Posted on 10/13/2008 5:16:36 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The stage was a high-gloss tile floor and a couple of simple chairs. Security cameras adorned the ceiling and a prison guard's eyes roved the room. Deep inside Two Rivers Correctional Facility, an all-convict cast performed "Hamlet" for other prisoners.
Hamlet gazed heavenward and began his soliloquy.
"To be or not to be, that is the question," he said. "Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles ... "
The 25 or so men in the audience leaned forward in their chairs, absorbed in the Bard's words.
It was Shakespeare, all right, but with a twist. The actor's elegant prose sounded Shakespearean and his costume appeared authentic, but only from the waist up.
Below his black, gold-trimmed doublet, he wore blindingly white tennis shoes and bluejeans that bore the words "Oregon Department of Corrections Inmate" in eye-popping orange.
The stage was a high-gloss tile floor and a couple of simple chairs. Security cameras adorned the ceiling and a prison guard's eyes roved the room.
Deep inside Two Rivers Correctional Facility, an all-convict cast performed "Hamlet" for other prisoners.
Though this production will never go on the road, it did make history. The troupe is the first inmate group to perform Shakespeare in an Oregon state prison, according to Department of Corrections officials.
Johnny Stallings, the show's director, resembles Woody Allen, with crazy, do-its-own-thing hair, black high-top sneakers, glasses and a knack for inspiring his actors to dig down deep.
The Portland actor first came to the prison for a tour, then returned to do a one-man performance of Shakespeare's "King Lear." Before long, he volunteered to lead a weekly discussion group.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Much interesting writing (Milsop, Asquith, Pearce) that Shakespeare was a recusant Catholic. Hamlet’s father’s ghost in purgatory is one Catholic idea in the Elizabethan times, the first totalitarian Western government. It was risky; there are many Catholic martyrs that Elizabeth hung, drew and quartered, continuing her father’s bloody policies.
Golden age, indeed. For the hangman I guess.
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