Criminal Rehabilitation, Prisons & Prison Life, Theater - General & Miscellaneous
Log in to track your reading progress.
Overview
A deeply stirring account of one woman's ten-year experience teaching theater to women in prison.So often written off as "damaged goods" and ignored, women in prison are complex and tragic—Desdemonas suffering for jealous men, Lady Macbeths craving the power of their spouses, Portias adopting "male" roles to get by.
In Shakespeare Behind Bars, Jean Trounstine focuses on six inmates who, each in her own way, discovers in the power of great drama a way to transcend, if only for a moment, the painful constraints of her incarceration. Among the six inmates, meet:
- Dolly, a 50-ish grandmother who brings her knitting to classes and starts a battered women's group in prison
- Bettie, a Jamaican beauty estranged from her homeland, torn with guilt, and shunned for her crime
- Kit, a tough, wisecracking con who stirs up trouble whenever she can—until she's threatened with losing her kids.
About the Author:
Jean Trounstine has an extensive theater background and a master's degree in drama. She is the co-founder of the women's branch of Changing Lives Through Literature, an educational alternative to prison, and the co-editor of a book by the same name. She teaches at Middlesex Community College and lives in Tewksbury, Massachusetts.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Teachers who think their students are tough might find inspiration in Trounstine's 10-year stint teaching creative writing and theater in a high security Massachusetts state women's prison. Wry jokes about "captive audiences" and costumed inmates who are "dressed to kill" aside, Trounstine's tone is serious, and we watch her grow increasingly emotionally attached to her students. In chapters devoted to each of six inmates and prefaced by a brief quote from the Bard, Trounstine (editor of Changing Lives Through Literature) attempts to understand her students' lives and crimes through literature. "Dolly," who is abused by her boyfriend, seems especially drawn to The Taming of the Shrew; "Kit," the class clown, reminds Trounstine of Shakespeare's many fools. Rose, who is stigmatized by inmates and staff alike because of her HIV status, gives a heartbreaking rendition of Shylock's famous "Hath not a Jew eyes" speech, revealing that Trounstine isn't simply fitting her students' complex lives into theatrical set pieces. Despite their initial fear that "Shakespeare is white man's theater," the students come to identify with the playwright's characters and use the experience of performance (Trounstine ends up directing eight plays) as a kind of art therapy. Aimed primarily at an academic audience, this affecting memoir should appeal to educators and general readers interested in the relationship between social change and artistic practice. (Feb.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.Library Journal
This book grabs the reader's interest from the opening paragraph. Why Shakespeare? Why women in prison? What could they learn, or teach the reader about The Merchant of Venice or anything else, for that matter? Trounstine (Middlesex Community Coll.), cofounder of the women's branch of Changing Lives Through Literature, an educational alternative to prison, answers these questions and many others in straightforward language that avoids empty academic phrasing. This book, which resulted from her teaching acting for ten years at the Framingham Women's Prison, focuses on six of the many women in her classes. Portrayed sensitively but without pathos or pity, these women will be indelibly etched in the reader's mind, forever altering the way he or she sees or reads Shakespeare. The woman known as "Dolly" is particularly haunting, and Trounstine's revelation at the end of the book that she has been pardoned and has begun a new life is uplifting. Recommended for both academic and large public libraries. Susan L. Peters, Univ. of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.Kirkus Reviews
An inspiring story of life behind bars. In 1988, Trounstine began to teach acting to a group of women inmates at a Massachusetts prison. She began tentatively, an oddball experiment in a hard-to-crack place, but her attempts were successful: not only did she learn, as the old saw goes, that the teacher learns as much from her students as they learn from her, she realized that even in jail, theater can transform lives. The Taming of the Shrew moves Kit to think about the lover she would have followed anywhere (until,"kaboom," he left her). Gloria complains that Shakespeare is"white man's theater" (Trounstine suggests that it's not, as long as a mixed-race group of women are performing it). Dolly, moved by The Merchant of Venice and its pound of flesh, says she would die for a friend. Rose connects with Shylock—after reciting his famous monologue, she says that she knows he is hurt, even though he is trying to cover up his pain with anger. Bertie plays Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew, and afterwards she writes in her journal,"I know now I am somebody." We learn not only what the women think of Shakespeare, but also what they think of their prison lives. Dolly goes to Shattuck (Boston's hospital for the incarcerated) for a breast exam, but, after spending all day in a holding cell, she never gets to see a doctor. And we learn some shocking details about the inmates themselves: the beautiful, sassy, Jamaican Bertie (whose journal entries occasionally sound like Emily Dickinson) killed her four-month-old baby. Occasionally Trounstine descends into pop-psychology victimization (the women here were invariably hurt by a"society that favors others"), but for themostpart she isclearheaded and unsentimental. On the whole, a generous, revealing, honest account.Book Details
Published
February 1, 2001
Publisher
New York : St. Martin's Press, 2001.
Pages
208
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780312246600