Drama as Gayle puts The Bard behind bars

Stage and screen star Gayle Hunnicutt is bringing Shakespeare to prison inmates around the country writes Gerald Isaaman

SHE says she has retired. That she has given up stage, screen and radio after more than 30 years as a star. But there is still real, stark drama in the life of Gayle Hunnicutt.
It takes her behind the bars, into prisons up and down the country. Putting on drama that brings Shakespeare to life with prisoners acting in classic performances, taking part herself on occasion.
“They know and understand Macbeth better than we do,” exclaims Gayle. “They loved that play because they could identify with it – the fatal error down that road and no way back. ”
It was while dancing the tango with a friend in New York that the road ahead became clear for Gayle, who lives in Primrose Hill with her husband, the journalist Sir Simon Jenkins. “What are you doing with your life that really matters right now?” she asked him – and discovered he spent his time working with a drug rehabilitation centre under Brooklyn Bridge.
Back in London, Gayle made contact with the Actors’ Centre, in Covent Garden, aiming to follow the same path, and was introduced to Bruce Wall, creator of London Shakespeare Workout, who has been transforming the lives of prisoners up and down the country.
That was more than five years ago. Since then Gayle has visited more than 80 prisons, introducing Bruce’s techniques of enthusing prison inmates to try out the exercises and warm-up techniques actors rely on. There stimulating effect has amazing results.
“Just imagine what it was like when some big burly man came over, picked me up and swung me around like you might do a two-year-old child,” she recalls. “You feel as light as a daisy because he is so full of joy. You know that’s been quite a special experience.”
Indeed, the exercises unzip the emotions of those taking part, something difficult to do for prisoners who know that any show of feeling is considered a sign of weakness.
From those infant beginnings the project has grown enormously, the latest performance using a combination of former prisoners and professional actors – you can’t tell the difference because they all wear tracksuits.
They are taking Blacking Iago on a national tour of 21 dates before the end of the year.
“These inmates have had their civil rights taken away – often locked up for 23 hours a day, and that is a huge punishment,” she declares. So this is a splendid occasion when they will perform Blacking Iago, a unique version of Shakespeare’s Othello, complete with an original prologue written by a woman serving a life sentence.
Gayle’s enthusiasm is electric, as she describes how the production was born in St Saviour’s, a church behind Harrods, in London, where the ex-offenders, 10 of whom have applied for Equity Actors’ Union cards, are now free to indulge in the skills they first learnt in London’s Brixton Prison.
“We have already affected their future,” explains Gayle, now the chairwoman of the London Shakespeare Workout. “We have made a new life for them, though the purpose of LSW is really not to turn people into actors. If that happens that’s wonderful.”
What the project has discovered in Britain, which has the highest percentage of people incarcerated in prison in Europe, the majority of them black, is that the frustration of a lack of education and job opportunity has engineered their criminal downfall.
Visiting prisons has been an education for Gayle.
She said: “Holloway Prison was particularly interesting because it was one of the few times where we had inmates who participated in a workout but who wanted to make it not work for some reason. You should have seen Bruce Wall dance around them and change the atmosphere.
“At Pentonville we have this horseshoe space within a beautiful chapel where we can work. The trouble is that when you need to go to the toilet you have to go back behind the iron bars and the difference between the chapel and the actual body of the prison is quite shocking.
“We have some wonderful workshops where even the prison officers participate, and that’s fun for everybody and allows the inmates to tease the officers. In other prisons the reaction is so negative, and you know that the officers think what’s happening is stupid.”
In contrast to that, there is the more open women’s goal at Send, which is made of wood, with the result that the inmates carry their cell keys round their necks, to ensure that they can escape if fire breaks out.
“Most of them here were mules, women from South Africa, Vietnam, Thailand, who foolishly brought drugs into the country,” says Gayle. “They carry very high sentences for that. They’re lovely. I really enjoy meeting those women.”
Her insider’s view gives Gayle her own views on the cruelty of prison life and how the work of the Shakespeare project brings some relief.
She says: “Just slamming these kids into prison is so discouraging, so demoralising and, of course, as most people agree, they come out better criminals. Concerted efforts need to be made to solve our sociological problems.”