by Tim Jackson 

Compellingly, Sing Sing reinforces the belief that art, no matter where it takes place, has the power to heal, educate, and build community.

Sing Sing, directed by Greg Kwedar. Screening at the Coolidge Corner Theatre and AMC Boston Common 19.

Colman Domingo and the cast members of Sing Sing.

Colman Domingo, nominated for an Oscar last year for Rustin, puts in an equally compelling performance in the film Sing Sing. He is cast as ‘Divine G’,  who, wrongfully accused of murder, is also the organizer of a prison theater group that began in 1996 at the Maximum Security Facility for Men in Ossining, New York. That troupe is part of a larger organization named “Rehabilitation Through the Arts” (RTA). But this is not just another film “based on a true story”; it features actors playing fictionalized versions of themselves — or, more accurately, the people they were when they lived the story in the script.

Many in the cast were formerly incarcerated, including Domingo’s co-star Clarence Maclin, known as ‘Divine Eye’, who spent seventeen years in prison. This is his first film performance, and Maclin is splendid as a man filled with theatrical bravado; he has memorized passages from Shakespeare. Domingo and Maclin reverse the traditional performance dynamic; i.e. non-professionals have to rise to the standard of professional actors. Without indulging in vanity or showboating, Domingo holds his own against Maclin’s intimidating portrait; he blends smoothly with the other members of the cast, whose portraits are based in real life experience: living difficult lives and spending considerable time behind bars.

Character actor Paul Raci seems to be everywhere, from his award-winning performance in The Sound of Metal (Oscar nomination and Boston Society of Film Critics – Best Supporting Actor), to this year’s HBO series, Perry Mason. The hearing child of deaf parents, Raci battled drug addiction for years and has spent time working with recovering addicts. Struggle and resilience are inscribed in his face. As playwright Brent Buell, who directs the project, Raci contributes both lightness and gravitas. As shown in the workshop scenes, Buell is psychologically acute: he knows when to push an actor and when to lay back with a compliment. The rehearsal episodes will be recognizable to anyone who has taken an acting workshop, though the stakes are higher: the demands on performers are tougher behind prison walls, where they have to reenact violence, push for cathartic emotions.

At one point, Buell tells Divine Eye, who is playing Hamlet, to enter the room as if the Prince was walking like the King. “I didn’t even see you when you came in”, the director says, criticizing Divine Eye’s lackadaisical attitude. “What? I came into the room. What d’ya want?” says the actor. Like any acting teacher, Buell instructs him to re-enter but this time to commit to what is called “the moment before”. “Why are you entering the room?” Buell asks. “Come in like a king — like you own this fucking place.” When Divine Eye is asked to deliver an angry speech, Buell tells him that he wants to feel the man behind the character “Anger is easy. Hurt is hard”, he explains.

As they begin to consider a new play for production, several men say they have had enough of Shakespeare. “But I love Shakespeare” counters one man. Divine Eye points out that they have done enough of “the sad stuff” and need to lighten up. Buell quickly composes a comical time-travel play called “Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code”. The script, of which we see only parts, is well described by John Richardson in his 2005 Esquire article “Sing Sing Follies”, which was the film’s source material:

The play is about six convicts who each write separate plays and then splice them together into one ridiculous romp. Buell’s main creative goal was lots of parts and lots of costumes, so the play has pirates and gladiators and cowboys and a spy in a tuxedo and even Prince Hamlet of Denmark.

After some amusing comments over the logic of time travel, the group settles on his play. Everyone gets a part.

The drama in Sing Sing is stark: it is about the freedom that men can live in their imaginations as they grapple with existence in small, airless cells. Those convicted of crimes live in concrete rooms, often stuffed with papers and bric-a-brac, are regularly gone through by staff checking for contraband. The prison system is a demeaning process that is tailored to break men down; the drama program is one of the few attempts to build them up. In an important sense, Sing Sing is a story about human beings, not men in cages. For Divine G, no man should be defined “by the worst act that they may have done in their life”.

In the prison’s sprawling rehearsal space, as actors, these men are free to express all sides of themselves. Their faces express their truths so, understandably, director Greg Kwedar relies on scrutinizing close-ups. Revelatory monologues also reveal the men behind the prison uniforms. A series of audition scenes feature cast members reading script material. This strategy duplicates what Paolo and Vittorio Taviani did in their fine film Caesar Must Die (2012). That documentary was filmed in Italy’s Rebibbia Prison, one the county’s top facilities for the rehabilitation and social reintegration of inmates. Prisoners auditioned for a production of Julius Caesar that the Taviani brothers directed for the film.

Sing Sing is of several recent movies that focus on prison, art, and rehabilitation. Ghostlight (Arts Fuse review) tells the story of a middle-aged construction worker who, following a family tragedy, stumbles on a ragtag amateur theater group. At the beginning, his wife and daughter are kept in the dark, but he winds up cast as Romeo in the troupe’s community theater production of Romeo and Juliet. The set-up is a bit fantastical, but the intent is to explore the theme of theater as a powerful tool for therapy, connection, and self-discovery.

In the moving documentary Daughters, (Arts Fuse review) four young Black women prepare to visit their incarcerated fathers for a “Daddy Daughter Dance”. Detailing preparations for the event, the film probes the idea of responsible fatherhood through interviews with the girls, who voice their expectations, and the men in a 10-week group therapy prison program. The reduced rates of recidivism of the prisoners who take part in programs like these is significantly better than average. In 2005, the film Shakespeare Behind Bars documented twenty male inmates of Kentucky’s Luther Luckett Correctional Center as they rehearsed, for nine months, a production of The Tempest. That, too, has been a successful program.

Sing Sing reinforces an inspiring belief: that art, no matter where it takes place, has the power to heal, educate, and build community.

Tim Jackson was an assistant professor of Digital Film and Video for 20 years. His music career in Boston began in the 1970s and includes some 20 groups, recordings, national and international tours, and contributions to film soundtracks. He studied theater and English as an undergraduate, and has also worked helter-skelter as an actor and member of SAG and AFTRA since the 1980s. He has directed three feature documentaries: Chaos and Order: Making American Theater about the American Repertory Theater; Radical Jesters, which profiles the practices of 11 interventionist artists and agit-prop performance groups; When Things Go Wrong: The Robin Lane Story. And two short films: Joan Walsh Anglund: Life in Story and Poem and The American Gurner. He is a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics. You can read more of his work on his blog.