{"id":7850,"date":"2013-10-16T08:45:12","date_gmt":"2013-10-16T15:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=7850"},"modified":"2013-10-23T11:50:59","modified_gmt":"2013-10-23T18:50:59","slug":"fractured-reality-prison-theatre-project-reveals-humanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2013\/10\/16\/fractured-reality-prison-theatre-project-reveals-humanity\/","title":{"rendered":"Fractured reality: Victoria’s William Head on Stage prison theatre project reveals humanity"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a story about a live theatre production featuring puppets. But it\u2019s also a story about men in prison. How these two things intersect is the tale of William Head on Stage, the only theatre production company in Canada that holds public theatre inside a federal correctional facility.<\/p>\n

Co-directors Ingrid Hansen of SNAFU Dance and Peter Balkwill of the Old Trout Puppet Workshop have many different images burned in their minds from working on Fractured Fables: The Prison Puppet Project,<\/i> featuring the collective works of over 25 inmates locked up in a facility outside Victoria in Metchosin. But, unlike the marginalized understanding of what goes on inside of a prison, Hansen and Balkwill have seen what happens when the voiceless are given a voice. Even if that voice comes from a puppet on the end of their hand.<\/p>\n

The rewards of misfortune<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ingrid Hansen began working with inmates at William Head six years ago, teaching drama workshops at the prison. Since 1983, prisoners at the minimum-security penitentiary have been putting on one or two plays a year, bringing the public inside the walls of the prison for productions that have, again and again, received rave reviews. Hansen herself has been the director of several of these.<\/p>\n

And while the challenges of directing any type of theatre are rewarding enough on their own, Hansen says seeing the hard work and devotion that William Head\u2019s inmates put into to their productions is something she takes with her every time she leaves rehearsals and exits back through the prison gates.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe left prison tonight after a long, slogging day of technical rehearsals, and as we left I turned around to see one guy in particular who really struggles with the material with a huge grin on his face,\u201d says Hansen. \u201cSome of these guys are gearing up for their eventual release back into society to live as our neighbors again, and I feel honored to watch the guys tackle this challenge together.\u201d<\/p>\n

After studying with Peter Balkwill at his Banff Puppet Intensive, Hansen recognized a \u201cpassionate, caring, and inventive teacher\u201d in Balkwill and approached him about doing a show with the inmates at William Head. Almost two years later and the show, which features puppet-driven fables based on the real-life stories of the incarcerated men, is ready to be mounted.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
An example of one of the puppets used by a prisoner during the theatre project (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now that he\u2019s worked with the inmates, Balkwill will always have their \u201cvoracity,\u201d \u201cdedication,\u201d and \u201cattention to craft\u201d in the forefront of his mind. Still, the feeling he got when he first entered the prison was also unforgettable, but in a different way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a little sick to my stomach, I have to admit,\u201d says Balkwill of his first trip in to work with the inmates. \u201cI didn\u2019t feel that way when I eventually got to the place where we\u2019d be working, but just initially, through the whole gate area. It\u2019s the same kind of nausea that I experience when I go into a hospital. I think it\u2019s the strict institution, that idea that this is a place where people are incarcerated for many, many years of their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

A constant supporter<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some people would balk at going into a prison to see live theatre. The perceptions of safety and being in close proximity to what they consider to be criminal minds would keep a portion of our population from getting anywhere near William Head prison.<\/p>\n

But Janis La Couvee, a local theatre supporter and blogger who has been going to William Head productions since its inception in 1983, has been a constant conduit for the work of men who spend the majority of their time within a creative vacuum; a place where individuality and expression is often a foreign concept.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs someone who believes in the ability of the arts to transform our lives, I applaud the perseverance and tenacity displayed by the participants in William Head on Stage,\u201d says La Couvee.<\/p>\n

La Couvee first entered the gates of William Head prison back in 1983, the year of the prison\u2019s theatre program inception. And although there are necessary security precautions and hoops to jump through in order to eventually get to the theatre, once seated it\u2019s a live production not unlike other local theatre events, she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing can be taken into the facility, there were drug-sniffing dogs the last time we were there…\u201d says La Couvee. \u201cBut, once the formalities are over, and you\u2019ve been shuttled in mini-vans to the auditorium, it\u2019s a theatre experience that would be familiar to people who go to the Fringe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another level of stage fright<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the press materials for Fractured Fables: The Prison Puppet Project,<\/i> Hansen makes a curious reference. \u201cCome join us opening weekend,\u201d she invites, then adds, \u201cas we almost puke in our own shoes, and then soar to great heights!\u201d<\/p>\n

And in that one off-handed reference to stage fright the show\u2019s co-director eradicates any doubts about a theater production behind bars. These men, although in an unfortunate situation each resulting from their troubled pasts, are, above all, as vulnerable and human as those theatre-goers who get to go home every night after their night\u2019s cultural activities.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur guys get nervous, possibly more nervous than any other group I\u2019ve ever worked with. Understandably so, as the stakes couldn\u2019t be higher,\u201d explains Hansen. \u201cCould you imagine living 20 years in a closed-off institution, learning to hide your emotions and survive within the rules and logic of that system, and then stepping on stage in front of the public for the first time in 20-plus years to tell strangers, in your own words, stories about who you are?\u201d<\/p>\n

Voices of the voiceless<\/strong><\/p>\n

As for the puppets featured in the show, Balkwill\u2019s task at hand was to get the inmates to trust themselves and each other enough to design puppets that reflected their own story. Once they warmed up to the idea and the process, the results were incredible, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first there was some curiosity at a distance. It was my mandate to explore what puppets could mean to them, and what they could be, then I just let them go,\u201d says Balkwill. \u201cSure, there were some challenges, but we worked through those… and there was actually a little less ego in the room than there would be with a collection of artists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each story in the play, presented as a fable, details the mens\u2019 lives in a very personal way. And the puppets that were created surpassed all of the co-directors\u2019 expectations.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, the puppets are great!\u201d enthuses Balkwill. \u201cThey\u2019re extremely inventive and creative and diverse.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of another busy day of rehearsing for Fractured Fables,<\/i> Hansen believes that working on the William Head on Stage production is a task rooted in strong work ethic and passion from her performers, which differs from what she\u2019s seen, as they say, on the outside.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur guys work harder and quite possibly care more than any other group I\u2019ve ever worked with,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The final word, however, comes from the ones who aren\u2019t often given a voice. Thanks to people like Hansen and Balkwill, the inmates of William Head on Stage have an ongoing channel for even just a small piece of humanity. And maybe, in some way, even a little bit of freedom.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing through prison there are many messages we get put into our head that you are inhuman,\u201d explains one unnamed inmate in the play\u2019s press release. \u201cThe process slowly chips away at you. I didn\u2019t realize how deep it went until I was exposed to the community [via William Head on Stage]. Oh yes, this is what it\u2019s like to be treated as a person… we need normal human contact without an agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fractured Fables: The Prison Puppet Project
\n<\/i>October 12, 18, 19, 25, 26, 31 and November 1, 2, 7\u20139 $20
\nWilliam Head Institution
\n250-391-7078<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a story about a live theatre production featuring puppets. But it\u2019s also a story about men in prison. How these two things intersect is the tale of William Head on Stage, the only theatre production company in Canada that holds public theatre inside a federal correctional facility. Co-directors Ingrid Hansen of SNAFU Dance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7851,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,115],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-october-16-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7850"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7934,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7850\/revisions\/7934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}