Liz Richardson wrote and stars in Unconfined at 59e59 Theaters.
Unconfined is a solo theater piece based on real-life events that asks a fundamental question: What does it mean to really know another person? In this case, the question is more difficult than usual, as the person to get to know is on lockdown on death row. The story of a seemingly kind, thoughtful, creative, and spiritually sophisticated convicted murderer came to playwright Liz Richardson’s attention when she “received a binder of extraordinary poems, drawings, and letters by a prisoner who had been on death row for 18 years,” as noted in the program. She wrote the piece based on her own research and interviews. Richardson portrays three characters who all interacted with the unseen, unnamed protagonist while he was imprisoned: Barbara, a professor of comparative religion at a Southern university; Eleanor, an English artist; and a fellow death-row inmate, Benny.
Richardson portrays three characters who got to know a death-row inmate.
The prisoner’s guilt is not in doubt, and so Unconfined is not a legal drama but, rather, a metaphysical exploration. He and an accomplice murdered three people (a father and his two adolescent children) during a home break-in. The prisoner does not blame his fellow burglar for the killings (despite Barbara’s belief, or hope, that this person was the leader), nor does he use his difficult childhood as an excuse. The inmate keeps photographs of his victims in his cell to remind him of his awful crimes. And he immerses himself in art and theology, with a Buddhist emphasis (Richardson thanks her own Buddhist teachers in the program.)
He comes to Barbara’s attention via the “heartfelt” letters he writes to her, which are filled with “longing to learn.” Unfortunately, Richardson doesn’t offer samples from the purportedly transfixing letters or a detailed sense of the spiritual questions that amaze Barbara, compelling her to get over her phobia of driving so that she can visit the prison, even getting licensed as a counselor so she can meet with him one-on-one. Everyone is amazed by this man: Barbara by his inquisitive and compassionate mind; Eleanor by his art and his sensibility, so that she agrees to mentor him and eventually travels to Nepal on his behalf; and Benny, in his own gruff and vulgar way, by his kind eccentricity.
The staging in the small Theater C at 59e59 Theaters, under Ed Thomason’s direction, is spare: the set consists of a single bench (set design by Janet MacLellan) and minimal props (such as some blank sheets of paper that stand in for letters or drawings). In addition to body language, Richardson segues among characters by moving eyeglasses to the top of her head (Barbara is the only character who wears the glasses to see); Vicky Williams’s lighting design and Josh Cruddas’s sound design make the transitions seamless, and, further, match the lighting and sound to reflect the tone of the short scenes.
One of Richardson’s characters is Barbara, a comparative religion professor, who holds up an embroidered Buddhist stupa (“It represents the journey of peace and compassion throughout the world”). Photographs by Hunter Canning.
The toggling between the three characters also involves voice modulation: Barbara sounds like a New Yorker, while Eleanor speaks in a refined English accent, and Benny, despite being in a Southern prison, with a working-class New York or Northeast accent. On the evening I attended, Richardson struggled with Barbara’s and Benny’s voices, with English intonations seeping in to sometimes give the characters an Australian inflection.
While the play wants to ask if someone who committed such heinous acts can really change in such a radical and radiant way, the answer never seems to be in genuine doubt, and the prisoner’s final words position him as a kind of Buddhist martyr. The possibility that this man may be a narcissistic sociopath manipulating his visitors isn’t genuinely addressed, even when it is revealed that Eleanor’s involvement with the prisoner half her age is an obsessive and romantic one. (That becomes obvious quite early on, so it isn’t really a spoiler; she is, after all, signing her letters to him from “Cherry Toes.”)
The recounting of the prisoner’s clemency hearing and the sequence of the execution are the piece’s strong points, as Richardson lays bare the cruel and absurd administration of the death penalty. As Barbara recounts, “Even the lethal injection buttons are pressed by two people. So nobody can be blamed for committing murder. They’re all off the hook.” In these moments there is a level of specificity that is sometimes lacking elsewhere. Ultimately, the prisoner himself and these three people whose lives he profoundly affected remain elusive, and some of the thornier questions go unaddressed.
A coproduction of 59e59 Theaters and the Nova Scotia–based Kazan Co-Op, Unconfined runs through December 22 at 59e59 Theaters (59 E 59th St.). Evening performances are Tuesday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m.; matinees are Saturday and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are available at 59e59.org.
Playwright: Liz Richardson
Director: Ed Thomason
Set: Janet MacLellan
Costumes: Janet MacLellan
Lighting: Vicky Williams
Sound Design: Josh Cruddas
