It can be hard to get the conversation going when the scene is as emotional as this one. I asked if anyone had any thoughts. One of the men said, somewhat haltingly, that he could relate to seeing a parent laid low like that, and that he could imagine how Edgar feels. Another silence. I asked if we could take it back to the top of the scene, and I asked what they thought was going on in Edgar’s soliloquy. The illusions are stripped away, said one man, and it feels better this way. Another agreed.

Another long pause.

“Question,” said one of the guys. “Why does he still identify himself to Gloucester as Poor Tom if he knows he’s about to kill himself?” Another replied, “Edgar has a plan. He’s nervous about seeing his father, and he doesn’t know exactly what he’s gonna do, but he’s got a plan.” Again, people were very quiet. This really is a tough scene.

“Well… does he identify himself as Poor Tom?” I asked. “No,” said someone else, “The Old Man does.” I nodded. “Right. And Edgar knows he’ll be executed if he’s found out, so does he have a choice about pretending as long as the Old Man is there? And, if not, when would be a good time to reveal himself to his father? I don’t know.”

One of the men said he thought Edgar vacillates before being identified—that he wants to reveal himself. “He’s just heard Gloucester going on about missing his son, and then the Old Man cuts in and identifies him as Poor Tom,” he said. “What’s he gonna do?”

“This is part of the human experience, right?” I said gently. “Knowing you have a choice to make, and then someone else coming in and taking that decision away from you? Making it for you?” There wasn’t really a response to that, but I didn’t expect there to be. Too much to unpack there, for now, anyway.

There was a little confusion about all of Edgar’s lines about “worse” and “the worst”, and we took a minute to clarify what he’s saying: that he thought things were as bad as they could get, and then they got worse—so who knows how bad it could get? “Pretty fucking bad,” said a man who’s read the whole play.

But Edgar doesn’t sit in it. “He’s taking responsibility for his father,” said one man. “He’s gonna do these things for his father, knowing that’s his father—knowing he wanted him to be killed.” Another man said, “He made himself a conscious being to Gloucester by answering, ‘Do you know Dover?’”

Coffey pointed out the significance of the line, “Who’s there?” She said that that line generally carries a lot of weight in Shakespeare’s plays, and that it demands a true response: Who am I? “Who is it that can tell me who I am?” I said, quoting one of Lear’s lines. “It’s that way through the whole play,” said one of the guys. It sure is, I said. Which means we’ve gotta keep watching out for that theme. Who am I?

There was another pause. (This is when I’m apt to take a heavier hand in our sessions—when we’ve clearly hit on sensitive material, and no one is quite sure how to transition from one thing to the next.) “Can I bring our attention, real quick, to a couple of iconic lines in this scene? Phrases that strike people, over and over, for hundreds of years, are generally worth paying attention to.” We began with “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods: they kill us for their sport.”

“He means it’s chaos,” said one man. “The gods are just killing people for fun.” He began to share how this was like his outlook on religion, and I quickly steered it back to the play: this is a core theme in Lear, but it need not have anything to do with our personal religious beliefs. Shakespeare wrote what he wrote, and we can keep it within that context.

Returning to the text, one man said, “That’s not a statement all on its own, though. Let’s look at the lead-up to that.” He read the passage up to those lines. “Yeah, it’s…” he sat forward in his seat. “Now he’s blind and he’s looking back at his actions—” he broke off, shook his head, and excitedly continued, “This is crazy. He’s blind. And he’s looking back at his actions… I cast my son aside, and then I saw this man, a worm… I just cast my son aside…” He shook his head again, overwhelmed.

Another man said the point, too, is that there is no reason for any of this. It’s just chaos. He likened it to the way people try to analyze school shootings, and people who commit those acts. “Why? Why? Sometimes there isn’t any reason.” The first man nodded, saying, “It’s the carelessness with which we handle each other.”

One of the men drew our attention to the fact that, as a group, we’d arrived at an interpretation that matched the “translation” in the No Fear edition almost word for word. “I know this doesn’t have as much detail as the Arden,” he said, “But I like to read the actual text, and then look at this, and see if it confirms my interpretation.” Another man agreed, saying it’s also helpful when he gets stuck. I shared that these are precisely the reasons we use the No Fears—not as authoritative texts, but to make sure we can all keep up with the plot and overall content.

Coming back to Gloucester, one man said, “It took vulnerability for him to say that in the first place… The frailty of human life... “ He cited worms as being, to most people, among the lowest forms of life. But can we ever truly understand a worm? Or vice versa? Another man said that that definitely applies to people who are perceived as “low.” But even the lowest forms of life serve a purpose. “They see them as worms because they don’t take the time to see [the value they have] in the first place.”

“What’s the other iconic line?” asked one of the men. “On the next page,” I said. “’Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind.” One of the men said, “The blind are leading the blind.” I replied, “Not the blind—madmen. Crazy people are leading people who can’t see. That’s the time’s plague.” A number of people sighed audibly.

