We devote this entire episode to one story: Over the course of six months, reporter and TAL contributor Jack Hitt followed a group of inmates at a high-security prison as they rehearsed and staged a production of the last act—Act V—of Hamlet.
(The Cast)
The show asks, what can one more production of Hamlet possibly reveal about murder, revenge, and guilt that millions of previous productions haven't? When the cast members are themselves murderers and other violent criminals, Hamlet can actually take on new meaning. The cast members of a top-security Missouri prison explore aspects of prison life, and their selves, in their discussions over performing in the play with reporter Jack Hitt.
One cast member tells how he came to better understand his own violent history, and the pain of being a victim of violence, through playing the role of the Ghost of the King.
Big Hutch, who plays Horatio, criticizes the plot of Hamlet on the grounds that Hamlet's struggle with whether or not to take revenge, because he says there is no real conflict: Hamlet committed to killing his uncle the minute his father died. Instead, he describes how Hamlet should happen, using the prison as a setting to create a real moral conflict for the character.
Another cast member celebrates his participation in Hamlet as his opportunity to escape the social pressures of prison life and to learn about another culture.
And, at the heart of it all, there's Hamlet's timeless question, which the cast members daily bring to life: are we forever the prisoner's of our actions?
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