Greg Kwedar‘s new highly regarded drama Sing Sing movingly depicts RTA, Rehabilitation Through the Arts, an actual program that’s existed for almost 30 years in various prisons in New York State. Colman Domingo plays lead character John “Divine G” Whitfield, who in real life was wrongfully convicted of murder and served almost 25 years until he finally won his fight for clemency.
Most of the cast, though, are not professional actors and have actually served prison sentences, including one of the other key players, RTA grad Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin.
You can watch the trailer below:
Is RTA considered drama therapy?
While the North American Drama Therapy Association describes drama therapy as a way to “provide the context for participants to tell their stories, set goals and solve problems, express feelings, or achieve catharsis,” RTA’s mission statement is to help “people in prison develop critical life skills through the arts, modeling an approach to the justice system based on human dignity rather than punishment.”
So, it’s a mix, then. Rehabilitation first, with some drama therapy achieved along the way—so much so that Kwedar had a therapist available on the film set in case of difficult feelings arising (USA Today).
One of Sing Sing‘s co-writers is actor/writer/director Brent Buell, a former RTA volunteer director who authored a chapter regarding RTA in the 2010 book Performing New Lives: Prison Theatre. In an interview following its publication he isolated the impact of theater versus therapy when he stated, “I love theater. I think that it is one of the most powerful forces for social change that exists. For ten years I’ve witnessed how magnificently theater—just theater, no therapy, no sociodrama, no psychological agendas—can touch and renew the human spirit. It’s the greatest single gift my art has given me. I am sure that other approaches have their place, but for me the process of theater is all that is needed to touch and begin to transform anyone.”
Selected Reviews of Sing Sing
Matt Zoller Seitz, rogerebert.com: “It doesn’t move or feel like any other prison movie, or movie about theater students, that I’ve seen, and its commitment to the truth of its characters — and of life itself — is rare and precious.”
Lisa Kennedy, New York Times: “It uplifts and gently shatters. It makes a case for the deep respect and deeper amity forged in a theater program set up at the eponymous maximum-security facility.”
Odie Henderson, Boston Globe: “It’s a beautiful film, a must-see that showcases the true power of the empathy machine we call the movies.”
Greg Nussen, Slant: “In its depiction of actors flourishing through artistic struggle, Sing Sing ultimately argues that the most effective liberation happens through the freeing of the body as well as the soul.”
Katie Walsh, Santa Cruz Sentinel: “An artifact crafted with the utmost care, this is a cinematic work of unique empathy, a slice of hand-turned humanity, hewn from the heart, with rigorous attention paid to the process itself.”
