‘Sing Sing’ Stages a Play in Prison — and Makes a Case for Healing Power of Art

You do not meet John Whitfield, known to friends and enemies alike by his nickname Divine G, as a person convicted of a crime. You are introduced to him onstage as a performer, bringing a production of A Midsummer’s Night Dream to a close as an audience of fellow incarcerated men applaud. It’s a small but crucial detail, and helps set the stage, literally and otherwise, for what Sing Sing is aiming to do. A prison drama less interested in crime and punishment than in catharsis and the creative power of theater, director Greg Kwedar’s chronicle of how the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program affects its participants wants you to focus on the humanity on display over everything else. The titular correctional institution is merely the location of the proscenium. The play’s the thing, and before you think of those treading the boards as “prisoners,” it demands that you view them as people. (It opens in New York on July 12th, and goes wide in August.)

Of course, it helps that Divine G is played by Colman Domingo, who can lend grace, grit and grandeur to virtually any part, and is as incapable of giving a false performance as he is tamping down a dynamic screen presence. You’re on his side the moment the Rustin star opens his mouth. But as you’ve likely heard by now, the majority of those strutting and fretting their hour upon the stage are actors who are intimately familiar with the RTA’s benefits; other than Domingo, Sound of Metal‘s Paul Raci and Bay Area theater legend Sean San José, the cast is comprised of men who’ve been formerly incarcerated and are program alumni. The move isn’t just an attempt at authenticity. You are watching those who have genuinely found solace, salvation and a sense of self by treating the troupe’s unofficial mantra — “Trust the process” — as something akin to gospel. The film itself becomes a testament to the program. They’re not just actors, they’re ambassadors.

As for Divine G, he’s a bit of a living legend among the population. He not only cofounded the group, but has written several of the plays they’ve performed; when he asks an autograph seeker if the man was at Riker’s Island, you get the sense that his legacy is larger than one correctional facility. Having just finished the Bard’s fantasy, Divine, along with his best friend/collaborator Mike-Mike (San José), the resident director Brent Buell (Raci) and the rest of the repertory company, are trying to pick a follow-up. He also wants to bring in a new member: a mercurial, hard-case hustler who goes by Divine Eyes (Clarence Maclin). No one’s sure if this self-proclaimed “yard bandit” is RTA material, but G thinks he’d be a perfect addition.

Surprisingly, Divine Eyes shows up for the next meeting. Even more surprisingly, he suggests that instead of more Shakespeare or one of G’s works, they all perform a comedy. People need a break from tragedy in here, he says. Buell asks for suggestions regarding a subject, and everything from ancient Egypt to Western outlaws to pirates get thrown into the mix. Once they group settles on time travel as a convenient way as including all of those elements together, a script is quickly written. Someone suggests they throw Hamlet’s famous soliloquy in their for good measure. G assumes that’s the Melancholy Dane is his part to lose, being the veteran thespian and all. Then Divine Eyes auditions for the role and nabs it. A rivalry begins to form. Eventually, the two opposite Divines realize they have more in common than just their handles.

Kwedar and screenwriter Clint Bentley — the duo also made Jockey, the 2021 character study starring Clifton Collins Jr.; the former wrote it and the latter directed, then reversed roles for this one — have clearly drawn from the stories of both the real-life Whitfield and Maclin, who channels his former persona in a way that suggests zero self-consciousness and the benefit of hard-won wisdom. But more importantly, they treat this drama as a collaborative project in the same way that the RTA players treat their anything-goes comedy. You can tell they’ve solicited anecdotes and experiences from the entire ensemble, and have interwoven IRL slices of life in lockdown into what is, at its essence, a backstage farce with a semi-serious face. These gentlemen are acting like their lives, their souls, their sanity depends on it. They also complain at dress rehearsal that “this headband is NOT Egyptian, it’s clearly Phoenician!”

Domingo remains the sun around which the others orbit, giving the film not just a bright inner light but the ballast it needs to avoid being either a scripted docufiction or a simplistic portrait of artists in perilous existential circumstances. Yet it’s also an ensemble film that makes extraordinary use of men who understand the necessity for the arts as much as they demonstrate a facility for presenting such works. Prison life is not ignored or whitewashed — the film’s No. 1 recurring shot is the constricting view of a claustrophobic cell as seen through an door’s peephole, as damning a visual metaphor as you could ask for. But this is a movie that places a solid emphasis on the second word over the first, and makes a case that incarceration is not an excuse for indignity or inhumanity. Sing Sing takes it name from the place where these men practice their craft. Tweak the title by adding a comma between the two words and turn into a declaration, however, and it reads even more accurate. You leave thinking of what Whitfield has accomplished via this program, but also of Walt Whitman: “I celebrate myself, and sing myself… For every atom belonging to me as good belong to you.”