In Massachusetts: Theater Therapy

By David Brand

The rehearsal room is a maze of noisy motion: a woman is screaming at her stage husband, "I'm sick of your drinking -- get out of the house!"; a small unshaven man cowers childlike as his "mother" delivers an obscene tongue- lashing; a man in a red-check robe staggers drunkenly as his belt whips with violent slaps against a board, while his "son" whimpers in pain; a young man sits huddled on the floor, repeating over and over, "Why doesn't anyone love me?" The air quivers with tension as the parts of the play come together and roles are refined. Tomorrow is the day of performance, and for most of these actors the investment is not merely the sweat of creation, it is the disgorging of memories of humiliation, anger and loneliness.

This is theater of the prison cell, an unsparing, nerve-jarring mirror to the interior world of the convict. It is guided by the Geese Company, a remarkable troupe of nine young actors founded and led by a former University of Iowa drama teacher, John Bergman, 40. Since 1980 the actors have been crisscrossing the country in a rickety red-and-white bus, playing in penitentiaries and juvenile-detention centers, holding theatrical workshops and performing their largely improvised plays about prison life. One aim is to force prisoners to admit to themselves that criminal behavior is stupid and ugly. "Our work is no more than 20th century versions of medieval folk tales," says the British-born Bergman, a voluble, witty man who smokes incessantly and is forever running his hand through his tangled, shoulder- length hair.

During the performances at more than 260 prisons -- whose payments for the most part support the group -- the Geese have faced threats of violence and sullen silence. But the challenge in the rehearsal room at the Massachusetts Treatment Center in Bridgewater is daringly new: to use the tools of theater to break through to the feelings of the sexual deviant. The twelve inmates in the cast, like the 243 other occupants of the maximum-security facility, are serving indeterminate terms for crimes ranging from rape to child molestation.

For the three women in the Geese Company, Jill Reinier, 26, Katy Emck, 23 and Pamela Daryl, 21, it is a personal test of courage to work with men who have committed violent sexual acts against women. Admits Reinier: "As a woman I can't help feeling their crime intensely." But, says Emck, who was recruited by Bergman when the troupe visited the Edinburgh Festival last year, "you try your hardest to see past the crime and reach the mind of the man beyond."

The ground for this eight-day theater-and-therapy workshop has been prepared by a previous visit to Bridgewater in which 15 volunteer patients (as the center calls its inmates) were guided in the creation of a drama about incidents that had affected their adult lives. On this visit Bergman's task is even more complex: to dredge up memories from the ages of five to twelve and assemble them into a play. Since, as center Administrator Ian Tink notes, "90% of these patients were sexually abused as children," the hope is that by seeing themselves as victims they will realize how they have victimized others.

Most of the cast members from the earlier production have returned to take part in Bergman's unconventional methods for trying, as Company Member Tom Swift, 25, puts it, "to open the doors onto emotions." The director begins by asking the volunteers to act out scenes from childhood. One patient portrays a child playing with toy soldiers. He says he is blowing up his mother and father with a tank. A second man is told to imagine being discussed by his parents at a cocktail party; when an actress begins playing the role of his mother, he breaks down and decides to leave the cast. On the third day, Bergman asks the patients to design a set for the play. One draws two doors labeled PAST and FUTURE. Another draws two glasses of gin labeled MINE and HIS.

From these exercises, scraps of long-forgotten incidents start to emerge from the thickets of memory: eating tomatoes and then being screamed at by a shrewish mother; a father's leaving home; an overheard neighbors' conversation about a brutal father; being rejected by schoolmates. Hal (all patients' names . in this article are fictitious) is responding quickly to Bergman's constant probing and badgering. "It's like a crash course in therapy -- the emotions come up so quickly," he says. "At the same time, you know you're safe because it's only a play."

After four days the drama has begun to take shape, but Bergman is far from satisfied. "We need more emotion. I'm getting full resistance," he complains. In one scene, Emck must scream obscenities at Frank. "Sounds too ladylike," the director mutters; then, to Frank: "Is that how your mother sounded?" "Worse," says Frank. "Do it again," Bergman tells Emck, as the process of art imitating life is guided by the patient's recollection of a moment in a five-year-old's life.

After the patients have left for a meal, the actors analyze their progress: "He was struggling with himself. There was the constant repetition of the idea of breaking a chain." "I'm worried about him -- it's so hard to see where he's operating from." "He broke down yesterday in the divorce scene." "He's coming out from the cupboard." "He wants to do a birthday-party scene in which his father dies."

Now Bergman must take this raw material, put it into some order and then "frame it to represent the world of the child." The set consists of red tubular scaffolding with connecting platforms. Around this are displayed the emblems of childhood: a red plastic baseball bat, a father's jacket, a mother's frying pan, a sister's dress and, the play's most symbolic prop, the leather strap. For three hours actors and patients work at making a whole out of their disparate scenes. What emerges is a riveting pastiche in which children are beaten by drunken parents, humiliated by everyone, and, above all, forced to exist in a world of aching loneliness: a child in a wheelchair dreams of riding a bike, another child makes an imaginary phone call to a schoolmate who has rejected him. In the final scene a child is confronted by his tormentors; instead of slinking away, he turns to the audience and utters a defiant no.

Bergman, clearly affected, declares, "This is a very powerful piece of theater, but there is still much to be resolved." The patients are also deeply moved: "John, this is very scary. There is a lot of anxiety," says one. "There are so many innuendos here," says another. There are, says the director, "ripples for us all."

The final day starts badly. The first run-through is plodding and devoid of feeling. "Deadly," is Bergman's biting comment. Then comes another crisis: only 20 patients at the center have signed up to attend the performance, probably to protest the administration's recent tightening of security. Swift rushes away to urge all staff members to attend. Unflustered, Bergman continues his relentless demands on his cast. To Harry: "You are supposed to be a nasty human being." To everyone: "I want more feeling; we've got to have some life."

The director is struggling against the prisoners' last-minute reluctance to reveal too much about themselves. But his harangue has its effect, and the two performances, given largely to staff, are intense and deeply felt. During one, a patient in the audience, overcome by emotion, rushes out. Another sits, tears streaming down his face. Says a therapist: "More has come out in this performance than in months of therapy."

Some of the patients have come close to understanding the roots of their turmoil. All are emotionally exhausted. One patient, a man with horn-rimmed glasses and a pendulous stomach, sits weeping. Others embrace. An actress is unable to hold back the tears. Ted speaks for many of his fellow patients when he says, "For the first time I have something to wake up for in the morning."