It’s the end of winter in Melbourne and artistic director of Plan B Theatre Sharon Jacobson has murder on her mind. We are talking about ‘The outlaw’. We want to ascertain what it is about the outlaw that is attractive to the female imagination. (Plan B is a theatre enterprise initiated by Jacobson that utilises the talents of recently released male prisoners; men who have stepped outside the law and are now attempting to re-enter society). Jacobson is caught off-guard; the imagination is an elusive beast at the best of times, let alone when trying to articulate a reason as to why a woman might be attracted to a murderer. But Jacobson is also courageous and unflinching when confronted by probing questions. She speaks of a “Redemption script...”. One in which the female psyche is attracted to the possibility of eliciting “The beauty and the sweetness... " from a man who has committed the ultimate crime. It may sound patronising; the atrophied romanticism of a woman who believes she can change her man. Yet there bastes away in Jacobson a desire for change that is not paternalistic; but rather, a conflict being played out in her own psychic prison. And then she starts talking about murder...
The impetus for Plan B came from Jacobson’s experience of running theatre projects inside Victoria’s maximum security Barwon Prison. Hoddle St. murderer Julian Knight does time there; so do underworld figures Carl Williams and Victor Brincat. Not a place for the faint of heart and Jacobson confesses to an absolute “Fear...” at having been behind Barwon’s walls. But her fascination with a psychic underworld sets her apart from the banal actualities often associated with a person who commits a serious criminal offence. Jacobson understands the “Rage and fury... ” that is part of the average person’s emotional life. (People like you and I, or the nice man who runs the milk bar at the end of the street). She feels she knows what it might be like to be a poor person driven to murder - as is the case with nineteenth century German dramatist George Buchner’s infamous character, Woyzeck. Yet she is also careful to articulate a difference. In Jacobson’s view “Murder is an act of enormous passion, not an act of indifference... ”. But once a person is configured as a murderer he becomes a terminal outsider. Having committed what the law deems the ultimate crime the murderer forfeits his right to remain a member of society. Feodor Dostoevski might have agreed. His nineteenth century novel ‘Crime and Punishment’ is essentially about the dilemma Jacobson expresses. But Raskolnikov’s existential quagmire is also the dilemma of the average, law abiding human being. Ravaged by feelings of abstract guilt how do we free ourselves from our paralysing ‘Natures’ ?
Plan B’s first show ‘til Hell Freezes' used stories gleaned from prisoner experience shaped into a cohesive script then subjected to improvisation by Jacobson and her ex-prisoner performance troupe. A show that explored the tension between the opposing ideas of prison and release. A show well received, not just by its audience, but more importantly, by the ex-prisoners themselves. An “Incredibly committed group... ” according to Jacobson. One invigorated by the task of creating a piece of theatre. Plan B’s “Post-release strategy... ” and “Social action agenda... ” were fully realised in ‘til Hell Freezes. Ex-prisoners began thinking of themselves as theatre practitioners, and it is this shift in mentality that drives Jacobson’s ambitious project.
Historically, prison has been a potent and reoccurring image in the theatre. Buchner’s Woyzeck and British dramatist Edward Bond’s characters, although not incarcerated, are imprisoned by their feelings and/ or their social situations. Genet’s prisoners, rather than having hearts of stone, have red roses in their chests. Locally, ex-prisoner and dramatist Ray Mooney, now a teacher of creative writing, has explored an imprisoned masculinity in his Expressionist plays ‘The Dominator’ and ‘The Cat from Across the Road’. But perhaps it is now time to expand the psychic prison - male and female - beyond the limits of angst ridden mental torture normally associated with the imprisoned self. Is the imagination really a prison ? Or is it, as is proposed in Melbourne dramatist Richard Murphet’s play, a vast and labyrinthine department store consisting of dream states populated by duplicitous projections of the self ? Writer/ Director Jenny Kemp’s expansion of the imprisoned self into a surreal world of fantasy, myth, dream, nightmare and speculative scientific theory, all encapsulated by the image of a Black Sequin Dress, also provides a glimpse of what lies beyond prison walls. Walls that have been imposed upon us and walls which we impose upon ourselves. Whatever the scenario, each individual will respond to exploration of their interior world in a unique fashion. But before the walls can be dismantled there must occur a psychic death of the self. This is why Jacobson’s talk of murder, along with Plan B’s agenda for demolishing the barricade that separates ex-prisoners from mainstream society, can play an important function in shaping lives that may then make a contribution toward creating a just society.
And what of the transformative power of art ? If the theatre has become just another commodity within which practitioners pursue careers like merchant bankers and arts tourism has become the prerogative for many, is the theatre still capable of social change ? Perhaps its transformative power has always been a mirage ? Jacobson disagrees. The theatre is a "Vehicle for bringing people together... ”. An activity where a “Sense of community... ” is established and “Magical things... ” can happen. In Jacobson’s view this transformation is achieved through "Process and product..." . But in an age where obsession with product engages theatre practitioners in a Beckettian endgame, one where economic limitations often see projects emerge halfbaked to be assessed by unsatisfied audiences and so-called critics in the mainstream media, perhaps product, drawn as it is from economic jargon, is a less than favourable term for describing public performance. Even so, Jacobson’s emphasis on process is unusual, and contains several dimensions.
The process ex-prisoners engage in when creating a Plan B show, that of acquiring acting, story telling and production skills and then using these to create a performance, is one part of a broader process ex-prisoners engage with during their transition between prison, release, and the adventure that is the theatre; allowing ex-prisoners the opportunity to once again 'Play'. But what is it about the creation of a play that can rehabilitate a prisoner ? Jacobson scoffs at the term rehabilitate. “The burden of change is always on the prisoner... ”, she says. In her view the Corrections System itself requires some rehabilitation. “It costs approximately $ 70,000 a year to house a prisoner. Can that money be better spent..? You fucking bet it can...”. But the question remains: how does a person who has committed a serious crime like murder transform themselves ?
Jacobson may have murder on her mind but it is not a literal representation of murder that excites her. In Edward Bond’s play Red Black and Ignorant a character called The Monster has its throat slit after the monster declares it must kill off the one it loves, the egotistical self. If, as Jacobson says, the theatre is a “laboratory”, then it is also a space where the death of the self can be enacted in a bloodless fashion for the purpose of using the theatre not just as a therapeutic tool, but as a space that might extend Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty. For Jacobson though, any extension beyond Plan B’s current agenda, that of a post release space where ex-prisoners can acquire vocational skills in the theatre, would have to be handled “Gently gently”. Her intention is for ex-prisoners to one day take charge of the project. Dispensing with the prisoner tag and adopting the new identity of theatremaker is also the death of one self and having it replaced by another. Jacobson is into “That old spiritual idea... A spark of light... trapped inside the body”, ensnaring us on a “material plain”. The human spirit imprisoned by the flesh, not searching for an escape but trying to rediscover its original intention. A journey we all undertake - man, woman and child. Creatures trapped behind walls, unable to forget our pasts, lost on a path toward an uncertain future as we try and find our way home.
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