It's Hard to Watch Your Brother Die: A Story from the Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project

The Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project, initiated three years ago by the Death Penalty Penalty Discourse Network in New Orleans, La., is based upon the premise that the death penalty is an issue that people occasionally think about but rarely, if ever, take the time to examine critically in terms of their own belief systems. Following in the long tradition of theater for social change, the project seeks to cultivate change in society by engaging people in discourse. As part of this effort, actor and director Tim Robbins has adapted Sr. Helen Prejean’s award-winning book, "Dead Man Walking," and his award-winning film of the novel into a powerful stage drama that explores issues of justice, forgiveness and reconciliation. Forgoing commercial theater outlets, the project attempts to reach communities by partnering with college and high-school theater programs. For their part, participating schools agree to produce the play and commit to creating a variety of auxiliary events through which the death penalty may be explored. Currently in its third year of existence, the project has partnered with more than 60 schools, and an additional 30 more this year.

Beginning in February 2005, I began the 14-month process of creating, organizing and implementing the Adams State College Dead Man Walking Theatre Project. ASC is a public, four-year liberal-arts institution that serves 2,400 students within the rural San Luis Valley of Colorado. Surrounded by the Sangre de Cristo mountain range, the valley is the size of Connecticut but with a population of less than 50,000. It faces a level of entrenched poverty that ranks it as one of the poorest regions in the United States. The college is located in Alamosa, whose 8,000-plus residents make the town the major population center of the valley. As a whole, the SLV’s inhabitants tend to embrace traditional, even conservative, values. It is within this geographic, economic and social context that Adams State has defined its educational mission as meeting the needs of those who have been underserved in higher education. Based upon this description, neither Adams State nor Alamosa appear to fit the profile of a campus or a community likely to embrace progressive, issue-oriented theater. But something remarkable happened as word spread of the upcoming ASC Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project. A campus and a community became engaged.

Working together with campus colleagues, community volunteers, and local organizations, we explored the various ways in which a production could be expanded from the page to the stage and out into the community. In the process, the ASC project developed a series of highly successful Dead Man Walking events that accompanied a stage production that played to sold-out audiences during it eight performances Among the initiatives undertaken were:

Gathering on the common ground of the theater as well as in living rooms, churches and libraries across Alamosa, attendance for the play and other events totaled more than 3,500 people out of our town’s 8,000 residents.

In the beginning, my interest in the project had more to do with its potential to demonstrate the power of theater to affect society than the particular issue it explored. I have always been opposed to the death penalty, but it was not a topic about which I was passionate. In short, I did not begin my work as director of the ASC Dead Man Walking project as an anti-death-penalty advocate. I was a theater artist who wanted to experiment with the ways in which a production could impact a community. By the end of our project, it had become for me the most profound experience in my professional life and I had become a vocal anti-death-penalty advocate. Partnering with volunteers from all segments of my community, I was able to realize to a large degree my goal of conceiving a production that redefined the role of theater within our community. For my students, it afforded them an opportunity to practice theater in its best and most noble form. And in a project designed to generate discourse, our greatest achievement was to engage the hearts and minds of a significant portion of our community in a dialogue about the death penalty.

I believe that theater can foster change within communities and individuals. The play "Dead Man Walking" asks tough questions about the death penalty as a form of justice and the role of forgiveness and redemption in our lives. Does death equal justice? How do we respond to those who have done us great harm? Is it possible to transform our pain so that we can release the past and risk love again? It is when we pose and seek to answer such questions that we are most fully receptive to a theatrical production and open to the possibilities of personal and societal transformation. For two members of my student cast, the play provided a unique opportunity to explore theatre, social issues and their relationship with other. In their own words, Adams State College theater majors Shelly Johnson and Jared Williams write about the experience of playing Sr. Helen and the death-row inmate she counsels and how it transformed their real life bond as sister and brother.

Shelly Johnson: “Ignorance is bliss.” I believe many people adhere to this cliché in order to absolve themselves from responsibility—responsibility to life, love, community and family. If I don’t know, then I can’t make the wrong decision. If I don’t learn, then I can’t royally screw up. One of the most amazing experiences I have ever had in my academic/professional career was breaking this wall of ignorance surrounding so many in my community, including myself.

Jared Williams: The Dead Man Walking Project was more than a very intense production. It changed the lives of every actor on stage, and if we did our jobs right, it impacted the lives of everyone who saw it.

S.J.: With theater as a conduit for discourse, the project gave our rural community the opportunity to come together to discuss some major issues. The relevance of our work was heightened by the fact that we were facing the very real possibility of a death-penalty case in our own community. The play is based on the true story of Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun originally working in the housing projects of New Orleans. She wrote a book, of the same name, about blindly coming into a relationship with a death-row inmate and slowly becoming an activist opposing the death penalty for moral, economical and political reasons. The play, written by Tim Robbins, follows much of the same pattern as the 1996 Hollywood film, which was directed by Robbins and starred Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn.

