BEHIND BARS Performance highlights need for prison reform BY STEVEN STYCOS

Those expecting sensational revelations of prison rape and other assaults will be disappointed. A 40-minute performance based on writing by inmates at the Adult Correctional Institutions instead features sparse, punchy descriptions of prison life and repeated reminders that the ACI falls short of its rehabilitative goals.

Voice of the Voiceless begins with the morning wake-up alarm and the choice faced by an inmate of a shower or a "pretty gross" breakfast. "Welcome to the den of thieves, the hospice of addicts, and the purgatory of murderers," announces a character named Old School. "This is prison, the most intense experiment in human interaction known throughout history."

The performance, featuring volunteer actors, will be staged for the first times, Friday, September 9 and Saturday, September 10 at 7 pm at the Mixed Magic Theatre, 230 Main Street, Pawtucket. (The shows are free and will be followed by dessert and a panel discussion led by ex-inmates and family members.) The show’s producers, the Behind the Walls prison reform campaign, hope to stage future performances elsewhere in Rhode Island. In pushing for outside review of prisoner grievances, lower inmate phone costs, and better mental health-care services, Behind the Walls has clashed frequently with the state Department of Corrections and the Rhode Island Brotherhood of Correctional Officers. The campaign is part of a prison reform effort by the activist group DARE.

Behind the Walls member Sally Mendzela of Cranston started soliciting writings for Voice of the Voiceless after reading letters from ACI inmates and learning of an artistic production in a New York prison organized by Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues. Mendzela also received permission to use the letters of ACI inmate Edwin Rivera and New Jack’s Guide to the Big House, a self-published book by recently paroled maximum-security inmate Bruce Reilly. Reilly, Christopher Johnson of the Providence Black Repertory Company, Brown University student Jeremy Bearer-Friend, and Michael Bonds, a member of the BLACKOUT Art Collective of Boston, picked through the results to arrange a performance written entirely by ACI inmates.

Among other things, Voice of the Voiceless describes chess-playing hustlers, illegal cigarette sales, strip searches, and loneliness. Writes inmate Geoffrey Beattie, "I’m buried alive in a box/box my hands/box the wall/make it bleed/let something natural come out of me."