9-21-22 Daily Dig
Prison Theater
ASHLEY LUCAS
In the years my father spent in prison, I became a playwright and theater scholar and discovered that people were making theater in prisons all over the world.…Performances inside the walls make the struggles of incarcerated people visible to one another, prison staff, and other audiences. They reveal the ways in which incarcerated people have greater complexity and depth than stereotypes suggest, and can make us question whether any person deserves what the incarcerated endure and whether it makes us safer. Most people do not feel safe when the state has total control of their lives – no one feels safe in prison. Likewise, people in the free world are not safe if the state cannot be trusted to treat all of its residents as full human beings.
If the walls of a prison close off the world; a stage can open it.
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