A new book by Teya Sepinuk Theatre of Witness: Finding the Medicine in Stories of Suffering, Transformation and Peace debuts this week.  It tells the story of those whose stories are often not told.  Taking the beauty and suffering of those we call "the great unwashed," Sepinuk mines the truths of refugees, immigrants, survivors and perpetrators of domestic abuse, ex-combatants, members of the security forces, teenage runaways, prisoners and their families, people living in poverty or without homes, families of murder victims, women in transition, people in recovery and survivors of war."  She also tells her tale and reveals how she developed her techniques and philosophy.

Theatre of Witness is a model of performance, first developed in 1986 that gives voice to those whose worlds are not on the front pages. According to their website  "the true, life stories, of people from diverse backgrounds are performed by people themselves, so that audiences can collectively bear witness to issues of suffering, redemption and social justice."  Techniques include spoken word, music, movement and cinematic imagery, but all "put a face and heart to societal issues of suffering, and celebrate the power of the human spirit to grow and transform."

Two productions/productions to-be fascinate me the most of the over 40 that Sepinuk has created in her many years as a theatre artist.  One is Release which deals with men who are coming to terms with the legacy of their past in Northern Ireland. The show includes a former prison governor, a former detective, a former British soldier, two ex-prisoners and a man who had been blown up in a car bomb as a child.  The production toured Ireland through November, 2012, and will tour internationally during 2013. A documentary will be released of the show as well, premiering in April, 2013.  See the website for details.

The other show I'd love to see, Women and War ,will bring survivors of war from countries such as Rwanda, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, Gaza, Israel, Sudan, East Timor and Northern Ireland.beyond Northern Ireland together to share their struggles of building peace in the aftermath of conflict .  What an amazing idea, to forge such a community and have these woman create theatre together.

A book launch in the U.S. will occur in Philadelphia on April 25th and early reviews are great:  "“If you have any doubts about the power of socially-engaged theatre to challenge and heal, the stories and reflections in Theatre of Witness should put them to rest,” said Howard Zehr, professor of Restorative Justice, Center for Justice & Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University.

A new movie hits theatres around the country on February 22nd and it looks guaranteed to be another knockout in the collection of eye opening stories about the results of the so-called "drug war" and incarceration.  But there's a twist to this one.

Here's the sexy action-flick poster which shows Dwayne Johnson.  He stars as John Matthews, a man hit hard when his teenage son is wrongfully ensnared in a drug bust and threatened with a terrifying 10-30 years in federal prison (Oh,by the way that's standard under the US government’s crazy minimum drug sentencing laws.)  For Matthews who wants to help his son, the only option is to “snitch.”  In this case that means becoming an informant.  But across the country this "helpfulness" can take the shape of different Catch-22s but the new reality is that informants have become a part of prosecutorial strategy. 

In Snitch, A deal is eventually made;  a politically ambitious federal prosecutor played by the always amazing Susan Sarandon gets the deal.  Things turn ugly when Matthew become an undercover informant and infiltrates a drug cartel, risking his family and his life.

Some of the facts about informants and mandatory minimums might surprise you.  On this website, developed to get people involved with the issues, you'll discover:
►"45% of people on death row are there because of a lying informant."

Molly Gill, from Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) writes a very convincing editorial about the wrongfully convicted, and here she says:
►"In 2010 alone, nearly one out of five federal offenders facing a mandatory sentence escaped it because they informed on others."
►The problem isn't snitching, per se, it's mandatory minimums which encourage desperate deals.  We need to get rid of them once and for all.
►"Mandatory minimum sentences require so much time in prison—five, ten, 15, 20 years…—that they can easily scare defendants into saying anything, true or not, to catch a break. Desperate defendants can finger the innocent or lie under oath, leading to wrongful convictions."
►"Mandatory minimums bar judges from fitting the punishment to the unique facts and circumstances of each case," although they do not keep us safer or reduce crime….They have succeeded in giving the U.S.. the world’s largest prison population, at an annual cost of more than $70 billion."
►Only prosecutors can ask the court to sentence the "snitch" below the mandatory minimum prison sentence required for the crime. This gives prosecutors "enormous—and un-reviewable—power at sentencing."

You can visit the official movie website and watch the trailer and you can tweet about it there with others. But  some of the real life stories about snitching are killers.  Take for example Timothy Tyler.

Gill tells us that Tyler was a lifelong Grateful Dead fan, an LSD user and a diehard Deadhead. He sold small amounts of LSD to friends and eventually was convicted of two state charges for LSD sales, which resulted in sentences of probation. One of his friends, unbeknownst to Tyler, began working with law officers to set up drug buys in exchange for the promise of a reduced sentence.  He asked Tyler to mail his LSD which he did, five times.

Tyler was arrested and pled guilty to drug distribution. At age 24, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole because his two prior drug convictions (for which he did not serve prison time) triggered the federal three-strikes law.

Did he deserve time?  Perhaps.  But he certainly needed treatment.  And he certainly didn't deserve, at age 24, to be given up on so totally by a society that spends billions of dollars to incarcerate drug offenders instead of treat them. 

