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B Side: Shakespeare Behind Bars
Aired February 13, 2003 - 14:53 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, ANCHOR: How I may compare this prison where I live unto the world. That line from Shakespeare's "Richard II" has special meaning for a group of inmates in a Kentucky prison. Poetic justice?
CNN,'s Bruce Burkhardt, on the "B Side" with Shakespeare behind bars.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Canst thou remember a time before we came into this cell?
I killed my wife.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When they will not give anything to reveal a lame beggar, they will lay out 10 to see a dead Indian.
I'm doing a life sentence for murder.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pinch me, relieve me like a fire burned in the dark. Out of my way.
Sixty-five years, 45 years for murder and 20 years for armed robbery.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have suffered with those and I still suffer.
BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They are murders, thieves and sex offenders, but in this room, the visitors room of the Luther Lockett Correctional Center near Louisville, Kentucky, in this room, they're Shakespearian actors.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tell prance was a delicate wench.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In Hamlet, there is a line that says to hold this up to the mirror of nature. And I believe that when you inhabit one of these characters, that you can look at that character's mistakes and see your mistakes that made in that character.
DEMON BUSH, PRISON INMATE: Shakespeare is like a beacon, a light maybe in a big, dark ocean.
BURKHARDT: Long have we known the power of Shakespeare, its power to speak through the ages and elevate the human spirit. But here, among people who have done just horrible things, well, maybe that's the ultimate power of Shakespeare. Redemption here, that, plus Kurt Toflan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do I want at the performance? I want the truth.
BURKHARDT: The truth. Thanks to Kurt, the longtime director of the Kentucky Shakespeare festival, many of the inmates are confronting the truth for the first time. The truth of what they did and why they did it. It's called Shakespeare behind bars.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But for your conscience.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Aye, sir, where lies that?
BURKHARDT: With the support of the Kentucky Shakespeare festival volunteers his time here. It costs the prison nothing. Free and it works.
(SINGING)
(UNINTELLIGIBLE) A lot of them discover they have an intellect, but they're not stupid. They've been told that they were stupid. And for a lot of the guys, they discover they're intelligent. And that discovery is a huge epiphany for them. And they get hungry.
BURKHARDT:
But should that hunger be satisfied?
This is a prison, after all. And these people are being punished for what they did. But as Kurt, reasons, most of them will also be leaving here at some point.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So the question that we have to ask -- I have to ask, is if they're coming out to a mall near you and me, a neighborhood near you and me, who do I want to live next to?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kurt doesn't excuse any of our actions in the past, but he realizes that they're in the past. And he also realizes that change is a possibility.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wipe thou. Wipe thou thy eyes.
BURKHARDT: This Shakespeare company, the play, is not the thing, it's the process. And Kurt, more therapist than director, is prepping these inmates for the real opening night, the day they walk out of here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Both their theory and my passion with its sweet air.
BURKHARDT: For many of us on the outside, Shakespeare might be great literature, great art, but here this is not about art appreciation. It's about self knowledge. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why did -- the death scene was just almost identical to the crime that I committed, to the murder that I committed.
BURKHARDT: In 1983, Sammy Byron strangled to death his mistress. Then a few weeks ago he played the part of Othello. His best friend played the female role of Desdemona.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And so, what the program allowed me to do is in Othello's rage, I was able to look at -- to see my friend as Desdomona and see the sheer terror in his eyes as Othello is strangling her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You vexes...
BURKHARDT: Love, hate, fear, revenge. All the great Shakespearian themes acted out by most of these prisoners while they were on the outside but never thought about, not until the bard and Kurt came inside.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good work, guys. That was good work.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Bruce, you've talked to men on the outside, men that went through this program and have now been released.
How successful is it?
BURKHARDT: I talked to one fellow who got out about a year ago. He said it helps with the coping skills. It helps them to think in a way they were never used to thinking. And exploring themselves in a way they were never used to exploring themselves. But as far as the success of the program, it's difficult to measure. Not enough people have gone through it. But the warden I talked to clearly believes in it, and I think about maybe 50 people have been through the program in the last seven or eight years that it's been going on. And of those, only two have returned to prison, who were released and that was for parole violations.
PHILLIPS: All right, now, taking the other side here, you're hearing about these murders that they've committed.
What about the victims?
BURKHARDT: Yes, that's the tough -- obviously the tough question here. I asked Kurt about that, and he said he would work with the victims in the same way if it was at all feasible to have them in one place at one time. But ultimately, this is a story about the fact that these people are going to get out, whether we like it or not, 10, 20, 30 years. They're getting out. So as he said, it's a question of who do we want to live next to us? What kind of people do we want rejoining society? I mean, there is no question these people committed awful crimes. But they are coming out.
PHILLIPS: So now the play, they're going to perform in May before friends?
BURKHARDT: It all builds up to a production in May. They do two shows, one right there in the prison, in that kind of the visitors room, one for inmates and then another one family and other friends coming in.
PHILLIPS: Bruce Burkhardt, I know you're probably going to go, so you'll come back and let us know how it was?
BURKHARDT: I hope we get to see it.
