In Sing Sing (Kwedar, 2024), members of Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) theatre troupe, led by Divine G (Colman Domingo), perform plays written by a volunteer theatre director named Brent Buell (Paul Raci); during a new season, Divine Eye (Clarence Maclin), a fellow prisoner, joins the troupe and brings both bravado and nonchalance with him, pushing Divine G out of his comfort zone as the inmates develop an original work called Breakin’ the Mummy Code. Divine Eye questions the tactics of the ‘writer’s room’ and suggests ideas that are unconventional. This sparks most of the group to suggest ideas they’ve likely hidden for fear of not being taken seriously. Many of the actors developing this new play actually participated in the real RTA program, founded in 1996 in Ossining, NY. Over 1,000 incarcerated individuals have participated in RTA to date, but Sing Sing focuses on the transformative experience of a handful of formerly incarcerated men returning to the site of imprisonment and disenfranchisement. Our actors are playing fictionalized versions of themselves while participating in a production with equity at its forefront. 

Sing Sing continuously disrupts the myths audiences expect from a prison film, underscoring Foucault’s original critique of such spaces.^[1] Sing Sing sets itself apart, for example, in that there’s only one moment of a prison employee yelling at someone. Similarly, the film only implies drug use one time (and this is through a discussion over sale and profits) and includes only one lockdown scene, but it’s momentary. The prisoners are never visualized fighting one another and they barely engage physically. They even correct one another when a slur or demeaning name is used. In contrast, the prisoners are often shown in circles or semi-circles, discussing their lives, memories, dreams, and favorite pieces of art. We see their struggles and successes in the creative process. Indeed, the one physical alteration, in which Divine G pushes Divine Eye away from him, occurs during a dress rehearsal when frustration gets the better of Divine G. As other performers try to embrace and console him, he pushes them away. Sing Sing doesn’t ignore that there’s violence, illegal activity, and abuse within its walls, but it does purposefully visualize scenes that contrast the prison mythology audiences are accustomed to.

Divine G often speaks to Mike Mike (Sean San Jose, a lifelong friend of Domingo in real life), about the choices they’ve made that brought them to Sing Sing. Their shot-reverse shot communicates an intimate conversation to the audience though we know in reality that the two are separated by a cement wall. Their cells are beside each other, both angled and adjacent, and at the end of a Y-shaped hallway. Divine G and Mike Mike can only hear one another; and because of the angle of their cells, even if they faced the sliver of a window in each steel door, they wouldn’t be able to see into one another’s cell. They talk throughout the night, and in the morning when the camera tracks backwards through the Y-shaped hallway, we’re afforded the angle that the prisoners could never achieve: we concurrently see into Mike Mike’s open cell, his personal space, as well as that of Divine G. This angle functions as the perspective of the guard in charge of cleaning or checking their rooms for contraband, but it also functions as a way to see our characters in a more vulnerable state. We concurrently may invade their privacy and receive a welcome into their space at the same time. This scene is notable because during the drowsy height of their conversation, Mike Mike passes away from natural causes, specifically a brain aneurysm. By virtue of this viewpoint, the audience learns this before the characters do, but we follow them as they assume Mike Mike committed suicide, which would be out of character for him, but his peers are sincerely unsure. All they know is his cell is being cleaned and cleared out and a new inmate will be present to replace him before the day ends.

Much of the run time of Sing Sing takes place during play rehearsals and performances, specifically in spaces the inmates are only allowed access to as members of RTA. As witnessed in the previous scene example, the imprisoned can decorate their cell, but the space will never fully be theirs. Upon release, transfer, or death, a new body will inevitably be moved into the space. Herein lies the significance of the RTA members and their work to alter their spaces through the invention of fictional stories. Whether the participants are channeling the Western, sci-fi time travel, or a trip to ancient Egypt, they cannot lose possession of that which only exists during a momentary performance. The prisoners control these fictional worlds and invite us into them. Sing Sing is the film that undercuts the panoptic arrangement. In this case, it is the prisoners watching while also being watched. The diegetic theatre audience is not hidden from view during performances, so the performers witness the reaction of their audience to the abstract stories they tell, while the film audience views both.^[2] Though the culminating play is displayed for the film audience only in fragments, the film positions us akin to the stagehand or bystander, familiar enough with the work to chance diverting our gaze from the play to watch the film audience instead, if only momentarily looking at the space of the theater. We can take our eye and focus off the performance and sincerely look at the audience, what would normally be considered a faux pas in performing arts. In this scenario, the stage performers are aware of their film audience, yet the camera refuses to position us in a surveilling mode. We’re more so positioned to be observational with a hint of empathy. We remain unseen, but we can see the audience seeing the performers. At least for the length of the play, there is no watchtower, rather a reciprocal watching and being watched.

The inverted panopticon allows both the imprisoned and the public to see more clearly that those who previously controlled the inner workings of the prison system are not saviors, healers, or advocates. The men of the film even go so far as to state that they are responsible for saving themselves. This inversion of the panopticon also disintegrates the walls of the prison and allows for a passage back and forth; formerly incarcerated RTA members are known to continue their work advocating for prison reform while working with the nonprofit in other prisons. So, while this inversion may not change the system, it does shift the power dynamic and redefine who held the semblance of power to change the entire time. The vulnerability shown during the RTA program, the program being the foundation of the film Sing Sing, also functions as a type of reversal in that the incarcerated individuals can express themselves more freely within the program, giving themselves “permission to be [themselves]” according to Maclin, while also exploring their worthiness, which he admits he didn’t previously think existed in him. The men of RTA showed a deep camaraderie during their 2024 press tour, often referring to one another as ‘Beloved,’ a carryover from the film and their real experiences in prison. In these moments, I believe they are giving one another the permission that Maclin references. When he continues in a Q&A hosted by special guest Andrew Garfield, Maclin says “I didn’t think there was anything worthy in me;” we’re simultaneously witnessing both vulnerability and resonance again. Maclin is both aware of his evolution and speaks to it directly, a skill he may not have learned without the RTA program. They are saving themselves, one another, and future generations that may follow in their paths for various reasons. And now these men have been given the opportunity to recreate that story, mediating the whole process through film.^[3] The men of RTA are harnessing the power. Therefore, I conclude that Sing Sing’s creatives have flipped the prison inside out, giving the power to watch, make decisions, cut, and retry to themselves. Their power is visible and verifiable, though it still exists in the same system that it seeks to disrupt. Sing Sing does not destroy the system, but it does alter its operation.

References 

Appler, Michael. “‘Sing Sing’ Star Colman Domingo Hopes Prison Drama’s Profit-Sharing         

Budget Model Will Inspires More Films to Be ‘Equitable Above and Below the Line’”.Variety. 30 June 2024.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Pantheon Books,1977.

—This Is Not a Pipe. U of California Press, 1983.

—‘Photogenic Painting’, trans. Roberts D., in Deleuze G., Foucault M., Gérard Fromanger. London: Black Dog Publishing. 1999

—“Part II: Disciplines and Sciences of the Individual.” The Foucault Reader.

Gross, Rachel Elspeth. “Desira Pesta And Costumes With Humanity For A24’s ‘Sing Sing’.” 

Forbes. Kwedar, Greg, dir. Sing Sing. 2024.

Szendy, Peter. “Discipline and Listen.” All Ears: The Aesthetics of Espionage. Fordham University Press, 2016.