Eyes closed, imagination flying. For an instant, a group of male inmates at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility are no longer restrained by prison walls. Their minds are free. That’s the effect that the Rehabilitation Through the Arts, or RTA, program has on the men in writer-director Greg Kwedar’s Sing Sing, a life-affirming, superbly acted ensemble piece about the deep impacts of creativity.
In a case of reality bleeding profusely into fiction, Sing Sing surrounds Colman Domingo’s extraordinary star turn with a supporting cast whose first exposure to performing came during their incarceration in the titular maximum security prison. That meta component speaks directly to how RTA empowered them to fashion a new self-image. They were once inmates playing at being actors, now they are actors playing inmates on the big screen.
Exuding an air of nonchalant positivity, RTA veteran Divine G (Domingo) has taken on a leadership position in the group. The victim of a wrongful conviction, he writes new plays, helps with direction, and recruits new members. The charismatic-yet-short-fused Divine Eye (Clarence Maclin) enters the fold for its latest production, shaking up the established order and pushing everyone’s buttons. It’s Divine Eye’s admitted, unexpected interest in Shakespeare that convinces Divine G of his raw potential.
But it’s not all Macbeth and King Lear for these men – one of the ways Sing Sing depicts RTA’s documented benefits is in the way the program’s productions detach theater from any shallow pretensions, distilling it to a pure state of soul-nourishing self-expression. Incorporating the group’s eclectic interests into a time travel odyssey – featuring pirates, ancient Egyptians, Hamlet, and even Freddy Krueger – instructor Brent (the always reassuring Paul Raci) writes a comedic show titled Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code. An early montage of auditions for the play’s ludicrous, genre-defying roles presents the characters in a lighthearted atmosphere, giddy with excitement for another chance to play. Kwedar and cinematographer Pat Scola frame some of the cast in tight closeups, making their tattooed, scarred, or weathered faces the shot’s main attraction.
Speaking about their previous onstage work, they utter, “I am” or “I was,” and follow up with details about the character they portrayed. It’s a space that encourages a reframing of their self-perception, with lasting implications. Who they are, at least in the safety of the program and the company of their scene partners, is no longer reduced to criminal offenses.
More tacitly, the program invites them to consider that perhaps they’re playing a role in their day-to-day life, too – a hardened persona they fabricated to navigate (and survive) their environment. As Divine Eye, Maclin vividly illustrates the difficulty of taking off that mask and giving into a more emotionally malleable version of himself. Nothing scares him more than letting his guard down.
For all its profound empathy, Sing Sing refrains from asking for simple absolution. There’s no hiding the regret and hopelessness that sometimes creep into the minds of these unlikely performers. Kwedar’s refusal to dwell on their transgressions and Sing Sing’s avoidance of any substantial political discourse about the prison-industrial complex could be read as toothless miscalculation, but they’re not. These are moves that prioritize the exploration of the characters’ inner worlds. Each of the supporting players gets a moment in the spotlight, a potent declaration, a chance to assert their individuality.
There’s an unquestionable honesty in the performances of Sing Sing. Many of the actors aren’t so much making believe as they are reliving a bittersweet memory – Maclin and his revelatory turn included. Domingo’s tall-order task is to tap into their register, to insert his interpretation of what imprisonment does to a person into a story thoughtfully put together from actual events. (The screenplay is based on John H. Richardson’s Esquire article “The Sing Sing Follies”) And yet, at the same time, he must relay that there’s something different about Divine G – not in an arrogant manner, but from a genuine desire to use his acumen to support others.
Domingo, a gifted actor with equal capacity for warmth and emotional potency, delivers on those fronts and more. When friction arises between his character and Divine Eye, we can see him wrestle with Divine G’s bubbling anger. What’s most impressive is how, right in front of our eyes, Domingo diffuses those harsh sentiments, as Divine G chooses compassion and attempts to understand where Divine Eye is coming from. And when Divine G reaches a devastating breaking point – seeing the possibility of proving his innocence slip through his fingers – Domingo gives in to overwhelming despair. It’s a stellar display of skillful acting that traverses a wide span of conflicting emotional states.
In one of Sing Sing’s most moving exchanges, Divine G’s best friend, a Latino inmate who goes by Mike Mike (Sean San Jose), reminisces about the name his grandma called him as a child, and how that sweet moniker encompasses an entirely different person from who he became as an adult. Acting offers him and the others a chance to reconnect with those long-hidden parts of themselves. They can get in touch with who they were, or who they could’ve been, before the system and their choices – some for which they’re solely responsible,others influenced by their limited options – morphed them into “undesirable” members of society. On that stage they are royal knights, heroes, complicated villains, or silly baboons. On that stage they are transformed. On that stage they are unchained.