From the very beginning I knew I was participating in an informative and worthwhile project that would be well publicized throughout our community. I felt excited and honored when I was cast as Sister Helen. I saw this as a great opportunity to wrap up my academic career, as well as an addition to my resume. I understood I had a challenge in front of me: portraying a real, live woman whom many of our community would recognize because over 20 local book clubs would read the book. However, I did not anticipate how quickly this project would turn from an ego-boost to a life-altering experience. Humility struck me in the face when I recognized this play was not about me and my acting abilities. This play’s purpose was to educate, to enlighten, and to edify.

Jared (JC) Williams played Matt, the death-row inmate befriended by Sister Helen. I felt a special “chemistry” with JC that wasn’t as naturally developed with other actors in our department. Our director, Dr. John Taylor, asked me to read with the two young men he was considering for the role of Matt. I sat, face to face and one at a time, with both men as we worked to connect with our characters and each other. A “click” happened when I read with JC. I could love him and hate him at the same time. I wanted to ring his neck, but hug him tight. I wanted to guide him and help him find peace in his heart. It was so easy to find these feelings within me, not only because JC portrayed his character so well, but because I had felt this way toward him many times before. The man playing my Brother in God on stage was also the little boy born into my family when I was six. My brother was my brother.

JC and I had not had very much interaction on stage prior to this production. The one play we did appear in together I played his mother and spoke to nearly every character but his. We spent many rehearsals working out the relationship between our characters. We dealt with control issues—who had it, who wanted it. We spent one rehearsal in particular where we explored our characters’ innermost feelings toward the other person and discovered many similarities between our characters and ourselves. How much easier it is to love someone you’ve always loved.

And then the epiphany hit. We learned lines, blocking and ideals portrayed by people dealing with the death penalty. Sister Helen emphasized constantly that the people on death row are just as human as we are. They have a story, a mother that loves them, a need for peace in their lives. It must be gruesome, no matter what the circumstances, to watch another human being die. Sister Helen did this. But for me, this wasn’t just some random stranger, this was my brother whom I loved and will always love. I may not always agree with all of his decisions, but he’s a part of me. I posed the question to myself: Should it matter if we had the same parents? I dug deeper. Aren’t all human beings human beings? I often said during this process, “It’s hard to watch your brother die.” And I meant that. But shouldn’t that same empathy for life cross the boundaries of blood?

J.W.: Playing the killer, Matt Poncelet, was a daily challenge. I have many vivid memories from the rehearsal process. From the first day, the emotional climate was so strong that several of the actors were crying as we did our initial read through of the script. I fought against the tears for the first three days until it became too much to hold in any more. Dr. Taylor always has a unique way for us to connect with all the characters in the production. For example, we had a family talk to us about their daughter’s murder and what it was like to wait for the murderer to be executed. By sharing their pain, they gave each of us a gift that I will never forget in my life. It was an experience that mirrored a moment in the play when a character talks about the murder of his son. During one rehearsal, the actor playing the role started to cry uncontrollably for the loss of his fictional son. As I watched offstage, I found myself starting to cry, but I told myself, “I can’t cry right now, I not suppose to cry yet.” Instead, the most evil smile appeared on my face. I stopped and thought to myself, “Whoa, what was that? Pull back.” I realized at that moment exactly what it meant to be “in the moment” as an actor. Once, I tried to use that same wicked smile as I stared at the victim’s family during the court scene. I did that for several nights and the reactions of the families were so intense that Dr. Taylor told me that I couldn’t do it anymore. He didn’t want to make Matt into caricature of evil and he worried that I would freak out the audience.

S.J: This play deals with more than the relationship between Sister Helen and Matt. The victims’ families, the inmate’s family, the detention officers and the legal process itself were all explored. To understand more fully the side of the victims, Dr. Taylor invited a local family to a rehearsal to speak of their experience of losing a loved one.

Inez’s daughter Christina was murdered in her home in Texas 14 years ago. Inez went to Christina’s home to check on her and found her daughter bludgeoned to death in her bedroom. Thankfully, Christina’s daughter had been visiting her father’s parents and was not home at the time. The man convicted of Christina’s murder had been a roofer in a nearby neighborhood and could watch her drive the few blocks from her home to her work. After killing Christina, he began burglarizing her home and made several trips back for more, including the day Inez found Christina.

Inez described the moment she found Christina in detail. Christina’s body had bloated to twice the size because the man had turned on the heat in her home, even though it was summertime in Texas. She told us about calling out to her baby and rushing to her. Her world fell apart at that moment and she has rarely felt a sense of security in her life since then. Her family has since moved from Texas to Colorado, but they’ve attended every trial, every appeal, and at the time of their visit with us, they intended to attend the man’s execution. Inez and her family seemed to still relive so much of the violence and darkness connected with Christina’s death. Inez worked seven days a week to try to distract herself. Her sons fought back tears as they described how her death had affected them. This family embodied many of the issues raised by the portrayal of the two victims’ families in our play. Inez and her family dealt with the loss of a loved one, were torn between forgiveness and hatred, were caught between individual pain and family pain. Inez showed us the reality of the victims’ families’ pain and, in turn, in performance we showed her the other perspectives of the death penalty process. Inez’s daughter-in-law reported to us, after seeing the show, their family quietly drove home and contemplated the other points of view they had never known to exist. They attended the execution of the man a few months after the play closed. I don’t know if it brought them the closure they wanted and so desperately needed, but I hope they can find the peace to live each day.

