because the hood is commercial now or whatever. shakespeare was something, you know, i never thought i would experience in my life. you know, since i came in contact with shakespeare, i see a lot of those parallels that correlate with urban life. essentially macbeth and the rest of the characters are committing either immoral, unethical or criminal acts. where we would say criminal acts, right? of course, that s what we re in here for, committing criminal acts. so it s made me more introspective. the sky has the residue of sunlight, but it fades away like butter on cornbread. macbeth is getting rid of them. that s how he keep his hands clean. he s going to have the lower ranking ones do the job for him so he don t have to. just days before our shoot, inmate iris white had completed a 3 1/2-year shu term and had been transferred to general population. he was allowed to return to the
hear all the stories because i listen and i think to myself, you do not know how fortunate you are. you re going out there with another chance, whether it s five years, ten years or what. you re getting another chance. i ll never get that chance. i would give my leg, my arm, for that chance. i m never going to get it. i m going to die right here. it s fun to break the law and dance with the devil. but see, when you got to pay the fiddler, it ain t nothing nice. trust me, i m living it. i m living it. when it comes to serving hard time, white trash baker is hardly alone. me, myself, i got 35 to life. i m here on a three strikes case. in the mid- 80s i had a burglary and attempted burglary. i did four years for it. those are strike one and strike two. in 1996, i caught a drug charge, a methamphetamine charge, i fell under the california s three strikes and you re out law. i ended up getting a sentence of
shu to finish his work on the script. now, he gets to join this group of general population inmates who will bring the script to life. it was really funny, because some of the inmates were playing witches in macbeth, dancing around, these big old guys, dangerous, scary-looking guys, going whoo! an all-male cast is something that we need to get accustomed to. we re not used to it. the population here isn t used to seeing them playing women. and yet that s the way shakespeare s plays were originally done. you have overstepped your authority. it is hi hector, what an awesome sight. bow down and acknowledge my might.
by magical words, i shall give the illusion of spirit with much nerve. as the actors were performing, i looked over my shoulder and i noticed iris was silently reciting every word of the play. so i focused my camera on him and i thought it was pretty cool that he was getting to see his own words coming to life and enjoying it so much. all he s known in belief, he shall bury it. i tell you, hags, that this [ applause ] this is the first time i seen it when he was speaking, i knew everything, i knew the words as he was saying it, right? it s crazy to hear it. to see the words come to life. make you want to continue to do it. like art imitates life. oh, man, that looked good. i like it. they did good. i want to see some more of it, though. for iris white, the
macbeth mirrors a life of tragedy but also brings about understanding because when you look into something and you see yourself, and you understand yourself, you understand the world. what is the relationship between macbeth and banquil? shakespeare doesn t fill in that gap. are they friends? does he feel some loyalty? does he feel some ambivalence? on the one hand, this is the prince and the father of the prince they have to get rid of. professor laura bates from indiana state university has been volunteering in prisons for more than 20 years. she founded a unique program called shakespeare in the shu. we chose macbeth as our main text for a lot of important reasons. the idea of looking at the choices that this character makes, someone who is in aristotle s terms a tragic hero. he s a noble man, an honorable man, a good man who made bad choices. i m in prison for murder.