Exeter Prison

For the last 3 weeks our applied theatre class has been preparing to do a theater workshop in Exeter Prison.

Our professor, Fiona Macbeth, works often with Exeter Prison.  She works with a woman named Laura who runs educational programs for inmates.  She had asked Fiona and her students to come up with a workshop that revolved around the themes of honesty and loyalty within the family.  

We had created a scene earlier in our class that we thought would fit well into this workshop.  To start off the process we divided into pairs and for one minute each talked about an issue that is important to use.  We would then have to present the other person's issue to the group as them.  For example the issue that I talked about was the bullying of LGBT teens and how the suicide rate has increased exponentially.  Fiona (to whom I had related my issue to) would then present to the group as follows, "Hello my name is Amy and an issue that I find important is..etc"  The point is to be able to take on another persons views and express them as if they were your own.  

We created a scene that stemmed out of the issue of teen pregnancy.  We wanted to have our main character a person who is stuck between a rock and a hard place in the context of family loyalty and honesty.  We came up with the story of Patti.  A middle aged woman in conflict between her twin sister whose views on abortion differ from hers and her niece who at 16 has become pregnant asking Patti to not tell her mother and help her get an abortion.  We examined each character and the possible solutions to Patti's dilemma.   We staged it so that the first scene was frozen images of the 3 women in family moments.  Patti then delivered a monologue about herself and her relationship with her sister Angela.  During three points in Patti's Monologue Sophie (the niece and my character) had mini monologues to give some background on her character and her relationships with her mother and aunt.  The next scene was that of Sophie confessing to Patti about her pregnancy and her desire for an abortion.  She makes Patti promise not to tell Angela even though Patti is very uncomfortable about lying to her sister.  The next scene is Angela telling Patti that Sophie has been acting strangely and then demanding that if Patti knows anything that she has to tell her.  

We spent 3 weeks refining this scene and organizing what we would do within the workshop.  We decided that for the first half of the morning we would play theatre games to get to know each other and  do an overall warm up.  After that we presented our scene that we had created and then afterwards gave the inmates a chance to hot seat us as characters and talk about possible solutions to the proposed dilemma.  Then in the afternoon we would repeat our process of creating that scene with the inmates to create their own scenes which would be performed at the end of the day.

Before we knew it the day had arrived.  It was a clear yet cold morning in Exeter as we walked to the prison.  The prison was built in 1850 and is a remand prison for men.   It accepts all male adults and young offenders from the courts of Devon, Cornwall, and West Somerset.

I have never been inside a prison before and I was very curious and a little nervous.  We had been told to dress rather conservatively and not to bring too much stuff in with us.  When we first got there we checked in all of our things at reception and received visitors passes to wear around our necks.  Like most prisons there are many doors in and out and there are strict codes of conduct.  The prison itself smelled kind of like glue.  Here is a picture of what the main wings look like:

We did our workshop in the chapel which is very un-prison like with exception to a poster of jesus behind bars and it saying something about how jesus freed you from the bars of criminality.  One of the main workers of the prison who oversees the education programs was a man who himself had a BA and MA in theatre (How crazy is that??)  

We moved all of the chairs so that we had a big open floor space.  Then we waited for the inmates to arrive.  There were about 11-12 of them of varying ages.  There uniforms consisted of blue/grey sweatpants and sweaters with velcro sneakers.  At first we all seemed a little nervous of each other but as things got going everyone was able to relax.  We did varying theatre games that drew attention to focus, and creating images and scenes.  We then presented our piece that we had created.  It was really great how participatory most of the inmates were.  A lot of them talked a lot about our scene and proposed many different solutions to Patti's dilemma.  

*note I have changed the names of the inmates for privacy reasons

One inmate named Jack was one of the most perceptive and interesting of the group.  A very intelligent person he always had good insights about the scenes and was highly participatory.  He said that in his cell he reads John Milton all day and we had a very interesting conversation about biology and dodos.  

Another inmate named William was a former boxer and had a little girl around Nali's age.  We talked about the kids, boxing, and his short term memory problems.  

