American filmmaker Greg Kwedar, like most of us, had a completely stereotypical and erroneous view of prison and the people incarcerated there before he produced a short documentary about a maximum security penitentiary in Kansas. And yet, it only took one image for the foundations of his beliefs to be shaken forever.
“While visiting the premises, I passed by a cell in which I saw a young man training a guide dog, and it completely overturned all my preconceived ideas,” says the filmmaker, met by videoconference by The duty. Seeing this young man and this dog, I felt the healing happening in both directions. From then on, I was desperate to know who else in the community had the courage to do things differently.”
That same night, in his hotel room, Greg Kwedar rushed to do a web search. The first results all pointed in the same direction: Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA), a program that, as its name suggests, helps incarcerated people reintegrate into society through the arts, modeling an approach to the justice system based on human dignity rather than punishment, and which has, over the years, produced a multitude of plays from the classical repertoire.
“The initiative had been widely covered in the press, but I came across this article in the magazine Esquirewhich was about a production that ran in 2005 for two nights only; a musical about time travel called Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code. It just blew me away, the mix of the playfulness of the work they were creating and the dark environment of the prison. It seemed so alive and so immediate, like they were inviting me into their world to try to tell a story.
From this feeling was born Sing Sing, a feature-length fiction film in which Divine G (Colman Domingo), imprisoned in Sing Sing Penitentiary for a crime he didn’t commit, manages to keep his head above water by getting involved with a theater troupe of fellow inmates. When the members convince Divine Eye (Clarence Maclin as himself)—a nervous, suspicious, but daring prisoner—to join the group, he proposes to stage the troupe’s first comedy; an experience that proves to be as eye-opening as it is transformative.
Community and collaboration
Greg Kwedar threw himself into the project head first, treating his subject as a journalist would, interviewing people involved in the initiative as well as various participants in the theater program, then choosing, with his accomplice and co-writer Clint Bentley, to build the entire project as a community.
“Brent, the troupe’s teacher, invited us to lunch at his apartment with several former participants of the program, including the real Divine G and Divine Eye. There was an incredible energy, beauty, warmth and humor around the table. From that moment on, I wanted to take that feeling and recreate it on film. But figuring out how to do that was harder than I expected,” the director explains.
The lead role – that of Divine G – was entrusted to the renowned actor Colman Domingo (Euphoria, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) who didn’t hesitate for a second to accept the co-writers’ offer. “I saw in this project everything that theater represents to me — an art that has the power to change lives, and to give us tools for healing and tools to express ourselves. I also really liked the vision of the creators of this project, Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley, who organized their set in a very collaborative way. They came to the table with some ideas, but they also really wanted to hear my voice as an actor, director, writer and producer to help them realize the powerful film they had in mind. And I think we did it. This work represents everything I want to accomplish as an artist.”
Taking back control of your history
The filmmaker also chose to cast several former RTA participants to play roles in the film alongside the professional actors. The process was very collaborative, and while much of the script—mostly the one about the friendship between Divine G and Divine Eye that forms the backbone of the narrative—was scripted in detail, the entire portion of the preparation and staging of the show left plenty of room for improvisation, truth, and the personalities of the different actors.
Giving roles to former prisoners was also a way for the filmmaker to give them back a certain form of power over their story and over the traumas caused by the prison experience.
So the film crew chose to shoot a large part of it in the hyper-realistic setting of a former prison facility, which had been decommissioned for a few months. “It was a place where several members of the cast had been incarcerated at one point in their lives. So it was essential to understand what we were asking of them. Would returning to these places revive the trauma? The worst part, I think, was putting the “greens” back on, these prison clothes. You know, many of our actors no longer wear green in their daily clothes since they came home, some for more than ten years. I think that making the transition from the mandatory uniform to the costume, to embody a character, stimulated a form of agency in the participants, who became free for the first time to tell their own story,” says Greg Kwedar.
Clarence — Divine Eye — Maclin, who plays himself in the film, agrees. “I was extremely nervous about putting myself in that uniform again. But all my apprehensions melted away when I realized the real purpose of what we were doing, how we had the power to awaken people to our existence and our reality. I want people to know that my brothers who are still in prison are human beings, that they want to contribute to society and that they deserve a chance.”
The portion of the film devoted to the staging and presentation of the play is delightful, embracing in its entirety the chaos, playfulness, vulnerability and upheaval involved in the process of creation and the act of getting on stage. “Being invited into this program and this creative space was transformative. I remember like it was yesterday pulling into the parking lot of this maximum security prison called Green Haven, and walking into this place where every door closes behind you and makes your bones tremble. But when I walked into that classroom, it was literally like going from black and white to color. I was suddenly surrounded by people who were driven by an intense desire to be seen beyond the barriers and masks, and who were discovering the most beautiful things in themselves every day,” recalls Greg Kwedar.
“Being involved in theatre and experiencing life through someone else’s eyes has given me tools to deal with some of the things I was going through. It’s also a great privilege to be able to show others that they are not alone in their struggles, and that the stage can offer them solutions and change their lives,” concludes Clarence Maclin.
Sing Sing hits theaters on August 9.