Humor has always been a powerful tool against hardship. Even in the toughest of experiences, a well-timed joke can relieve the tension, ease the pain, make us think, and transform our feelings.
The Poetic Justice Project (PJP) is a live theater group made up of formerly incarcerated individuals who collectively use stagecraft to transcend and share their experiences with local audiences. The group’s upcoming production is a collaboration with local actor Gale McNeeley, who was originally approached by PJP artistic director Deborah Tobola to direct a play, but McNeeley had something else in mind.
“I thought, instead, we could do a character mask workshop, because I do commedia dell’arte,” McNeeley said. “The masks are actually called the Seven Deadly Sins, so we spent time acting them all out and we had a good time, so I just blurted out, ‘Would you guys want to do a show together?’”
McNeeley is more than an accomplished actor when considering his work on Broadway and across the rest of the country; he is also arguably an expert in humor, having studied the art form extensively. His familiarity with the commedia dell’arte style definitely comes from time spent studying at the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre and the Scuola Internazionale Dell’Attore Comico in Italy.
In the form of commedia dell’arte—which translates loosely into “comedy of craft”—actors use masks that convey an obvious emotion or character. They then work to embody that character physically and emotively when they speak.
“It’s an approach to performing that goes back to the 1500s in Italy, when the common man wanted to do the shows about their lives instead of miracle and mystery plays that were put on at the churches,” McNeeley said. “Each character has a number of masks that they use depending on what kind of character they are.”
The Poetic Justice Project always explores the theme of incarceration, and this production is no different. The show INSIDE OUT relates the story of Damian (Leonard Flippen) who is tried, convicted, and sentenced to serve a time in jail. The behavior of the judges, lawyers, police, and those awaiting trial is all punctuated by the different masks each uses at various times.
Once in jail, Damian must don different masks to get by, whether dealing with the warden or his cellmate (Jorge Manly Gil). In a short time, the play deals with life on the inside. The group politics and pecking order among inmates comes into play with the tongue-in-cheek comedic nature that the medium allows.
“The show is about the masks we have to wear day to day to get through life,” McNeeley said. “What mask do you wear to survive?”
Once out of jail, Damian and his cellmate navigate the outside world again and must put on several different faces in order to get housing, aid, food, and a job. The two ultimately butt their masked heads when fighting for the affections of a lady, as love is always a theme in commedia dell’arte performances.
The most unique aspect of the style is the fact that, beside the scenarios and the order in which they occur, nothing in the play is fixed. There is no written dialogue, direction, or action, other than what pans out naturally as the scenes occur.
“It’s a really freeing form in the sense that, when you don’t have to remember lines you can just be in the moment,” McNeeley said. “This really is play, they know their characters, and they go after what they want; it’s like a game, kind of like how life is a game.”
The goal of commedia dell’arte, even when it began centuries ago, is to provide a healthy dose of social satire. The actors recognize the differing archetypes found in people, and play with these characteristics, taking comedic and poetic license along the way. Nobody is free from getting poked by the satirical shtick, from authority figures to the everyman.
In order to make these unscripted scenes work, the actors pull from their own life experiences when delivering dialogue. Certainly after weeks of rehearsal, one line will be preferred over another, but no two performances will be entirely the same. In this way, commedia dell’arte enables the actors to wield creative control over the story, truly making it their own, and strongly influencing the comedic outcome. In the case of PJP actors, they can address and transform their experiences of incarceration with laughter and creativity.
“They all have a sense of humor about it; you have to,” McNeeley said. “It’s not even dark comedy, the way they do it, they are just making fun of all the shit that they have been through, which is therapeutic and fun to do.”
Each performance of INSIDE OUT—which includes stops in San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Santa Maria—ends with a talkback with the audience. Each PJP production ends this way and allows the audience to ask the actors how their experiences influenced their performance.
Arts Editor Joe Payne is the writer with a thousand phrases. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 4-11, 2014.