Now that yoga is the big thing in fitness — with hot yoga, power yoga, rejuvenating yoga and all sorts of other varieties — it is no surprise that yoga has catapulted past wellness centers into gyms. But it might be a surprise to some that it has finally made it into prisons.

A recent article by Mary Polon in The New York Times points out "When many states have cut.. programs for inmates, citing cost and political pressures, some wardens looking for a low-cost, low-risk way for inmates to reflect on their crimes, improve their fitness and cope with the stress of overcrowded prison life are turning to yoga."  Hey you only need loose fitting clothing and mats.  Particularly if your teachers are volunteers.

This picture is from one across the country where women center themselves.  There are 20 or so yoga programs in California alone; and while programs have not yet been tracked; more and more are bound to crop up.  Men and women behind bars are getting in on the practice as a way to learn patience, quiet their minds and deal with the stresses of isolation and prison.

In one male program, says The Times, prisoners helped each other do handstands. "Then, after 90 minutes of class, one hit the light switch. In the pitch-black room, the men lay on their backs," and the teacher "led them in breathing exercises."

Most people don't realize how radical this is inside a prison.  Having lights out in a group of prisoners takes enormous trust.  There is so much fear that "You have to watch your back,"and many prisoners are terrified to lie down in a group or close their eyes at night, worrying that something could happen to them.  These fears, of course, are not always unfounded. Getting to a deep level of quiet and calm is a great success.  Trusting others is key as good teachers must make their students feel that they are watching out for them, that they are safe.

When I taught at Framingham, I often did breathing exercises with the women before play rehearsals, and at times, they wanted to have their eyes open.  It took a lot for them to breathe slowly, to not break out into laughter, to not be afraid.  But ultimately, as trust got deeper, they did get wonderful benefits from relaxation, which is essentially a kind of meditation in stillness.

Meditation has also gained some new-found cred in prison. In my days, Cheap Shot Howie Carr of the Boston Herald  took down prison meditation with his angry columns, scathing commentaries on the oh-so-many privileges of prisoners. Just after he had gained some traction, it was disappeared.  The fear was always that prisons would look "soft," if they allowed such activities.  

However, according to a 2011 report from the Pew Charitable Trusts, states' spending on corrections has "quadrupled during the past two decades, to $52 billion a year."   Prisons are more willing to try programs that seem a little off the beaten path as long as they have a track record, especially as they want to improve recidivism rates but are desperate to save money.  

Meditation can help with anger, taking responsibility for one's life and as I learned in Sunday School, a willingness to listen to my own "still small voice."  A good NPR  show on meditation in prison can be found here.

While yoga and meditation can't help a prisoner find a job or take away stigma in our society when he returns, it's a great tool.

Hand it to Jonathan Shailor to not sit around while program big wigs decide whether or not he can go back inside with his important theatre work behind bars (See "Are You Kidding Me?" in the Archives).  He launched The Shakespeare Prison Project: Beyond Bars on January 13th, 2013, at the Rita Tallent Pickens Center for the Arts and Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.

What is perhaps most touching to me is not that former prisoner, Nick Leair, joined guest actors onstage to perform scenes from The Tempest and Henry IV, Part 2, but that is daughter, Ally not only saw him perform in Beyond Bars this week but in The Tempest  when he was incarcerated.

Here Leair is with his daughter now and before he was released

Shailor wrote:  "Ally joined us on stage during the talkback. I asked her what her main impression of her Dad was back in 07 when she saw him perform for the first time. She said, 'He looked happy.'  Then she proudly took the stage and read the prologue from one of her Dad's favorite plays: Romeo and Juliet.  Two other former…Shakespeare Project participants attended the program and joined in the discussion. All of them are doing well–reconnected with family, employed or in school. They credit their experience with The Shakespeare Project as an important element in the building of new identities and productive lives."

This reminds me of how much we give and get from the people we work with behind bars.  Next week I will be seeing a woman I worked with over twenty years ago at Framingham Women's Prison.  How much the connections endure and this is because the work allows people to dig deep into themselves and to learn something new be it about themselves and/or about the world.  Them, for sure; us, the teachers, as well.  As I said in Shakespeare Behind Bars, the performance of the Bard offers prisoners access to a world many never thought was part of their lives.  If one can tackle Shakespeare, one can tackle anything.

I encourage blog readers to contact the WISCONSIN DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS SECRETARY EDWARD WALL AND TELL HIM THAT YOU SUPPORT THIS WORK!  

PHONE: 608-240-5055  and EMAIL: edward.wall@wi.gov

Visit Boston Magazine'sand read my blog about poets behind bars who are sending their words into cyberspace.  It's part of a three-part series about writing and art blogs from prisoners.  The talent behind bars!

"Prisoners have long written poetry from inside the prison walls. For incarcerated men and women—as for all who have the urge to write poetry—Robert Frost’s words ring true: the poem “begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.” Poetry is the need to express what’s locked up inside, and for the prisoner, the bars are real." More