Award-winning storyteller Ira Glass, host of "This American Life" NPR and PBS, held a sold-out audience at the Pageant Theater spellbound last Saturday night.
The event was a benefit for the non-profit Prison Performing Arts, an organization that works with prison inmates to put on productions of Shakespeare's plays, as a form of rehabilitation. The productions are prepared over several years and are staged in prison.
An episode of "This American Life," titled "Act V," about Prison Performing Arts' preparations for a production of Act V of "Hamlet" by inmates of the Missouri Eastern Correctional Center in Pacific, Mo., ran in 2002. The show has been a fan favorite.
Ira Glass is a storyteller, but a teller of true stories, often with an unexpected twist.
For the Sept. 27 performance at the Pageant, Glass sat behind a soundboard on stage and presented a program that sounded much like one of his radio broadcasts, mixing in music and sound clips as he talked.
He spoke about the "This American Life" program, Prison Performing Arts and about the overwhelming response he had received to the original broadcast, which has been frequently re-aired over the years due to popular demand.
Glass was joined on stage by Agnes Wilcox of Prison Performing Arts and show contributor Jack Hitt, as well as members of the Prison Performing Arts' Alumni Theatre Company, ex-inmates who participated in the program and continue to perform in the St. Louis area.
As the house lights came down, Glass began to weave his magic, speaking in a soft, hypnotic voice, as he launched into reminisces about his reaction to the PPA program and the startling discoveries he made talking to some inmates.
"One of the things radio hosts are looking for are good quotes," he said. "Usually, we talk to a subject for an hour to get a few minutes we can use."
When they were preparing the show, Glass and the show's contributing writer Jack Witt first spoke to one inmate participating in the Prison Arts Program.
"We shocked to find that he spoke freely about his crime, something most of the inmates refused to do," Glass said.
This inmate requested to play the role of Hamlet's father's ghost, because he felt he was giving voice to the man whose life he himself had unjustly taken.
Glass played part of this moving interview for the audience, then continued talking about preparing that program.
Glass recalled that he and Hitt were stunned by the man's candor and insight and, initially, thought they might do the whole show on him.
Then they spoke to the other participants. Again, they were struck by their level of insights into their own experiences, and into the material of Shakespeare.
"For these men, they have life experiences that connect them to the material," Prison Performing Arts' Artistic Director Agnes Wilcox said.She said that the murders, betrayals, and deceit in Shakespeare's dramas mirrored some aspects of their own lives.
Glass played other interviews from the 2002 radio show, describing what emotional impact the subjects had on him, and also brought on stage some of the ex-inmates who had been part of that show to recreate their Shakespearean roles.
It was not all drama and Glass also offered some humorous tidbits as well.
Glass is the cousin of renowned composer Phillip Glass, some of whose music was used in this show. Although cousins, the two had never met until Ira interviewed Phillip on NPR's "Fresh Air" program. "I grew up in Baltimore," Glass said. "He was off in New York, composing."
They have since become friends.
Glass described how one PPA performer described the stratified social structure of prison life as like high school. "This program draws the theater kids of the prison population," Glass said.
Another participant even wrote an adaptation of "Hamlet" set in a modern prison. "We sold the script to Hollywood," said Glass "but of course that was the end of it."
Near the end of the evening, the Alumni Theatre Company presented a scene from Shakespeare's "Midsummer's Night's Dream" with radio show host Glass playing a small role. The performance brought gales of laughter and thunderous applause.
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