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Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama in a Women's Prison
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.
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.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published February 19, 2001
4 people are currently reading
72 people want to read
About the author
Jean Trounstine
10 books4 followersI am an activist, author and professor emerita at Middlesex Community College in Lowell, Massachusetts and my latest book is "Boy With A Knife: A Story of Murder, Remorse, and a Prisoner’s Fight for Justice" (IG Publishing April, 2016). It explores the true story of Karter Kane Reed and the injustice of sentencing juveniles to adult prisons.
I worked at Framingham Women’s Prison for ten years where I directed eight plays with prisoners. My book about that work, "Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama in a Women’s Prison" has been featured on NPR, The Connection, Here and Now, and in numerous print publications here and abroad. In addition, I've spoken around the world on women in prison, co-founded the women’s branch of Changing Lives Through Literature, an award-winning alternative sentencing program featured in The New York Times and on The Today Show, and co-authored two books about the program. I published a book of poetry, "Almost Home Free," and co-edited the New England best-seller," Why I’m Still Married: Women Write Their Hearts Out On Love, Loss, Sex, and Who Does the Dishes." I am also on the steering committee of the Coalition for Effective Public Safety in Massachusetts.
When I'm not spinning or with friends and family, I take apart the criminal justice system brick by brick for magazines and blogs such as Boston Magazine, Truthout.org, the Rag Blog and Huffington Post.
I worked at Framingham Women’s Prison for ten years where I directed eight plays with prisoners. My book about that work, "Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama in a Women’s Prison" has been featured on NPR, The Connection, Here and Now, and in numerous print publications here and abroad. In addition, I've spoken around the world on women in prison, co-founded the women’s branch of Changing Lives Through Literature, an award-winning alternative sentencing program featured in The New York Times and on The Today Show, and co-authored two books about the program. I published a book of poetry, "Almost Home Free," and co-edited the New England best-seller," Why I’m Still Married: Women Write Their Hearts Out On Love, Loss, Sex, and Who Does the Dishes." I am also on the steering committee of the Coalition for Effective Public Safety in Massachusetts.
When I'm not spinning or with friends and family, I take apart the criminal justice system brick by brick for magazines and blogs such as Boston Magazine, Truthout.org, the Rag Blog and Huffington Post.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 20, 2012
Trounstine takes her teaching experience in the Framingham prison system and creates a dramatic tale of women, who commit wrongs and yet are wronged themselves. I expected to be moved, but honestly not quite this much. I'd like to read more updated materials on similar experiences from other teachers, because it was hard for me to picture female prisoners having the privilege of wearing their own clothing and getting the opportunity to don costumes while in the crossbar hotel. Then again, Trounstine's teaching years for this book were during the eighties and early nineties, so the rules weren't quite as strict.
She molds the prisoners into experienced actors and playwrights. These women rewrite "The Merchant of Venice" and "The Taming of the Shrew" (Rapshrew - brilliant!) into contemporary language in order to put on a performance in prison, and thus dispel the notion that Shakespeare is the "white man's theater" as they put it. I found myself trying not to cry when I read about the cheers and standing ovations they received after their first performance, and again reading about Jean's final experiences with each woman.
I recommend this reading to everyone as it encourages the idea that art programs can bring valuable therapy to criminals and possibly reduce recidivism.
She molds the prisoners into experienced actors and playwrights. These women rewrite "The Merchant of Venice" and "The Taming of the Shrew" (Rapshrew - brilliant!) into contemporary language in order to put on a performance in prison, and thus dispel the notion that Shakespeare is the "white man's theater" as they put it. I found myself trying not to cry when I read about the cheers and standing ovations they received after their first performance, and again reading about Jean's final experiences with each woman.
I recommend this reading to everyone as it encourages the idea that art programs can bring valuable therapy to criminals and possibly reduce recidivism.
October 31, 2021
Shakespeare Behind Bars describes how, in the late 1980’s, Jean Trounstine managed to put on the first play at Framingham, the only high security women’s prison in the state of Massachusetts. She chose Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.
The themes of justice, mercy, the value of life, and our common humanity resonate with the women who suffer in so many ways: their dehumanizing prison life, where several of them serve life sentences; their sense of guilt and regret; and, most of all, their family problems. By contrast, the shabby room where they rehearse becomes a space of freedom and acceptance where they can support each other as a team. It is they who work together to adapt Shakespeare’s language to make it accessible to the prison audience. In the process they see that they have value, and they feel empowered to imagine a life beyond Framingham’s walls where many of them eventually will succeed. The prison audience, too, understands, protesting the humiliation of Shylock because they recognize that “there are some things you cannot do even in the name of justice.”
Unfortunately, a few years later the prison no longer allows inmates this opportunity for growth. Theater performances are cut along with higher education classes. Yet the lives of these women viscerally demonstrate that we must fundamentally change our punitive way of dealing with prisoners.