J.W.: Creating my character required a lot of research. I researched people and events on the Internet, read stories, talked with individuals about their experiences, and reached into the deepest, and darkest parts of my psyche. When I was playing Matt, I convinced myself that I was indeed on death row and had done all the things that he had done.

S.J.: We also looked at the families of the death-row inmate. We had no personal contact with anyone, but as a cast we read Sister Helen’s book, which details the families she met and brought to life the brothers of one inmate and the daughter of another. My personal experience of watching my brother strapped to a bed and injected yet struggle to live broke my heart. From the first rehearsals through the final performances, I cried the last 20 minutes of the show. I couldn’t help it. I even worried that I would become numb to the happenings on stage and not be able to reach emotional heights by the time our performances began, but that never happened. Each night the horror of JC’s “death” shocked me to tears and helped me understand that some people may never recover from the loss of a loved one, no matter what circumstances took them away.

In looking into the lives of the detention officers involved with the death penalty, I interviewed my own husband. A few years ago, before our children were born, Josh worked for the Arizona Department of Corrections. He didn’t work on death row himself, but he was there the day of a scheduled execution. He explained to me the somber overtones of the entire prison. All officers quietly attended their duties. No one spoke ill of the man about to be executed. At the scheduled time of death, through the halls, he could hear some inmates whoop and cheer, but mostly a funereal cloud hung over the prison. The officers wear uniforms and badges, but underneath that lie real emotional humans with the need for love and comfort, just like everyone else.

The political aspect of our preparation involved our community and the necessity of an informed opinion. Sister Helen told us that in order for this project to be art it needed to portray all sides of the issue. Our purpose was not to create a community of anti-death-penalty advocates, but to create a community empowered with knowledge. Every person leaving our theatre was encouraged to dialogue and discover their own ideals. In our lobby, audience members could record their thoughts and feelings on several covered flats, which became an example of community-created public art. The book clubs that formed throughout our area discussed the issues written about in the book and then watched the play. Sister Helen visited our campus to speak with our audience about the death penalty and forgiveness. She spent an entire Saturday morning and afternoon expounding on these ideas. Our little community in the high desert of southern Colorado learned something about first glances, jumped conclusions, and the beauty of theater. I have had the incredible experience of people that I don’t know approach me and thank me for helping them understand issues that they never wanted to think about before. And that was the point of this whole project. To get the information out. To open minds and hearts. To encourage audiences to leave the theater thinking. Anna Deavere Smith, a notable playwright and actor, once said, “You anticipate me before the curtain goes up I anticipate you when the curtain goes down.” This happened.

J.W.: Working with my sister Shelly was one of the best parts of the "Dead Man Walking" experience, but it did make things more difficult. When we were younger we were taught not to cuss and never to use racial slurs, in general to be a kind-hearted person. So, being anything else in front of my sister was very difficult. I try not to curse in my sister’s presence and I find the “N-word” to be too foul to say in any context. Yet every night I said things to her that I would never have dreamed of saying. Still, these difficult moments helped to create a strong bond it between us. Every night before we went out on stage we took time to connect and focus our energy together.

S.J.: During the performances, it didn’t take long to realize that I couldn’t go onstage without connecting to JC first. After all, our characters changed each other’s lives and, personally, we weren’t much different. Before the house lights dimmed, JC and I would stand two feet apart, hold our hands up to each other and “share energy.” We closed our eyes and imagined energy, power, strength and vitality flowing through ourselves and to the other person. I felt this strength within me, and I passed everything I had to him. We became one entity and could confidently go onstage and continue to share the energy, or chemistry, between us. Appropriately, at the end of each show, as our turn for the curtain call approached, JC would hold out his hand to me and hand-in-hand we would come forward for our bows. I can’t imagine sharing that experience with any other person. Our characters fought, they cried, they laughed, and they bonded. And through this experience, JC and I became closer friends and loving siblings We shared ourselves with each other, our fellow cast members, and our audience. We experienced something that not many adult siblings can. We overcame the hurdle of our age difference and I appreciate him and his individuality more than I ever knew I could.

Shelly Johnson graduated magna cum laude from Adams State College with a Bachelor's degree in theater in 2006. She and her husband Josh have two daughters and a son. She continues to stay active in theater.

Jared "JC" Williams is a junior theater major at Adams State College. In addition to acting, he does design and technical theater work.

John H. Taylor, Ph.D., is an associate professor of theater at Adams State College. He served as the director of the ASC Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project. He continues to work with the national project as member of its Promotion Working Group.

Further information about the Dead Man Walking Theatre Project is available on its Web site: http://www.dmwplay.org/

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It's Hard to Watch Your Brother Die: A Story from the Dead Man Walking School Theatre Project

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