The youngest of the group, named Josh, was very cocky and had many tattoos.  He was highly participatory but you could tell that he would probably have a short fuse and liked to be the one in control.  He gave a lot of high fives and sort of hit on Kaley.  

We didn't ask them about  what they had done to get in there and they didn't volunteer.  I could see why because how could you not judge someone by knowing there crime?  Some of the inmates didn't participate as much for various reasons.

At the end of the day we were in small groups and they were creating performance.  This was for me the most interesting part of the day.  I was with 3 inmates;  Jack (the intellectual) Sean (the Joker) and Calvin ( the recluse)  We broke into groups and talked about issues that were important to us.  I was with Sean and he said he didn't have any ideas so I went first.  I talked about how bullying in general is an issue I feel strongly about and how it is important as adults and teachers to recognize and try to prevent it if possible.  That got Sean talking a lot because he was bullied as a child.  He then started talking about communication and neglect within a family is a big issue for him.  Jack and Andrew had been talking about Jack's issue of people (referring to inmates) are judged on what they have done and not for how the are working towards becoming better.  He and Andrew hadn't realized they were supposed to switch and Andrew didn't get a chance to talk about an issue.  I think he was a little put off by not getting a turn because he then got defensive and said he hadn't had any ideas anyway and that nothing really bothers him except not being able to drink.  The other two said that there had to be something that bothered him so we started talking about a few different issues to help encourage his participation.  

We then decided that the issue we were going to make a performance on was that of people being judged by their past actions and not by their present actions.  We had to come up with a person who would be stuck in the middle.  At first Fiona stopped by and suggested that if you were a father and a pedophile moved back into the neighborhood after being rehabilitated and deemed safe by the state and would you let your daughter play with a girl who was related to this man.  However that suggestion didn't really work because most of the men were fathers and the setting of the issue was too specific.  We then changed it to a community leader organizing the community Christmas party.  A person deemed a sex offender but who has gone through rehabilitation has moved back in with his family in the neighborhood.  The community leader is then faced with two community members who threaten to take away monetary and social support from the christmas party as well as ostracizing the community member if this person deemed a sex offender is aloud to come to come to the party.  Then a figure of a priest comes in and gives the point of view about forgiveness and tolerance and giving someone a second chance.  Although we had originally said the person to invite or not invite was a sex offender we didn't specify what they had done in the scene.  We gave suggestion but it could have been that this person was a former prisoner, or considered a sex offender because of consensual sex that was then turned into a statutory rape charge.  We wanted to high light that we are often quick to judge and set up stereotypes on other people based on their past actions.  How can we move past that and work towards reintroducing someone into society slowly and carefully without painting a bullseye on them?

At the end of the day we went around and asked what the inmates had thought of the workshop.  We got a resounding positive response.  Calvin, the man who had been defensive at first spoke up and said that he had never done drama in his life.  He never knew he could and that he actually enjoyed it and found what we did really interesting.  Many of them asked if we were going to come back and do more workshops.  Fiona and Laura are trying to see if we can.  I would like to.  

Before we went in we were told that even though most of the men would probably come across as very nice that we had to be able to realize that they are still people would have committed crimes and that many of them have been in and out of the prison system through out their lives.  Many of them know how to be manipulating.  Its kind of like the saying that no matter how cute a dog is, it still has the potential to bite you.  In the workshop setting we could all just be people and interact with one another and explore ideas.  A lot of prison theatre works hard to use models that don't "this is bad, this is good, be this way and not that."  If you are being realistic you have to work with people in ways that encourage them to discover things for themselves and to start looking at things in a different way.  This can be hard in from a prison stand point as that they usually want an educational program to produce a direct result that will benefit how the prison is seen from the outside.  But you can't force art or theatre to produce something concretely every time.  Applied theatre is about process rather than product.

I hope that we will be able to do another workshop within the prison.  It was a very educational and interesting experience for me.  One that I will not readily forget.  

