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Chapter 19 - ‘All Corners Else o’th’Earth Let Liberty Make Use Of’

The Shakespeare Prison Project

from Part V - Reimagining Performance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2023

By
Steve Dunne  and
Rob Pensalfini
Edited by
Liam E. Semler ,
Claire Hansen  and
Jacqueline Manuel
Liam E. Semler
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
Claire Hansen
Affiliation:
Australian National University, Canberra
Jacqueline Manuel
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
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Summary

A director who has facilitated Shakespeare programmes in prisons for fifteen years in conversation with a former prisoner who served eighteen years and who participated in four of those programmes. The authors explore the ways in which performative Shakespeare programmes fill a niche otherwise unoccupied in the prison system – a recreational programme that offers opportunities for collaboration, growth and the development of empathic and communication skills that are not constrained by a deficit-based and outcome-oriented pedagogy. The programme offers models of camaraderie and support that are not ‘in opposition to’ other groups, and promotes collaborative over individual achievement. The development of intrinsic motivation is a key component in functioning as a free citizen, but is actively discouraged by the correctional system. Prison Shakespeare programmes develop these skills in addition to offering a practical critique to the model of ‘toughness’ promoted by the prisoners’ own cultural milieu. The chapter speaks to the value of recreation for its own sake, and how it can be a vital component in both education and rehabilitation precisely because it does not set out to do either.

Keywords

prisonrecreationempathycamaraderieincarcerationrehabilitation
Type
Chapter
Information
Reimagining Shakespeare Education
Teaching and Learning through Collaboration
 , pp. 295 - 306
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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References

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Pensalfini, Rob, 2016. Prison Shakespeare: For these Deep Shames and Great Indignities (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pensalfini, Rob, 2019. ‘The Play’s the Thing: Performance in Prison Shakespeare’, in Balfour, Michael, Bartleet, Brydie-Leigh, Davey, Linda, Rynne, John, and Schippers, Huib (eds.), Performing Arts in Prisons: Captive Audiences (Bristol: Intellect), chap. 9.Google Scholar
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