OPINION: To sleep, perchance to dream

Whatever your opinions on the idea of rehabilitation inside prisons or correctional facilities, it’s safe to say the best outcome for those within these systems are to be released as changed men and women. However, there are few chances for them to prove themselves.

From the beginning of their sentence, those inside the walls of prison will live the rest of their lives labelled as undesirable and dangerous. One’s value as a person is undermined, forced to live dehumanized. It’s a part of how punishing our society has chosen crime to be, but it also diminishes the hopeful ideal of what rehabilitation aims for.

Time and time again, prison builds an environment made to trap inmates into one restricting perspective of themselves as worthless or incapable of feeling the same emotions as those beyond the barbed wire. Squashing hope is normalized.

“Sing Sing” tells the dramatized story of a group of incarcerated men who participate in Sing Sing Correctional Facility’s theater program, Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA). In a delightful treat, the majority of the actors who play these men are comprised of real-world alumni of the program playing themselves.

This allows for an honest kindness to the movie. These actors are returning to places and headspaces which must surely come with traumatic memories of long sentences and bad choices. Yet, the cruelty isn’t the focus, a smart redirection of attention instead toward the value the theater program has on their lives.

The cast is incredibly comfortable together, shown time and time again through group exercises where these former murderers and robbers pretend to be walking like zombies, or introduce themselves as their characters or imagine themselves in another world. They’re goofy, sometimes triumphant, but there’s vulnerability in them.

During an exercise where the cast imagines themselves in their “one perfect spot,” and describes the feeling to the group. One of them describes laying on the grassy courtyard of Sing Sing and staring across the Hudson River, where he can see his mother. Another speaks of a picnic with his wife, describing the coffee sodas he shared with her, before mentioning she had passed six months ago. Yet another describes rushing over to the shaved ice truck, buying a cherry snow cone for a quarter, his lips and tongue getting red.

The movie witnesses the production of an original play called “Breaking the Mummy’s Code” through the viewpoints of two prisoners in John “Divine G” Whitfield, played by Colman Domingo, and Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, played by himself.

Divine G shows a clear difference in talent and education compared to everyone else, and becomes a leader for the rest of the group. Despite evidence being available to prove his innocence from the crime he’s convicted for, he’s still incarcerated. He tries to maintain his interest in the arts and his love of theater, but it constantly conflicts with a crushing setting like Sing Sing. Domingo pulls through with an astonishing performance which helps highlight the simultaneity of a man full of love for others, but can’t find the same love for himself.

He tries helping newcomer to the program Divine Eye, whose tough yard boss attitude clashes with the rest of the program. Divine G shares his favorite spot with him in Sing Sing, a corridor with a fenced gate. There’s a small hole in this gate, big enough to see the forest, the river and the world beyond the walls. Divine Eye berates Divine G for bringing him to a dark corner, too macho to appreciate the moment, too worried about getting jumped.

Yet, they are able to instill a bond together, helping each other break past the limitations which come with imprisonment. It’s not always easy, and as the day of the show draws near, the program almost falls apart.

Planted visual imagery of yellow envelopes (thin for freedom, thick for another year) allows for unspoken storytelling. Scenes are intercut with glimpses of the land beyond fences and barbed wire, the weight of being chained to the sentence always there. Divine G’s cell, initially well-maintained with stacks of books and pictures on the wall, is one day ransacked in a search, with the guards leaving the cell’s tidy structure completely ruined. It’s crushing.

There’s no physical violence, except a single scene where the cast members rush on stage in front of potential donors, where they have to all pretend to be in one large battle. The actors flail about as if in slowmo, with Divine G winning the performed battle and delivering a gladiator yell, before quickly collapsing his voice into a meek “thank you.” Even while in performance, these actors find themselves in a self-conscious effort to appear nonthreatening.

Yet, in every moment where these prisoners take the stage, they shed their green jackets and turn into real performers. To anyone who has felt the joy of performance, “Sing Sing” captures the magic beautifully. All baggage melts away as these prisoners transcend their chains.

What makes “Sing Sing” work is the sincerity. To have a movie like this which celebrates the energy and the euphoria in performance with a cast comprised of those who truly value it makes “Sing Sing” essential viewing. These men are nervous and twitchy, but they get excited and revel when praised for their performances. They’re human, just like any of us.

For an industry which analyzes tragedy far more than it takes time to enjoy its own artistry, a movie like “Sing Sing” is invaluable in today’s landscape. It clutches its real-world context not as a buoy for authenticity, like so many other movies based on a true story, but instead finds a way to ingrain it into every part of the production itself.