By Jonathan Morales

2024年3月28日

今年夏天，一部新的原创戏剧将在萨克拉门托地区首演，不过地点不同寻常。

博彩平台的一位教授和最近的校友正在福尔索姆州立监狱开设戏剧课程，帮助被监禁的人找到自己的声音，分享他们的故事。 该活动的目标是让参与者在6月编写、制作并表演一部原创戏剧。

The workshops are organized through 监狱艺术团体 (PAC), an Arts in Corrections coordinating organization with the California Arts Council, which began a partnership with 囊状态 in the last year. The program is the Sac州立大学的第二个PAC倡议.

对于领导该组织的萨克州立大学戏剧与舞蹈教授艾琳·卡普兰（Erin Kaplan）来说，PAC的合作是她数十年来对监狱戏剧的热情的高潮，这种热情始于她在密歇根大学（the University Michigan）读本科时。

Originally slated to launch in fall 2022 at Folsom women’s prison, the project was pushed back to this spring after that facility closed in early 2023. 在与PAC的合作下，卡普兰聘请了萨克州立大学最近的校友斯佳丽·帕斯夸尔协助该项目。

“Art is one of the most powerful tools that we have, and giving people access to that and telling them that it’s a power is a beautiful thing.” -- Scarlett Pascual, 囊状态 alum

卡普兰和帕斯夸尔每个月大约访问监狱三次，与18名在押人员一起工作。 他们最初的工作重点是帮助参与者相互了解和信任，并在一起工作时感到舒适。 They play “theater games,” such as one, designed to teach focus, in which half the men wear blindfolds while the other half lead them around the room using only a single sound.

最近，每个参与者都写并表演了一段个人独白，这些材料将构成他们发展游戏的基础。 卡普兰和帕斯夸尔提供了反馈。

卡普兰说，早期的大部分工作都集中在帮助参与者理解表演是他们已经具备的一种能力。

“I often find that guys are like, ‘Oh, I’m not an actor, I’m not an actor,’ ” she said. “And I’m like, ‘You’re in prison. You are performing all day, every day,’ and getting them to see that the performance of everyday life to survive in the prison is a skill that they have acquired, and that that is very much akin to acting.”

最后，计划是让参与者编写并表演一个原创剧本。 早期的概念集中在一个精灵的想法上，这个精灵可以把被监禁的人带回特定的时间，为他们提供改变生活中的那一刻的机会。

“They’ll have an idea, and I’ll sort of ask dramaturgical questions, like, ‘Ok, but why? 为什么会这样呢？ 这是怎么发生的？ 我们叫它什么？ 我们是在现在，还是在未来？’ ” Kaplan said. “I know how to make plays, so what I do is really use those skills to help structure the ideas that they have. That’s how I see my role, and that’s the same when I’m devising with my undergraduate students.”

监狱戏剧项目的好处很多。 卡普兰说，戏剧的核心是同理心。 允许被监禁的人通过戏剧分享他们的故事不仅能帮助监狱外的人看到监狱里的人的人性，也能帮助那些人看到他们自己的自我价值。

“When people feel like they don't matter, they think like their choices don't matter, and they see no point in making better choices because what they do is seen as being irrelevant to the world,” Kaplan said. “When you give people an opportunity to have their voices and stories heard, it makes them feel valued. It makes them want to do things that are valuable.”

That’s a sentiment that Pascual, Kaplan’s co-facilitator, shares.

“They express how much it means that people on the outside still believe in them, and that’s such a powerful thing to hear,” Pascual said. “Art is one of the most powerful tools that we have, and giving people access to that and telling them that it’s a power is a beautiful thing.”

自去年12月毕业并获得刑事司法学位以来，帕斯夸尔一直在追求她的双重兴趣，即为家庭暴力和性暴力的受害者提供表演和宣传。 当她在萨克州立大学（囊状态）的前戏剧教授卡普兰（Kaplan）向她提供监狱戏剧项目的工作时，她欣然接受了这个机会，在探索刑事司法体系的另一面的同时，获得了作为一名辅导员的新技能。

“Sometimes people just need somebody to listen to, and that goes hand-in-hand with victim advocacy,” Pascual said. “Art can be really healing, and I want to combine art, whether its theater or writing or whatever it may be, into whatever future career I may have.”

卡普兰和PAC希望继续这个项目，每学期雇佣两名学生，为Sac州立大学的毕业生建立一个管道，让他们具备领导类似项目的技能，如果他们愿意的话。

卡普兰说，从长远来看，她希望开设一门服务学习课程，类似于PAC与加州保利洪堡分校（calpoly Humboldt）和圣地亚哥州立大学（San Diego State University）合作的课程。在这门课程中，学生除了学习协助技巧外，还可以了解刑事司法系统的历史、从学校到监狱的输送渠道以及系统中的不公平现象。

“The ability and skill to create spaces where people who are told that their voices don’t matter are able to tell stories and have those stories heard is a profound gift as an artist and as a theater-maker,” Kaplan said. “For our students to see that it’s not just ‘go to Broadway or you give up.’ There are so many different ways that we can use theater and performance to make the world a better place.”