Escalating the Prison Walls: A Case Study of There are Women Waiting: The Tragedy of Medea Jackson
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2238-3999.v15i2p103-123Keywords:
abolitionist theatre, black theatre, american dramaAbstract
Developed by independent research, sparked by a chance encounter with the work of American performer Rhodessa Jones, this essay aims to undertake a case study of the play There Are Women Waiting: The Tragedy of Medea Jackson, presented by the American theater collective The Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women in 1992 under the direction of Rhodessa Jones. The performance was the first in a series of theatrical works created by the collective of amateur artists, all young Black women who, at the time, were serving sentences at the San Francisco County Jail in California. By examining the roots and founding process of The Medea Project, we will explore how this particular performance touches on crucial themes for considering the intersections between art and socio-historical reality, theater as a privileged locus of utopian counterpoint to social mechanisms of surveillance and punishment, and counter-hegemonic theater as a space for critical reflection and positioning on issues of freedom, race, and class.
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