Theater and Prison
This first task that I have engaged with was to read the book Theater and Prison by Coimhe McAvinchey.
The book is broken down into three chapters that examine different relationships between theater and prison.
The Theater of Punishment
This chapter looks at the history of punishment, the role that theatricality and performativity have had within punishment, and critiques the nature and theory behind ideas of punishment and its role from a sociological perspective.
One of the first ideas within the book is this role of punishment, and importantly, how different factors affect it.
“Crime and punishment are not stable entities. What a society chooses to punish and how it chooses to do so depend on the specific social, political and economic concerns which shape that society. (pg18)”
The passage goes on to discuss how what is considered to be a crime and what would be considered an appropriate punishment for that crime differs among different cultures and also, within our own culture at different points in time.
This for me feels like it has opened up quite an interesting line of thought in terms of the way that I might traditionally think about the criminal justice system in this (or any) country.
I feel I was already familiar with this information in terms of the fact that different countries have different laws, and that our laws have changed over time. However, now that I am being encouraged to question and interrogate this system of criminal justice, it feels important to reiterate the transient nature of crime and punishment within our society which I feel contrasts to an image of this system as rigid and unmoving which it tries to convey.
I feel this is often a technique employed by long running institutions, creating an unchangeable image of itself as a defense for lack of change and evolution. Something McAvinchey touches on later in the chapter.
“Without the critical reflection of our own positions as such, we risk being passive observers, assuming that long-standing mechanisms of state control are just and ‘natural’ – that they are the way things have always been and will always be. (pg35)”
Another thing I want to highlight from this chapter is the role of theater within punishment. McAvinchey talks about the history of the spectacle of punishment.
“Corporeal and capital punishment was a public event which demonstrated the absolute power of the state upon the individual body of an errant subject or citizen (pg23)”
McAvinchey also talks about past examples of public executions as an example of theater being carried out
“The scaffold set the stage for a drama of justice with stock characters, a prescribed narrative and climactic ending. the criminal, the executioner and the religious official all had their parts to play. (pg 24)”
This is an important connection to make. I had not considered the aspect of theater and performance in terms of the carrying out of justice. This feels like an important intersection in terms of the way that I, as a performance art student, can begin to access.
It also has led me to consider the way that this still exists today within our current system. While the public executions have dissipated, the spectacle and theatrical nature of justice is still present. The costumes worn by the judges passing the sentence, the role that is taken on by the prisoners and the audience reading about the process in the paper.
Theater about prison
Something important from this chapter that I would like to highlight is the critique of the portrait of prisons in popular culture. McAvinchey references Sean O’Sullivan’s book Images of incarceration: Representations of Prison in Film and Television Drama
“Drama provides people with the imaginative resources which help them visualise, or imagine the nature of the world. It can be suggested that people are much more receptive to arguments about things outside their own experience if they posses a cultural model or metaphor which helps them to visualize it – (Images of incarceration: Representations of Prison in Film and Television Drama, pg14)”
This is an important statement about one of the functions of drama as a means of communicating ideas between people with different lived experience, which is important as a tool to offer perspective and different ways of thinking. However, McAvinchey goes on to say
“Not all representations of prison and prisoners do the same cultural work. Some reiterate imaginatively limited narrative tropes and stereotypes while others prompt insight and new understandings. (pg 38)”
This illustrates the importance of questioning my own preconceived notions and images that I hold for prison and prisoners and how that image has been shaped by the specific media that I have engaged with around the subject.
Theater in Prison
I think that this chapter is important as it discusses different arts practices within a prison context which is ultimately the aim of my learning within this module. McAvinchey talks about a specific type of drama that can take place within a prison context.
“In addition to production based work, there is a significant body of practice using drama to address specific issues including communication skills, human rights, parenting and resettlement. These programs articulate how theater can be used as a creative means to a social or educative end with an emphasis on the process of drama and its non arts outcome rather than the production of theater. (pg 57)”
This process driven form of theater and performance making is very much at the heart of the social practices that I have been engaging with in my own arts practice. It is this model of working that we are taught in our 2nd year of this performance art course which specifically focuses on sociocentric arts practices.
As part of this module I will be creating a creative resource that meets the following criteria
the design and delivery of a bespoke creative resource for use in a Scottish prison to engage with prisoners in lockdown.
At this current time, this feels very challenging. I am used to facilitating in person and have developed skills and techniques specific to that and I must now find ways of adapting this learning into a new socially distanced context.
However I am hopeful, I feel like this book was a really good start in terms of developing my critical understanding of prisons and the role that theater has played within and surrounding them. I also feel like it has started a journey of interrogation into how I currently think about prisons and systems of criminal justice.
