Why, after 13 years, does this play haunt me?
A friend reminds me that 13 years ago this week I saw one of the most indelible productions I’ve ever seen: “Our Town” inside Sing Sing Correctional Facility.
Thornton Wilder’s play was marking the 75th anniversary of its Broadway debut in 2013 and Rehabilitation Through the Arts — a life-changing group whose work was featured in the Oscar-nominated film, “Sing Sing” — was staging it, led by director Kate Powers.
For the past 13 years, every time my mind goes to this production, I feel an ache for its lesson, which landed in a remarkably powerful way behind razor wire and guard towers. It haunts me, in a way.
For six months or so, I had attended rehearsals and interviewed people on all sides of the production: incarcerated men serving 25 years to life and the actresses and facilitators who traveled “up the river” to work with them, to open their eyes to what just might be a perfect piece of theater.
The men didn’t see it that way at first.
“This is a white play,” one man told the room. “Why are we doing this play? Are we doing this play because Kate wants us to do it?”
But then the work on the play began and the men soon fell under the power of the simple story in which “nothing happens,” when families in Grovers Corners go about their daily lives, not noticing each other, really.
Why, 13 years later, does that production have such a hold on me?
I think it’s because of the impossible thing it asked those men to do.
The men in Sing Sing spend their days wishing for time to speed up, for them to be days, weeks, months and years closer to their release, if release is even possible. “Our Town” asks its audience, and its actors, to slow things down, to savor every minute, to really look at each other and feel each others’ humanity. To notice till it hurts, even though it hurts.
Follow this link to that story. It’s 3,200 words, and it captures that struggle. Or at least I hope it does.