Five stars seems inadequate for such a powerful and moving book. Everyone would benefit from Shakespeare Behind Bars, and it should be on the syllabi in classes from high school through college. Gabrielle Robinson Author
The themes of justice, mercy, the value of life, and our common humanity resonate with the women who suffer in so many ways: their dehumanizing prison life, where several of them serve life sentences; their sense of guilt and regret; and, most of all, their family problems. By contrast, the shabby room where they rehearse becomes a space of freedom and acceptance where they can support each other as a team. It is they who work together to adapt Shakespeare’s language to make it accessible to the prison audience. In the process they see that they have value, and they feel empowered to imagine a life beyond Framingham’s walls where many of them eventually will succeed. The prison audience, too, understands, protesting the humiliation of Shylock because they recognize that “there are some things you cannot do even in the name of justice.”
Unfortunately, a few years later the prison no longer allows inmates this opportunity for growth. Theater performances are cut along with higher education classes. Yet the lives of these women viscerally demonstrate that we must fundamentally change our punitive way of dealing with prisoners.
Five stars seems inadequate for such a powerful and moving book. Everyone would benefit from Shakespeare Behind Bars, and it should be on the syllabi in classes from high school through college. Gabrielle Robinson Author
August 29, 2017
I wanted to like this book, I really did. But I couldn't turn off my editing brain the whole time. First, the afterword about compositing of characters and rearranging of the actual timeline should really have been a preface so the reader already knows that we're being shown essentially staged reenactments. Second, I wish the book had been structured chronologically, rather than loosely grouped into chapters that each vaguely centered a different inmate-- the result was that several anecdotes were told multiple times and the narrative seemed jumbled. Maybe it's just that in 2017 we have multiple seasons of OITNB with nuanced portrayals of women inmates as complex humans, but I also felt like the portrayals of the women in this book (copyright 2001) seemed flat and sometimes cartoonish. I'm also sort of the choir in this case, in that I'm all for arts and education programs in prisons, so maybe the stories here aren't necessarily aimed at me. So it wasn't unpleasant, but I wanted more from the book than what I got, I guess.
(Also, Shakespeare doesn't seem to feature a whole hell of a lot, given the title, but that's as may be)
(Also, Shakespeare doesn't seem to feature a whole hell of a lot, given the title, but that's as may be)
March 4, 2018
A teacher's story of teaching Shakespeare to women in prison. Not well written, bit self-indulgent but she's done great work. Fave quote: "Change happens when we read a book and a character sits inside us…Sometimes change is as small as an emotional half smile, the tilt of a head in response to a new idea."
April 24, 2009
This powerful and emotionally riveting memoir is the account of Jean Trounstine's experience teaching female inmates in a medium-security prison in Massachusetts. She starts with a college-level literature course (some of the women earn their degrees while in prison) and ends with a full-blown production of Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice." Each chapter focuses on a different inmate and her personal experiences with the class.
I fell in love with the concept of prisoners performing Shakespeare back when I first saw the documentary by the same name a few years ago. It's about the same program, only it takes place in a men's prison and the inmates perform "The Tempest." Both the book and the film aim to demonstrate the redemptive and healing power of art, specifically, theater. They both try to humanize the inmates without justifying their crimes. Most of all, they challenge stereotypes of what a prisoner should be like.
I fell in love with the concept of prisoners performing Shakespeare back when I first saw the documentary by the same name a few years ago. It's about the same program, only it takes place in a men's prison and the inmates perform "The Tempest." Both the book and the film aim to demonstrate the redemptive and healing power of art, specifically, theater. They both try to humanize the inmates without justifying their crimes. Most of all, they challenge stereotypes of what a prisoner should be like.
May 21, 2014
Self-serving book about relatively spoiled prisoners in a drama program. There are so so many fantastic programs & stories from the penal system in prisons that this woman's "struggle" just doesn't hold much weight. A nice example was when she got special permission to bring them period costumes to try on, she let them run around the hall disrupting other classes, & when she's told dress up time is over she presents it as basically killing her students' souls, despite what today seems like a ridiculously lax rules in the prison, considering the crimes. Just not a good book in any way.
July 21, 2015
This examination of life in prison being transformed by the infusion of culture/education is simply not as detailed or focused as ones like Running The Books. I felt like I was reading an outline or overview of Trounstine's experience rather than the memoir itself . . . perhaps a function of her odd writing choice to create composite characters from pieces of the real-life women she encountered and to reconstruct dialogue in a similar compound style.
October 1, 2012
This examination of life in prison being transformed by the infusion of culture/education is simply not as detailed or focused as ones like Running The Books. I felt like I was reading an outline or overview of Trounstine's experience rather than the memoir itself . . . perhaps a function of her odd writing choice to create composite characters from pieces of the real-life women she encountered and to reconstruct dialogue in a similar compound style.
May 2, 2008
It;s becoming a good story to read. It;s mostly about woman who got locked up. And Shakespear just did a play on it...Opps I gave it away
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews