[Oe List ...] A Prison Carol

[J&OSlotta]

Several in the group have asked to see the essay below. It was sent to 
me by Lynda Cock. I have 'pasted' the essay into this email. Enjoy.

Jim Slotta in Denver, where the issue of Knowledge Access seems to 
raise its head at the most sensitive times.



A Prison Carol
by Edward Morgan
SojoMail 1-05-2006

You've got to hand it to Charles Dickens: He could spin a yarn. A 
Christmas Carol has been read and reread for 160 years. It's been made 
into a score of film and TV adaptations, beginning with a silent film 
in 1908. It's played in dozens of languages in theaters across the 
world. And now it's played at the Fox Lake Correctional Institution in 
Wisconsin.

In mid-July I got a call from my friend Tonen (Sara) O'Connor, former 
managing director of the Milwaukee Repertory Theater. These days she's 
a Buddhist priest whose ministry includes pastoral visits to various 
prisons. She told me that some inmates at the Fox Lake prison had 
gotten permission to put on a play. "They want to do A Christmas 
Carol," she said, "and they need someone to help make it happen."

I took an exploratory trip, driving up through Horicon Marsh - a state 
wildlife area - then passing through metal detectors and buzzing gates 
before finding myself discussing rehearsal schedules with three 
cheerful inmates in state-issue green and a reading teacher who would 
supervise the project. Given the limitations of time, space, and 
theatrical experience, I advised them that a staged reading was more 
feasible - a performance with scripts in hand, no costumes or sets. 
They nodded willingly and suddenly I had agreed to direct it.

Adapting a novel for the stage is not easy. Fortunately, I had already 
written a version of A Christmas Carol with Joe Hanreddy. Our 
adaptation plays each year at the Pabst Theater, a heartwarming 
half-million-dollar extravaganza with 30 cast members, choral singing, 
mechanized sets, lavish costumes, and an orchestral soundtrack. So, all 
I had to do was adapt that version for a prison chapel with no 
technical support and an amateur, all-male cast, a few of whom 
primarily speak Spanish.

I added a street-talking gravedigger narrator and a mysterious 
Spanish-speaking sidekick for the ghost of Christmas Past. I cut out 
most of the songs, various smaller scenes and characters, and changed 
the sex of almost every female in the story. You might think Dickens 
was rolling in his grave, but he's used to it.

Throughout the fall they rehearsed twice weekly with their teacher and 
I joined them when my schedule permitted. We had a cast of 18, ranging 
in age from 20 to 60; black, white, Latino, and Apache. They were shy 
at first, but hungry to succeed and glad to have something unusual to 
do. And aside from all the fences and gates and having my hand stamped 
every visit, it was pretty much like rehearsing with any cast of 
relative novices. Of course, when we talked about Scrooge's isolation 
and the loss of his family, they understood the story far better than 
me.

Four performances were scheduled: one for the warden and her staff and 
the guards and teachers, and three more for fellow inmates. The tickets 
cost $1 and the cast planned to donate the proceeds to the Make-a-Wish 
Foundation, a Phoenix-based organization that arranges special events 
and experiences for terminally ill children.

Imagine a semicircle of chairs on a chapel dais and five music stands 
across the front. Eighteen men in state-issue green sit nervously 
holding black binders. They're facing 80 fellow offenders dressed in 
the same state-issue green. And the play begins.

The Gravedigger's first joke falls flat. I see a tightening in his 
face; a few actors shift uncomfortably. Then Scrooge steps to his music 
stand, his dark, shaved head shining in the chapel light, and his voice 
fills the room. He chastises Bob Cratchit. He reviles the holiday. He 
sneers at the thought of charity for the poor and outcast: "If they 
would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus 
population!"

The audience laughs, and the guys onstage begin to relax. By the time 
Mrs. Fezziwig makes her curtseying entrance - a red-faced, middle-aged 
inmate shouting in falsetto - the room is raucous with good-spirited 
guffaws. They're laughing at him, but they're also with him.

I've done a lot of plays over the years, including several versions of 
A Christmas Carol. I've never witnessed a performance more appreciated 
or relevant than this one. It's partly because the very act of doing a 
play here is so unique, so special. But it's also because of the story. 
A man reviews his past: He sees the present anew and longs for a future 
redeemed by a changed life. By the play's end, that longing hangs in 
the chapel like a specter.

After the bows, a trio of inmates plays the blues while the actors 
mingle proudly with the crowd. A guard strolls over to me and suggests 
that next year the inmates might do a play for every holiday. A few 
guys from the audience shake my hand. "Ain't nothing like this ever 
happened here before," says one. "You made my Christmas, sir," says 
another.

I'm driving home through Horicon Marsh, reflecting on Scrooge and Tiny 
Tim, and also that other child, the one whose birth we're all so busy 
celebrating. I'm thinking about two million Americans in prison this 
Christmas. They're not just surplus population.

Edward Morgan is a freelance director and writer living in Milwaukee, 
Wisconsin.