Page 30 - NewsandViews 2023 whole publication

Back Door Parole by The Journeymen Theatre 4 views

1. Back Door Parole Stuart Yates

How do you represent a prison riot with two people and minimal props? A suitable soundtrack and the
sudden overturning of a metal desk and chair scattering the contents over the stage. How do you
maintain an atmosphere of tension, anger, frustration with just two actors? Insert genuine humour to
relax the audience then shock them again. These are just two ways in which Lynn and Dave Morris create
plays which anger, amuse and move audience to tears. There would be very few people whose eyes did
not water at times during this uncannily intimate
play. You felt the frustrations of both the long-
term prisoner at prison conditions and the sorely-
tried patience of the Quaker chaplain trying to
make a difference, however small. You also learn
about the gratuitously punitive and often petty
rules in prisons, the failure to release prisoners
on indeterminate sentences which are now
illegal. For me, probably the saddest sentence
was from Ron, the prisoner, saying that if she
knew what he'd done, she wouldn't want to
know him. The loneliness and isolation of a
person repeatedly rejected, unwanted, despised.

I have seen a number of Journeymen Theatre
plays, all dealing with difficult subjects. This was
their very last performance before their
retirement and the visceral expression of intense
and violent emotions was compelling. Their
contributions to various aspects of social justice,
e.g. state torture, refugees, will be greatly
missed.

Dave Morris as Ron, the elderly ‘lifer’ in the prison.

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