Man. Alive. at the Ashby Stage

Last Friday, March 26 I went to the Ashby Stage in Berkeley and was blown away by the production of “Man.Alive. Stories From The Edge Of Incarceration To The Flight Of Imagination”. The Restorative Justice non-profit organization, Community Works presented the performance by four men, three of them formerly incarcerated. The stage was bare. Occasionally the men would bring out a chair or a table. The austere atmosphere helped to conjure the prison experience. This was not just men standing on stage soliloquizing or emoting about their experience. The men worked together to create dreamlike fragments from before, during and after their time in prison and what it feels like to be targeted for “fitting the description”. What touched me the most was that they allowed themselves to be vulnerable, holding, pushing, and pulling each other. They have done a lot of personal work since prison where the “code” would never allow men to act in such an emotional and open way. The performance grew out of a workshop the men took that helped them understand their own accountability and direct their feelings into artistic creation.

Beforehand, I thought the play would consist mainly of individuals telling their stories or doing some form of spoken word. I was surprised when it began and the men were moving in interpretive ways with chairs as props. They were literally dancing with the chairs but not as if to music, more like expressing the inner monologue of confinement; the disorder, chaos and inhumanity.

Hopefully those of you that want to will get a chance to see this play. It really made an impression on me.