Such stuff as dreams are made on

Shakespeare Behind Bars

(2005)

An astonishing film about an astonishing annual program--staging Shakespearean plays at a medium-security prison in Kentucky. The play being mounted while the cameras roll is The Tempest, and the volunteer director guides the inmates to a reading of the play as a document of redemption and forgiveness--something they all need, of course, not least each from himself.

These are murderers and child molesters--we hear detailed confessions from several of the men we get to know best--but when they act Shakespeare, they are noblemen, sprites, and--yes--unashamed animals. One veteran of the program says that his first assumption was that criminals would be natural actors, because they all knew so well how to lie, how to seem to be what they're not; eventually, though, he discovered that what acting really entails--and why it challenges convicts no less than anyone else new to the craft--is digging down to the truth of that person on the page.

Maybe these guys are dissembling, and maybe the program hasn't been part of a genuine rehabilitation, but I defy any viewer not to be heartbroken by each denied parole. These are men with a role to play for good in the world; I hope the world, which had every reason to lock them up, doesn't throw away the key.