A prison audience: women prisoners, Shakespeare and spectatorship

ABSTRACT

In 2017 the Donmar Warehouse presented The Tempest to women prisoners at HMP New Hall, UK. The production was part of a trilogy of Shakespeare plays directed by Phyllida Lloyd, each staged with an all-female cast and each set within a women’s prison. Over the five years of developing this trilogy the Donmar undertook extensive research and development into the prison context, including in collaboration with York St John University’s Prison Partnership Project. This paper explores the prison audiences’ experiences of The Tempest, examining how they responded to seeing their own lived experiences on stage, filtered through the prism of Shakespearian plot, characterisation and language. In particular, this paper focuses on moments of identification, where the women found direct resonance and self-recognition with the characters and experiences in The Tempest. At the same time it draws on discourses from dramatherapy and aesthetic theory to argue for the importance of various forms of emotional, empathetic and psychical distance. Using close analysis of the spectators’ responses, it describes how for the prison audience the result was an oscillation between identification and distance, a reading of “me but more than me” that produced a powerful affective and reflective impact.

KEYWORDS:

• Audiences
• theatre
• prison
• Shakespeare
• spectatorship
• empathy

Acknowledgements

Particular thanks are due to Rachel Conlon, Director of the Prison Partnership Project, without whose work in prisons this research would not be possible. To Michelle Daly, Head of Learning and Skills, HMP New Hall. And to all the women who participated in the focus groups for generously giving their opinions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on the contributor

Matthew Reason is Professor of Theatre and Performance at York St John University (UK). Publications include Documentation, Disappearance and the Representation of Live Performance (Palgrave 2006), The Young Audience: Exploring and Enhancing Children’s Experiences of Theatre (Trentham/IOE Press 2010), Kinesthetic Empathy in Creative and Cultural Contexts (co-edited with Dee Reynolds, Intellect 2012), Experiencing Liveness in Contemporary Performance (co-edited with Anja Mølle Lindelof, Routledge 2016) and Applied Practice: Evidence and Impact Across Theatre, Music and Dance (co-edited with Nick Rowe, Bloomsbury 2017). For further information visit www.matthewreason.com