Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama In A Women's Prison [Hardcover]

Jean Trounstine (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312246609 | ISBN-13: 978-0312246600 | Publication Date: February 19, 2001 | Edition: 1st

A deeply stirring account of one woman's experience teaching drama to women in prison.

I began to understand that female prisoners are not "damaged goods" and to recognize that most of these women had toughed it out in a society that favors others-- by gender, class, or race. They are Desdemonas suffering because of jealous men, Lady Macbeths craving the power of their spouses, Portias disguised as men in order to get ahead, and Shylocks who, being betrayed, take the law into their own hands.

So writes Jean Trounstine in Shakespeare Behind Bars. In this gripping account, Trounstine who spent ten years teaching at Framingham Women's Prison in Massachusetts, focuses on six inmates who, each in her own way, discover in the power of great drama a way to transcend the painful constraints of incarceration. We meet:

* Dolly, a fiftyish grandmother who brings her knitting to classes and starts a battered-women's group in prison
*Bertie, 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
* Rose, an outsider in the prison community who lives with HIV and eventually gains acceptance through drama
* Rhonda, a college-educated leader whose life falls apart when her father dies and who struggles in prison to reestablish her roots
* Mamie, a nurse in the free world, now the prison gardener who makes cards with poetry and dried flowers and battles her own illness behind bars

Shakespeare Behind Bars is a uniquely powerful work that gives voice to forgotten women, shed a compassionate light on a dark world, and proves the redemptive power of art and education.

Editorial Reviews

From 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 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From 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 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (February 19, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312246609
• ISBN-13: 978-0312246600
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,292,411 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am a professor of humanities at Middlesex Community College in Lowell Massachusetts, and I specialize in writing, literature and theatre courses. I am never bored! I became a writer because of needing to write about working in prison. I needed to tell stories of the amazing women behind bars.

At Framingham Women's Prison in Massachusetts, I directed eight productions, including THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. Drawing from music history, women's history, art, literature and drama, the program eventually earned college credit and was nominated for a prestigious Schwartz Award, considered by the Mass Foundation for Humanities as the most successful project funded in 1988. It is the basis of my first book SHAKESPEARE BEHIND BARS: THE POWER OF DRAMA IN A WOMEN'S PRISON, published by St. Martin's Press, 2001.

Prison work changed me, and I've written many articles about teaching offenders and been featured on The Today Show, All Things Considered-NPR, and The Connection. I co-edited an anthology of writings used in the Changing Lives Through Literature Program, published by Notre Dame Press, a program I helped to establish for women in Massachusetts (see cltl.umassd.com), where criminals are sentenced to a literature seminar and probation instead of jail. Because of that work, I also coauthored FINDING A VOICE: THE PRACTICE OF CHANGING LIVES THROUGH LITERATURE, published by the University of Michigan Press (which also recently published the paperback of SBB).

My first collection of poetry, ALMOST HOME FREE, a collection of poetry about the journey of cancer -- I'm a survivor -- was published by Pecan Grove Press in 2003 and received enthusiastically.

Most recently I've co-edited a book with Karen Propp, WHY I'M STILL MARRIED, published by Hudson Street Press, an imprint of Penguin, 2006. Essayists include a slew of great writers!

I live more happily than not with my husband in Massachusetts.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lives enlarged by by art, May 4, 2001

By 

Eileen Galen (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama In A Women's Prison (Hardcover)

In 1988 drama professor Jean Trounstine received tentative permission to teach acting and rehearse a play with a volunteer group of inmates (serving time for felonies) at the Framingham Women's Prison, the highest-security women's prison in Massachusetts. She chose "The Merchant of Venice" (later on, "Lysistrata," "A Doll's House," and "Arsenic and Old Lace") for its potential to challenge and instruct - and because of her hunch that the women who participated in her classes might benefit immeasurably from art and the intense experience of learning to make theater - and actually doing it, as a team.

The experience was much larger and emotionally affecting for all involved than she could have predicted: both she and her six participants were transformed by this ambitious, consciousness-raising and, ultimately, healing endeavor.

Trounstine describes the project from its beginnings: it's a class some sign up for to alleviate crushing boredom - or because it's an alternative they prefer to aerobics class or volleyball. Trounstine introduces the (future) cast members: Dolly, Bertie, Kit, Rose, Rhonda, and Mamie, each in her own chapter. There's not a lot about their lives before incarceration (prison authorities frown on Trounstine's knowing any histories), and much more about who they are - and who they become - in acting class. The women learn the art of improvisation: initially skeptical, but soon with real commitment. They literally expand their consciousnesses via these exercises; they erxperience the thrill of a true group effort, and then their view of what is possible. It's a joy to watch - and to read about.

The vicissitudes of prison life are center stage, as are and the ups and downs of the women's personal relationships within and outside of the class. Trounstine is not naïve in her respect for, and sensitivity to, her students. She is the best kind of teacher. Later, she suggests reading material and is frustrated by prison rules that are constant roadblocks, she feels, to inmate welfare. Some of her students have serious chronic health problems. She is often moved to tears by what she hears and sees

Trounstine's reporting method includes lengthy verbatim conversations. Readers who enjoy dialogue will not be disappointed: the voices are here, clear as day. In addition Trounstine is generous to a fault in the sharing of her impressions and thoughts along the way. The story is moving and important and a convincing plea for the ability of art and education to transform lives. Not surprisingly, this book and the story it tells make a convincing case for significant changes to American women's prisons.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Moving story of the power of drama and connection, May 4, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama In A Women's Prison (Hardcover)

I found this book quite moving. Rather than make this book about her own experience, the author gives the story to the women, several prisoners in Framingham Women's Prison, as she brings us into their lives. There is a stark contrast between the world of the prison and the world the women create in their literature and drama classes; one is harsh and rigid, full of "no's," while the other is life-affirming and respectful. Trounstine lets us into both those worlds in a way that is both absorbing and compelling. I came to care about all of them, to root for their successes and care about their setbacks. And I feel both sad and angry that the programs described in the book are no longer available in the name of being "tough on crime."