Deborah Tobola
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You Can Go to Prison
by Deborah Tobola
Maybe you've watched Lockup or Orange is the New Black and you wonder if that's what prison is really like. Now you can experience prison for yourself — and solve a murder mystery during your visit. Poetic Justice Project's upcoming production of In the Kitchen With a Knife is a participatory murder mystery set in prison.
The play, written by Deborah Tobola and Dylan O'Harra and directed by Adair James, features poetry by Jorge Humberto Nuñez Medina and live music by the band Petty With a Prior. The audience is seated on the set with the actors, in order to have a close-up view of unfolding events.
In the Kitchen With a Knife opens with three inmates — Conrad, Alejandro and Huey — preparing for morning chow in the prison kitchen. Their co-worker, Telly, is late to work — or so they think. When Conrad opens a broom closet, Telly falls out, dead as a doornail, a knife stuck in his chest.
Conrad, Alejandro, and Huey are promptly escorted to "The Hole," a surreal place presided over by an inmate named Dodger. Dodger encourages Viet Nam vet Conrad to implicate one of his co-workers, and uses the same strategy with ex-gang member turned poet, Alejandro, and street hustler, Huey. In the meantime, correctional officers are trying to get at the truth, and the warden wants the case solved sooner than later.
At intermission, you'll be asked to name the killer. You can compare notes with other play-goers if you like. Depending on how you (collectively) vote, you'll see one of three possible endings. As with all Poetic Justice Project productions, you'll be invited to join in a talkback with the actors after the play.
The actors may or may not be guilty of the same crimes their characters have committed. Poetic Justice Project, a program of the non-profit William James Association, is the only theatre company in the country that engages formerly incarcerated actors. Most actors have no prior stage experience before coming to Poetic Justice Project.
In the Kitchen With a Knife features many veteran Poetic Justice Project actors, including Leonard Flippen, Jorge Manly Gil, Nick Homick, and Caroline Taylor-Hitch. Alejandro's poetry was written by Jorge Humberto Nuñez Medina, who was incarcerated in a California prison and now lives in Mexico. Live music is by Petty With a Prior, the house band of the Santa Maria Day Reporting Center.
Tickets for the play, available at Brown Paper Tickets, are $20 general admission, $15 students/seniors, and $10 groups of ten or more. In the Kitchen With a Knife will play at the Atkinson Community Center in Santa Maria on October 26-27; at the Grange Hall in San Luis Obispo November 1-3, and at the First Congregational Church in Santa Barbara on November 8-9.
In the Kitchen With a Knife is your chance to go to prison — and get out after an hour and a half with a new perspective on criminal justice.
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