Better to build bridges than walls

Magdalena Hasiuk

Abstract

The text discusses the phenomenon of theatre in prison. It focuses on the diversity of its forms and its dependence on many contexts: social, cultural, geographical, and primarily political, which sometimes have a destructive impact on the examined phenomenon. On account of its distinct characteristics, prison intensifies the constitutive features of the art of theatre: its ephemeral nature, living presence based on the interpersonal meeting of the actor and the spectator, team work and artistic practice, associated with the transformation of the world in its various dimensions. Because the living conditions are so unfavourable there, prison seems to be a dream field for theatre, the essence of which is to “transgress” reality, distance itself from it, reveal its hidden face and the mechanisms governing it, and thus transform the world and stimulate human development: the actor and the viewer, in several capacities. In the prison context, the artistic aspect of theatre work is linked to its ontological and existential aspect much more clearly than, for example, in the so-called mainstream theatre. The author also proposes introducing the term “theatre created in prison” instead of “prison theatre” and replacing where possible “inmates”, “prisoners” with “actors/actresses”, “creators”, “collaborators from prison”.