Actors For A Day - In Handcuffs

Nearly all the actors from the Icaro Teatro group entering the Bellas Artes, Madrid, where they were to perform in a play, were handcuffed to a policeman who escorted them from the Centre of Penitentiaries Ocana II. They had arrived in a high security armoured police vehicle, each quiet and thoughtful, perhaps rehearsing once more in their mind the dialogues in the play.

Most of the spectators, free, were families and friends of the prisoners, sitting in their patio seats, happy and expectant, anticipating the performance in which the husbands, fathers, brothers or friends were actors for the day, comforted by the thought no doubt, that for the next couple of hours their loved ones were doing something interesting and fun, away from the routine of prison life.

For the other spectators who didn't know them, like myself, I couldn't help conjuring up the images of the other person behind the roll each played, and behind that roll the chain of complex and unknown circumstances entwined in each of these lives before they found themselves behind bars. What had they done? Why? Would this play be healing therapy, or maybe, hope for freedom and a new life when their debt to the society is finally paid?

One of the scenes had 2 prisoners playing prisoners. In the infirmary of the prison, one of them was dying, occupying the better bed with a widow by his side. The other was very envious and would ask him daily to tell what he saw outside. He would smilingly described that the cherry tree was blooming, real pretty. Or the sparrows had built a nest. And another day he told him that the 2 little birdies had made their gingery attempt to fly for the first time, very funny; and the sunset was technicolor and stunning ...

Then one day he died. The other said to himself "Now the window is mine. Surely they would let me have that bed." They did. He had the bed. But when he opened the window, all he saw was a solid high wall there. Nothing else. It was his companion's hope of life of freedom that had taken him beyond the wall.

Silly maybe, but I felt like crying. Not for the disappointment of the one alive, but for the sorrow and spirit of hope that died with the departed. My only solace is that perhaps he had died a free man, flying with the birdies that had finally found their wings.

Tags:TheatrePlay,Prisoners,Window

Current Mood: Cheerful