PHILLIPS: All right. Thanks, Bruce.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired February 13, 2003 - 14:53 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, ANCHOR: How I may compare this prison where I live unto the world. That line from Shakespeare's "Richard II" has special meaning for a group of inmates in a Kentucky prison. Poetic justice?
CNN,'s Bruce Burkhardt, on the "B Side" with Shakespeare behind bars.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Canst thou remember a time before we came into this cell?
I killed my wife.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When they will not give anything to reveal a lame beggar, they will lay out 10 to see a dead Indian.
I'm doing a life sentence for murder.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pinch me, relieve me like a fire burned in the dark. Out of my way.
Sixty-five years, 45 years for murder and 20 years for armed robbery.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have suffered with those and I still suffer.
BRUCE BURKHARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They are murders, thieves and sex offenders, but in this room, the visitors room of the Luther Lockett Correctional Center near Louisville, Kentucky, in this room, they're Shakespearian actors.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tell prance was a delicate wench.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In Hamlet, there is a line that says to hold this up to the mirror of nature. And I believe that when you inhabit one of these characters, that you can look at that character's mistakes and see your mistakes that made in that character.
DEMON BUSH, PRISON INMATE: Shakespeare is like a beacon, a light maybe in a big, dark ocean.
BURKHARDT: Long have we known the power of Shakespeare, its power to speak through the ages and elevate the human spirit. But here, among people who have done just horrible things, well, maybe that's the ultimate power of Shakespeare. Redemption here, that, plus Kurt Toflan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do I want at the performance? I want the truth.
BURKHARDT: The truth. Thanks to Kurt, the longtime director of the Kentucky Shakespeare festival, many of the inmates are confronting the truth for the first time. The truth of what they did and why they did it. It's called Shakespeare behind bars.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But for your conscience.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Aye, sir, where lies that?
BURKHARDT: With the support of the Kentucky Shakespeare festival volunteers his time here. It costs the prison nothing. Free and it works.
(SINGING)
(UNINTELLIGIBLE) A lot of them discover they have an intellect, but they're not stupid. They've been told that they were stupid. And for a lot of the guys, they discover they're intelligent. And that discovery is a huge epiphany for them. And they get hungry.
BURKHARDT:
But should that hunger be satisfied?
This is a prison, after all. And these people are being punished for what they did. But as Kurt, reasons, most of them will also be leaving here at some point.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So the question that we have to ask -- I have to ask, is if they're coming out to a mall near you and me, a neighborhood near you and me, who do I want to live next to?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kurt doesn't excuse any of our actions in the past, but he realizes that they're in the past. And he also realizes that change is a possibility.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wipe thou. Wipe thou thy eyes.
BURKHARDT: This Shakespeare company, the play, is not the thing, it's the process. And Kurt, more therapist than director, is prepping these inmates for the real opening night, the day they walk out of here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Both their theory and my passion with its sweet air.
BURKHARDT: For many of us on the outside, Shakespeare might be great literature, great art, but here this is not about art appreciation. It's about self knowledge. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why did -- the death scene was just almost identical to the crime that I committed, to the murder that I committed.
BURKHARDT: In 1983, Sammy Byron strangled to death his mistress. Then a few weeks ago he played the part of Othello. His best friend played the female role of Desdemona.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And so, what the program allowed me to do is in Othello's rage, I was able to look at -- to see my friend as Desdomona and see the sheer terror in his eyes as Othello is strangling her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You vexes...
BURKHARDT: Love, hate, fear, revenge. All the great Shakespearian themes acted out by most of these prisoners while they were on the outside but never thought about, not until the bard and Kurt came inside.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good work, guys. That was good work.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Bruce, you've talked to men on the outside, men that went through this program and have now been released.
How successful is it?
BURKHARDT: I talked to one fellow who got out about a year ago. He said it helps with the coping skills. It helps them to think in a way they were never used to thinking. And exploring themselves in a way they were never used to exploring themselves. But as far as the success of the program, it's difficult to measure. Not enough people have gone through it. But the warden I talked to clearly believes in it, and I think about maybe 50 people have been through the program in the last seven or eight years that it's been going on. And of those, only two have returned to prison, who were released and that was for parole violations.
PHILLIPS: All right, now, taking the other side here, you're hearing about these murders that they've committed.
What about the victims?
BURKHARDT: Yes, that's the tough -- obviously the tough question here. I asked Kurt about that, and he said he would work with the victims in the same way if it was at all feasible to have them in one place at one time. But ultimately, this is a story about the fact that these people are going to get out, whether we like it or not, 10, 20, 30 years. They're getting out. So as he said, it's a question of who do we want to live next to us? What kind of people do we want rejoining society? I mean, there is no question these people committed awful crimes. But they are coming out.
PHILLIPS: So now the play, they're going to perform in May before friends?
BURKHARDT: It all builds up to a production in May. They do two shows, one right there in the prison, in that kind of the visitors room, one for inmates and then another one family and other friends coming in.
PHILLIPS: Bruce Burkhardt, I know you're probably going to go, so you'll come back and let us know how it was?
BURKHARDT: I hope we get to see it.
PHILLIPS: All right. Thanks, Bruce.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