Week 8

We ran through our piece that we are taking into the prison today.  We got it solidified and then spoke about how we are going to frame the days workshop.  When we get there we will spend most of the first half of the work shop doing theatre games to warm up and break the ice with the prisoners.  Going in will be myself, Fiona, Dr. Liz, Kaley, and a third year girl named Nick.  Fiona told us that we should dress rather conservativly, make sure not to give out any personal information, but to engage and talk with the prisoners during the break.  I have never been inside a prison and I have no idea what going into this experience will be like or what the prisoners might get out of it.  I we have done our research on prison theatre through the pendergast and saxton book and then through podcasts like This American Life's Act 5 about the Act 5 of Hamlet in a maxinmum security prison.  Our goal with our performance piece is to help the prisoners create their own short performance piece about honesty and loyalty within the family.  I will let you know how it goes comes wednesday!

Week 7

We just refined our piece to take into the prison next week.  That is all.

Week 6

Today we spent the entire 2 hours discussing and refining our performance piece that we are going to take into Exeter prison in 2 weeks.  Dr. Liz and I had had some really good conversations on the bus back from Dartmoor that we wanted to discuss with Fiona.  We wanted to know how to work with prisoners and empower them in ways that revolved around confidence of decision rather than violence.  Our piece is going to try and explore the themes of honesty and family loyalty.  What our plan is to do some ice breaking games with the prisoners, then to perform our piece that we created, and then by the end of the day construct and perform a new piece with the prisoners.

Dartmoor Visit

We went to Dartmoor National Park on Friday.

We went there to meet the creators of Med Theatre.  Med doesn't stand for medical.  I forgot what it stands for right this moment but its an anagram for something.  They specialize in site-specific and locallly based performance.  The company mainly takes inspiration from Dartmoor.  It is a vast piece of wilderness with extremely temperamental weather and lots of local history and legend.  One legend in particular is that of Kitty Jay.(Legendary Dartmoor, Back in the late eighteenth century, 1790 some say,  an orphaned baby was taken into the Poor House at Newton Abbot. The little girl was named, as was the custom, with a surname beginning with whatever letter the Poor House had progressed to, in this case 'J'. As many of the commoner names had been taken the baby girl ended up with 'Jay'. In those days the word 'Jay' was also a slang term for a prostitute so the Christian name of Mary was added.

Mary Jay remained at the Wolborough Poor House until her teens where she supervised the younger children. Then she was sent to Canna farm which was located outside Manaton. Here she was to be employed  as an 'apprentice' which meant she would work both in the house and on the fields. This was to be a hard life as the task load was heavy, the days long and the rewards few. A decent meal and warm clothing were luxuries that many of these 'apprentices' learned to live without. It may have been at this farm that Mary Jay got her more famous name of 'Kitty'.

Not long after she had been at the farm she started to receive the attentions of the farmers son which at the time may have seemed a way of obtaining some security and a sense of worth. Sadly, as in many similar cases she fell pregnant and soon discovered that her meaning of worth was very different to that of the farmer and his wife. Clearly the girl had 'thrown' herself at their son and with the name of Jay, no wonder.

The end result was that she was thrown out of the farm and left with a reputation as a 'slut'. Kitty knew only too well that once word got around she would never find employment in the area and that only left the prospect of returning in disgrace to the Poor House. Tragically Kitty Jay took the only other option and was found hanging in one of the barns at Canna.

The custom of the day was that any suicide could not be buried in consecrated ground as so they were interred at a crossroads, some times with a stake driven through their hearts. This was to ensure that the restless soul of the departed could not return to haunt god fearing mortals.

This was the fate of Kitty Jay, she was buried at the intersection of a road and a moorland track. The grave soon became known as 'Jay's Grave' and it did not take long for strange events to start taking place. On certain moonlit nights a dark figure could be seen kneeling beside the sad little mound with bowed head and its face buried in its hands. Nobody has ever been able to say if the spectral figure was male or female because it was always wrapped in a thick, black cloak. There are two schools of thought as to who the ghostly apparition is, some say it is the spirit of one of those responsible for driving Kitty from the farm and others say that it is the soul of the faithless farmer's son who as punishment has been sent to stand vigil over the grave of his victim and his unborn child.

The other phenomenon associated with the Kitty's resting place is the daily appearance of fresh flowers on the grave, nobody is ever seen leaving them but no matter what time of year there are always flowers, posies or greenery sat on the lonely mound. Tradition says that the flowers are the work of the piskies who out of sympathy tend the grave throughout eternity. However, as the photograph below shows on this visit there were no fresh flowers on the grave, maybe the piskies were having a lay in.

The Photograph Below is of her grave.  You can see the little marker and the flowers lying on it.  

We then came back and talked a lot about site specific performance.  Site specific performance is performance that is specifically revolving around or inspired by a specific site.  Med Theatre has used a lot of Dartmoor inspired themes including the building of Dartmoor Prison, the Dartmoor Hare, and others.  They asked us then to divide into pairs and come up with an idea for site specific performance.  I came up with one revolving around another Dartmoor legend that I then paralleled to Artemis and Actaeon in ancient greek myth.  First the legend of Bowman's Nose (Moretonhampstead):

In Moretonhampstead's neighbouring parish Manaton, two of the most striking of Dartmoor's famous tors are located - Bowerman's Nose and Hound Tor.

We now know that the granite tors are the dramatic result of millions of years of weathering. The strangely human and animal forms of Bowerman's Nose and Hound Tor led earlier generations to different conclusions, however, and myths and legends about the tors still circulate on the winds of Dartmoor.

According to local legend, Bowerman was a 'bowman' at around the time of the Norman conquest. He was roaming the open moor with his hounds when he ran into the evil huntsman (or, in some versions, a coven of witches), who turned him into Bowerman's Nose; his hound became Hound Tor.  Below are pictures of Bowman's Nose and Hound Tor:

Now paralleled to the Greek myth of Artemis and Actaeon:

 The goddess Artemis - seemingly a grown woman, but paradoxically one destined never to reach menarche (the "eternal teenager" ) - is observed (probably accidentally) by a young huntsman(Actaeon) as she bathes naked in a stream. He stares in fascination and awe at "the most beautiful vision ever beheld by man" (to quote a title from a hilarious silent movie made of the myth in the 1920's). But his harmless voyeurism leads to tragedy; Diana sees him, and fears he will boast of what he's seen. And so she turns him instantly into a stag - which his own 50 hounds then tear apart. 

I thought it would be a great piece of site specific performance to combine these myths and perform them in the valley between Bowman's nose and hounds tor, which are easily visible on either side.  Dartmoor and Med Theatre were great.  I think site specific performance may be my medium and I am now considering it for work in my dissertation.

Week Five

Sadly Dr. Liz couldn't work with us today.  We presented our scenes with one another.  I presented my Sophie Scene with Fiona as Patti and myself as Sophie.  Fiona read the monologues that Dr. Liz had written for the character of Patti.  The Kaley presented her scene as Angela.  Fiona had brought in a third year BA study named Emma to help us develop pyshicality for our pieces.  She had each of us give three words attached to three actions that our character was struggling with.  We then did a pyschical excersise that put us into pairs.  Each pair had a person initating touch and a person trying to get away from that touch.  We could never loose our physical connection and it made the relationships between all three participants very interesting.  We used the Boal game Bomb and Shield in one scene.  Its where of the people in a group you silently pick one to be your bomb and one to be your shield.  You always have to keep the shield between you and the bomb.  The daugher (sophie) uses her aunt (patti) as a shield between her and her mother (angela).  With Emma's help we were able to get a certain structure of blocking for our scene.  The scene itself has a lot of elements of theatre of the oppressed within it.  It uses image theatre and possible forum.  It definetly sets up crisis points.  We are going to take this piece into Exeter prison for the group "fathers on the inside"  to help them explore ideas about honesty and loyalty.  Next week we refine the piece!