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The Prison Plays
Verdict: Natural story-teller
Rehearsed reading - extracts from Tom Hadaway's plays
A prison security chief (Charlie Richmond) tells writer-in-residence Harry (Gavin Huscroft) to guard the key to the book cupboard, or disaster will follow. Inmate Janet (Kathryn McLane) remembers Cynthia, who wanted to top herself. Cynthia is put into the strip cell for safety. She digs the alarm bell’s flex out of the wall and tries to hang herself. There’s a chorus of encouragement from the other women. As she drops, more flex comes from the wall. Cynthia rushes furiously from side to side. More and more wire comes out. In the end she laughs - surrounded by yards and yards of wire. Alarm bells ring as the screws ask if she’s OK. Janet tells Harry how they broke another inmate’s leg. He’s horrified. Janet explains that the only way the woman could move nearer to her family was to be hospitalised. The prisoners help each other – no one else will.
The homecoming of prisoner Ackroyd (Charlie Richmond) is triumph, comedy and tragedy - his family are strangers. Prisoner Bridget (Val McLane) describes a closed circle of deprivation passing down generations. Janet and her mam (Val McLane) discuss monsters and Myra Hindley. Janet says ‘you can save yourself from monsters by talking to them.’ Harry and the Deputy Governor (Charlie Richmond) try to decide who is innocent or guilty in the system. In reality, the writer’s guilt in fraternising with the prisoners resulted in a new governor telling him to leave. Bridget’s Irish aunt (Val McLane) complains to the Deputy Governor about her transfer. She explains her attempts to escape with stunningly funny – in her eyes reasonable - logic. Judy (Kathryn McLane) worshipped GOD from the moment she met him. GOD – Governor of Durham was the first good-looking man she’d seen for years. What does he want her to say to the Review Board? - talk of change and redemption, or that she fell for him?
Other extracts examine the Arab-Israeli conflict. Reporter Jan (Kathryn McLane) interviews Alec (Charlie Richmond). He’s an English member of the PLO. Why did he kill? Alec mistrusts the press and gives nothing away. Earlier, a Jewish couple (Val McLane, Gavin Huscroft) consider expanding their business in Cyprus. They become Alec’s victims. Khloud (Kathryn McLane), a Palestinian associate of Alec (though her accent is uncertain), is in Haifa. She falls in love with David, son of the Jewish couple. Alec tells Jan why he joined the PLO - the massacres in Lebanon - and his recruitment to kill. After the murders, Alec and Khloud are trapped. Khloud’s brother is dead. So is David. Khloud speaks of the bulldozed homes and lives destroyed. Jan – really a Mossad agent - talks to an unnamed and sinister man. He wants her information about Alec - so they can kill him when he is released. Jan is troubled by the chicken and egg paradox of terrorism versus state terrorism. No answers are given.
Today's event is a rehearsed reading and celebration of the life of writer Tom Hadaway, who died March 2005. He wrote the four plays that make up The Prison Plays after being writer-in-residence at Durham and Frankland prisons in 1986.
Val McLane worked with Tom Hadaway to put together definitive versions of The Prison Plays. They were published (details) shortly before he died. Today, she speaks passionately about his writing for stage and tv; and his instrumental role in setting up Live Theatre in 1973 in Newcastle Upon Tyne.
Val McLane says that Tom Hadaway once met the Bishop of Durham in prison, without knowing he was the bishop. As they passed between two cell blocks the inmates repeated ‘Hadaway and shite’. The writer was surprised they all knew him - but the name-calling was meant exclusively for the bishop. Curiously, the extract based on this doesn’t work as well as the original story.
‘He is a man who got words from other people and transformed them into poetry’ she says. The extracts confirm his status as a natural story-teller, using elegant prose that never sheds the ordinariness of the narrators. The plays examine what the system does to its women and men – finding a black, surreal humour in prison life. They are movingly and wittily presented – with thoughtful looks, wry smiles and laughter in the audience. Subtle cuts between scenes evoke film editing technique. Tom Hadaway’s words are powerful: his voice is clearly heard.
Cast Credits: (alpha order): Gavin Huscroft. Kathryn McLane. Val McLane. Charlie Richmond.
Company Credits: Director – Val McLane. Company – Big Mama Productions. Writer – Tom Hadaway. Publisher - Business Education Publishers Ltd (www.bepl.com).
END
(c) Peter Andrews 2005
reviewed Wednesday 1 June 05 / Washington Arts Centre
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2008
