Wall of Silence

The question, for theatremakers Duane Cooper and Blake Habermann, is not "how long is a piece of string", but how powerful. Their show Solitary has no words. Instead it uses physicality and a length of rope to explore the issue of solitary confinement in US prisons.

“Our initial intent wasn’t to explore solitary. We wanted to investigate the theatrical possibilities of a rope. But the theatre gods gave the theme of solitary confinement to us, because it chimed perfectly with what we were trying to do.”

A huge amount of background research has gone into the show, from working with charities that campaign to end the practice, to interviewing ex-prisoners – including one man who spent more than 10 years, on and off, in solitary. But the show itself is a mime piece. So how does Cooper convey all that information?

“It translates quite easily,” he explains, “because in solitary who are you talking to, besides yourself? The lack of dialogue seems appropriate. And a lot of the psychological deterioration has physical manifestations, so it lent itself to mime. It reminded me how much we say without words anyway.”

It’s a sparse set consisting of two blocks, one chair and a length of rope. The playing space is the size of a solitary cell – 6ft by 9ft. On top of that there’s a soundscape of live foley, evoking what it’s like to be in prison. At points, though, that sound suddenly drops out. “You feel how lonely the space can be, and the need for you to try to create sound yourself, just to feel alive.”

All the research about solitary suggests that it's extraordinarily damaging, and yet it’s become more common. The late '80s saw the rise of mass incarceration. Cooper explains one theory, that it was a means of getting cheap labour: "You get as many people in prisons as possible, have them make goods for pennies, so there’s a financial incentive to keep prisons packed.”

As the numbers of prisoners rose, the practice of solitary confinement was renewed. There are instances where solitary is used to protect a prisoner: “For members of the LGBTQ community who face a higher risk of abuse, sexual harassment, and things of that nature, they can be put in solitary confinement for their protection. You can also be put in solitary if there’s threat of violence from gangs.”

But that doesn’t mitigate the damage it has on a prisoner’s mental and physical wellbeing. “Even a week can be detrimental, but a lot of people are spending upwards of a year in solitary confinement. All the research shows there’s no benefit. At this point, now, it’s purely punitive and not rehabilitative at all.”

Another huge injustice with the rise in mass incarceration was the disproportionate number of African-Americans who were jailed, even for minor misdemeanours. That’s something Cooper and Habermann thought hard about, particularly when it came to deciding who should perform the piece.

Cooper is African-American, Habermann is Caucasian. “We discussed what it meant if Blake was in the show compared to me. Politically, emotionally, it made sense that we reflect the numbers – minorities are disproportionately incarcerated.”

The big question that Cooper’s been wrestling with is whether prison should be about punishment or rehabilitation. “Ideally it should be for rehabilitation,” he says, “but I struggle with what it means to pay your debt to society, and what it means to forgive. Certainly there are a lot of people unjustly imprisoned, and that’s an issue unto itself. But for the people who truly have committed crimes where the general population would say it deserves some kind of punishment, I don’t think the system supports them coming out and being able to function in society.”

There should be some type of punishment, Cooper argues, “but the extent to which it’s happening now completely ignores rehabilitation and it’s just...” he pauses, “abuse.”

There is no one way to tackle reintegration into society, he says, because there are so many facets to the problem. “It’s incredibly hard to get a job, your access to educational resources, to mental health support are lacking, there’s a high rate of homelessness.”

But that’s why he’s made the piece: to explore the complexities around the practice. It’s about “spreading the word, first and foremost. I’m not particularly political myself, and having been involved with this subject for so long I ask myself ‘am I doing enough?’ And I’m hoping that by creating theatre, by raising awareness, I’m doing my part.”