Shakespeare Inside: The Bard Behind Bars

by Amy Scott-Douglass

SHAKESPEARE THE BARD BEHIND BARS goes behind the scenes to reveal Shakespeare at work in the most decisive institutional context of our time -- in prisons. The book offers a record of fiercely personal experiences, based upon the author's experience of watching prison yard rehearsals and performances, and interviewing inmates, program directors, and wardens. We hear an ex-offender explain how playing Desdemona was vital to his rehabilitation; we sit in the audience of women inmates as they respond to the all-male Shakespeare Behind Bars touring production of JULIUS CAESAR; and we listen to a chorus of unnamed voices detail how rewriting Hamlet helps them to survive solitary confinement. SHAKESPEARE INSIDE probes our assumptions about Shakespeare and about prisoners, and provides new insight into the function of Shakespeare today..

Genres: Shakespeare

160 pages, Paperback

First published March 29, 2007

Reviews

[Anita · Rating 5 out of 5]

RIP my friend. Thank you for this beautiful book. Love you always ❤️❤️

[Scott Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was an interesting way of looking at the power of how Shakespeare can impact people. I really enjoyed the book although I thought "Shakespeare Saved My Life" was an even better look at teaching Shakespeare behind bars.

One of the most interesting passages in the book for me was when the reporter was speaking to Demond an inmate who claimed Shakespeare had changed him. He said that when he first came to prison he thought he wouldn't sell drugs again if he got out because he didn't want to come back to prison but now after Shakespeare had changed how he looks at himself and others he would not sell drugs because of what it would do to others.

When pressed by the author if it was really Shakespeare that changed him because he probably would have changed in prison with or without Shakespeare and Demond replies "Yeah, but I don't know into what."

[Michael P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is wonderful. It looks at prison theatre programs, some of which only perform Shakespeare and one that does several playwrights including Shakespeare. Mostly, it is about the Shakespeare Behind Bars program run by Curt Tofteland in the Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in Kansas. There is background about these programs, but much, maybe most of the book is the author’s interviews with inmates in the programs. They discuss what reading and performing Shakespeare means to them. It means a lot. For many, Shakespeare is transformative, helping them exorcise inner-demons, accept who they are and the wrongness of what they did, understand how their victims felt while they were being murdered, and challenges them see issues of justice and mercy, forgiveness and punishment from Shakespeare’s perspective, or from what they imagine Shakespeare’s perspective to be. This is sometimes heartbreaking, always enlightening, and these interviews are the main reason the book is wonderful. This brief summary badly fails to do justice to the range and depth of the emotions expressed or the ideas examined, nor does it adequately summarize the impact of this book on the reader. This why I am stuck with, “This book is wonderful,” because it is so challenging and so moving, and, yes, so wonderful.

There are some cautions. Though written by a gifted scholar, the book is purposefully anecdotal. It does not try to be a truly scientific survey on the effects and usefulness of Shakespeare programs on prison populations. Would studies by psychologists bear out the impressions given by the author and the inmates interviewed? I have no idea. The book should not be faulted for this, for the book truly is wonderful for what it does. It is not at fault for what it does not try to do.

The author injects herself into the stories. A lot. She gives herself a wise and likable persona that allows her to serve as referee while she comments on the statements by the convicts, a warden, and the Shakespeare professionals. It is a bit like a documentary film in which the director makes him or herself a character interviewing and sometimes confronting the person interviewed. The other choice in documentaries is to keep the interviewer out of it and simply let those interviewed speak. This is often, but not always, a better choice. I have not read this book without the author’s persona, obviously, so I do not know which would have been better. I do know that except for a few times when the author tells us that the speaker is wrong (she may be right, but can she know?), this approach works very well because she becomes our eyes and ears in these correctional facilities. We learn about them and the people incarcerated there along with her. Some people will object to the author interjecting herself in this way. Don’t. My feeling is that something is both gained and lost with the choice. It ultimately does not matter, because this book is so wonderful.

Get this book. Read this book. It is wonderful.