Prison. A set daily schedule of confinement with rollcalls, meals, school or work, and endless time behind your cell door. Prison is meant to serve as a correctional facility for those who have committed felonies, where when, or if, you get out, you will become a better person and start a new life aiming to never go back behind the concrete walls and spiked fences. But this isn’t always the case. Millions of prisoners have no hope of parole or feeling the sun on their face without the shadow of a twenty-foot-tall fence. And even those who do have the opportunity to walk free once again do not always last back in the real world. Yet, programs like Shakespeare Behind Bars allow for inmates to use their time inside to grow, learn, and reflect; giving them the chance to make a better situation for themselves in, or outside, of prison.

Shakespeare Behind Bar is a prison program that offers inmates from prisons across the United States an opportunity to study and perform Shakespeare with and for their fellow inmates. But why Shakespeare for a rehabilitation program? What could inmates learn from old language and phrases that most people have to look up? The answer: a lot. In the documentary Shakespeare Behind Bars, audiences get an exclusive look at a group of inmates at Luther Luckett Correctional Complex studying and performing William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The documentary takes place over nine months, with inmates practicing with Curt L. Tofteland, the founder of the program and artistic director of the performances. Over the course of months, audiences see the inmates’ progression as they practice, practice, practice; helping one another with understanding what is happening and the meaning behind various lines and scenes. The documentary also contains candid interviews with the inmates, often pertaining to how the play is progressing, how they are feeling, and their backstories. When one looks to the history of Shakespeare and the reputation of actors and entertainers during the Elizabethan era, it is not hard to understand why studying Shakespeare is uniquely appropriate for a rehabilitation program. Actors during this period were not trusted, and often considered to be a threat as beggars and rogues. Sound familiar? This same perception of judging and mistrust is still prevalent today, but not for actors, rather it is for those who are currently or were previously in prison or a correctional facility. This perception is what makes using Shakespeare in a rehabilitation program so interesting: prisoners today are seen the same as actors of Shakespeare’s time. There is almost no better way to honor Shakespeare than by having those who are considered the lowest in society performing his work for those who look down on them.

The Shakespeare Behind Bars program is valuable for those who participate because of the way it inspires reflection on their choices and actions that lead them to their time in prison. The value of the program and the difference it makes in the inmates’ lives is best seen in the private interviews and in the troupe’s performance of The Tempest. In their private interviews, several of the inmates reveal their backstories, including the crime that lead them to prison. For instance, Hal, who plays Prospero, speaks of when he killed his first wife and the pain and regret he has held onto for years. He, like many of the troupe, reflects on his connection to his character and how that character is a good parallel of his own life. In The Tempest, the plot begins and is pushed forward by Prospero’s desire to exact revenge on his traitorous brother and friends from Naples, after he was exiled from the court by their plot. Hal, when speaking of Prospero, discusses the theme of forgiveness that Prospero struggles with in The Tempest and how he can relate to him as he struggled for many years to forgive those around him and himself. Similarly, Red, who plays Miranda, greatly reflects on the similarities between himself and his character. He mentions that he was the same age as Miranda, 15 years old, when he began to have problems with his father, and admits that he was using these rehearsals to work out his frustrations with his father through Hal, who plays his in-play father. In The Tempest, there is a brief scene where Prospero speaks of himself by saying “your father,” which confuses her and the character has a very short existential crisis in which she questioned everything she knew about herself and the man she believed, and then confirmed, was her father.

Throughout the documentary, we encounter many inmates who talk about how the program has allowed them to reflect upon themselves and has opened an emotional door that has given them the strength to forgive themselves and begin making plans to do better things. These plans are greatly seen in Big G, who plays Caliban, as he started a mentorship program for younger offenders, as well as an obedience training program for pound dogs, and Sammie, who plays Trinculo, who, after serving 30+ years in prison, went on to write a one-man show titled Othello’s Tribunal and performed for public audiences. Additionally, this program has proven to make a difference in its recidivism rates, the tendency for a released convicted criminal to reoffend, which are listed on the program’s website as being 76.6% for the National Institute of Justice average, 40.7% in the Kentucky Department of Corrections (where the program has been held), and a mere 6% for those who took part in the Shakespeare Behind Bars program (Mission & Vision)!

The documentary Shakespeare Behind Bars works well as a drama and could be considered Shakespearean because it includes many of the elements that are found within these two genres, such as involving murders and various crimes, questioning social norms, and watching people struggle with dilemmas. The documentary goes through a series of highs and lows, including the cast talking about previous productions and memories they hold from their years in doing the program to Leonard, who was set to play Anthonio, being put in solitary and transferred out to a higher security prison. These highs and lows reflect those of Shakespeare as in The Tempest the audience sees a wedding (or an announced engagement) between Miranda and Ferdinand (a shipwrecked Prince) as well as the whispering to Ferdinand from the island spirit Ariel, a servant of Prospero, who tells him that his father, Alonso, is dead. The inmates that participate in the program go through much self-reflection and growth, much like Prospero in The Tempest, King Henry in Henry V, and Hamlet in Hamlet, who all, despite the troubles and emotional trauma they were or are going through, were able to piece themselves together and change for the better of themselves and those around them. A great addition to why Shakespeare Behind Bars could be considered Shakespearean that must be noted is the great similarities to the Mechanicals in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; a group of men who are producing and practicing a play in the middle of the plot of the play.

Overall, Shakespeare Behind Bars is a documentary that takes the viewer on an emotional journey full of heartbreak and joy for those involved in the program. To watch the growth of the cast and to watch them go from attempting to read through the script to flourishing on stage is incredibly motivating and proves that anyone from any background, no matter their life story or present situation can do anything – even perform Shakespeare.

Works Cited

“Mission & Vision.” Shakespeare Behind Bars, 26 Feb. 2020, www.shakespearebehindbars.org/about/mission/.