“This play could easily be named ‘Edgar and Gloucester’,” said one man. “Their relationship is so intense, it could definitely carry the play.” Another man said that the theme of familial relationships runs throughout the play and extends to practically every character. Even the Fool, he said, is like Lear’s nephew—he calls Lear “‘nuncle.” One of the men (antagonistically, I think), said that that didn’t mean they had a familial relationship. The other man said, “Yes, it does—’nuncle is a term of endearment. Lear loves him.” Another man said, though, that Lear doesn’t treat the Fool like he does his own family—he’s much kinder to the Fool.

“That don’t mean Lear don’t love the others,” said one man. “You ask any cop—domestic violence is one of the scariest things police can get called to because there’s so much emotion.” The violence tends to be more extreme than that between strangers, he said, and that applies to Lear’s abuse of Cordelia and Kent. But with the Fool, it’s a little different. “[The Fool] is like Lear shoulda been… His good self is right there, telling him, ‘This is how you shoulda been acting.’”

Another man added, “It’s about perceptions… [Being a jester] gives the Fool allowance [to be honest], where Cordelia doesn’t have that allowance… The Fool is expected to act like that.” I agreed: it could be that Lear’s affection for all is equal (or similar), but the Fool’s delivery is what allows him to be treated differently.

The conversation turned to Gloucester. One of the guys said, “Isn’t it amazing how everybody who thinks about suicide thinks it’s gonna make things better?” Someone else said that suicide is selfish. The guy next to me inhaled sharply and quietly said, “I hate this conversation.” I broke in for a moment to ask everyone to be sensitive—that this theme is in the play, so we need to talk about it, but that we need to bear in mind what a difficult subject it is for many people.

One of the men said he didn’t think Gloucester is necessarily thinking about much of anything. “When you’re carrying a burden, and it gets to be so heavy… Your first instinct is, ‘I just wanna drop that weight’… They want to be done, right then and there.”

Two of the guys shared candidly about their experiences, as touchpoints in the text, and the discomfort began to be palpable again. “I’m not sure that what you’re describing is what’s happening with Gloucester, though,” I said. “Again, we need to talk about suicide because it’s part of the play, but we need to make sure that’s where our focus stays. How can my experience inform our interpretation, whether it was different or similar?” A few people said things like, “Yes,” and “Thank  you,” under their breath. One man smiled incredulously and said, “It’s crazy that this was written in the 1600s, and we still think the same things… I think he wrote about kindness and humanity. He was teaching people how to be more human.”

Building off of what I’d said, one of the guys said, “You could take the conviction of what [NAME] was saying and put that into the play… There’s no other way to interpret his experience, but we put it into the context of the play, and that way no one’s feelings get hurt.”

Maybe Gloucester believes that his grief can lead to redemption in the form of jumping off the cliff, one man said. “You mean, like, atonement?” asked another. “Yeah… or like, a closure to him,” said the first man. “You seek to bring closure to the people around you before you do it,” said another man, referring to Gloucester’s wish to see Edgar. “He wants to say, ‘I’m sorry. What I did to you was wrong’... When you get to that point, it’s really hard for anyone to bring you back from.”

But that’s not really what’s going on with Gloucester either, a few people said, and then those who hadn’t read ahead pointed out that the motivation really isn’t clear in this scene. But it will be the next time we see Gloucester, so we decided to table the conversation till we get back to him.

We switched gears so the guys could answer some questions from our guests. Here are just a few of the things that they shared.

What did you learn about yourselves in the Shakespeare group?

• Our common ground is our emotions. We can all relate to emotions.

• “You’re almost forced to leave who you are outside this room when you walk in the door,” said one man. Another guy asked, “Have you not found your group of friends has diversified since? … Our subcultures look on us with confusion. I had to test my courage to step outside of that.” Courage means ignoring the razzing, he said. The first guy said yes, and, “I’m glad you used the word courage… I got a lot of flack about this group. I’ve had to have the courage to weed people out, or it’s strengthened bonds with others.”

• “Coming to this group is a way to express my own identity… because it’s Shakespeare. He wrote about human identity… In here, not only can you express yourself, but you can grow… There’s aspects of me that have changed. Everybody in here has aspects that have changed."

• “There’s nothing we can’t use to become kinder… This living is so hard, how can we be anything but loving? I can’t be one way over here and the other way over there. I can’t do it. This is changing me.”

• “Shakespeare is a catalyst. It provides the tools we need to do better.”

What does it take to have redemption in your own life?

• “I call it the a-ha factor. That moment when you realize you gotta do something different with your life… In order for me to have redemption, I have to do things exactly opposite than the way I’ve usually done them… I have to step outside myself.”

• “To me, redemption is about continuing… It’s not about undoing what you’ve done, it’s about moving past that… Not burying it… but moving forward and saying, ‘That’s what I’ve done, and I’m never gonna do it again.’” It’s not up and out: it’s through.

• “It’s really about self-worth. We can’t show out what we don’t know. I can’t love if I don’t know love.”

• “We’re able to teach each other infinitely, almost… because of the dynamic diversity in this group, we’re able to teach each other something we could never get anywhere else.”

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…