Theater Review: Between The Bars Shows Jail Is A Human Cage
Between The Bars asks a sincere question, “Why do we put people on jail? For them to pay for their sins or pay for ours?” Jail is no joke, which I know you have heard that “phrase” before. The mere fact that it is called “The Pen” references how you can feel like a mindless chicken quacking around a room waiting to be eaten. In some ways, that is what its cast of characters feel: like the chewed up and spit out portions of a society that does not even know how to cook for itself. Playing at Here Theater, located on 145 6th Ave, New York, NY 10013 , until October 30, Between The Bars asks us to ponder how a “healthy world” aim
I always say not every sin is a crime and not every crime is a sin, but we do treat criminals like the moral worst, of which their material devastation is merited. Heck! Even the fact that a prisoner can have healthcare or a book pisses people off, but Between The Bars brings a whole other understanding to what it means to live your life outside of Life. Juan Arturo’s Zeke/ McGee, Castarphen’s Massoud Chad/ Tabor, Akeil Davis’ Mohawk/ BJ, Katie Mack’s Sorrel/Eve, and Nowani Rattray’s Kaley,/ Tisah in a “womb of hell;” hoping to be released/ birthed, but knowing their life and social value is forever defined by their “time.” The ebbs flows of their rage, sadness, confusion, and overall characters flaws makes this 90 minute play, with no intermission, draw you in like a needle drawing out blood. Through their agony we ask ourselves why we presume pain is a better teacher? Could it be because we really do not believe in healing or reform?
When Arturo’s Zeke is not an abusive jerk with jealousy issues over his loyal girlfriend, Mack’s Eve, he plays poetic genius,McGee, that is too aware ail is not only for “criminals” as much as a societal outcasts like, Chad (Christopher Mowod), a young man whose abusive mom (Carol Todd’s Arlene) would toss him away to anyone, including cops so as to be rid of him. This, of course, leads to BRUTAL violence toward him, of which he replicates unto himself. Yet, characters like, Castarphen’s Attis prove your own family can train you to believe you should be broken, but that does not mean you still don’t break the people who build you such as his girlfriend Rattray’s Tisah. In some ways, each character pushes the audience to question the usefulness of caging a human being so as to quell their “animalistic” nature. After all, who has ever felt free while being cooped up? Still, for the women who love these prisoners, being on the “outside” can still be caging.
Between The Bars does not shy away from calling out misogny or chauvinism, even if Sri miles are a victim to society. Somehow, these men, manage to dominate and cast a spell of male privilege over the women that see their light. Mackie’s Eve bakes cookies and stands by Zeke as he chips at her self-esteem and while Tisah discovers the details that prove Attis’ innocence with the said promise that they would start life together once he was out. Yet, these men only want “women” according to how they make them feel revived in a place that would deaden Life itself. With an exemplar cast, these tiny hypocrisies that fuel their hell makes Between The Bars a different compared to other plays determined to show what we should already know: JAIL IS HELL!
Directed by Benjamin Viertel and written by Lynn Clay Byrne, Between Bars displays you don’t, necessarily, become a saint because you are suffering but you don’t, necessarily, become a demon because you are criminal. Thus, no one should be exalted or exiled, but yet those seem to be the only societal options in dealing with human being: either elevate them to demagoguery or demonize them to hell. By humanizing prisoners, they try to assert what I have been saying along, justice, in America, is strictly punishing and enslaving while veiled as reformative. Yet, if you do not see someone as human, how can you create a system that makes them better?
