The Tempest

David and I recently watched a documentary called Shakespeare Behind Bars. The documentary follows a group of men in prison for heinous crimes as they rehearse for a production of The Tempest, Shakespeare's last play. As they rehearse, learn their lines and ultimately decode the personal meaning of their particular roles from the play against the backdrop of their own lives, it seems that the one theme that everything comes down to is meaning in life.

I wanted to believe that the Shakespeare program had changed these men's lives. As I watched, the program did seem at least to change me. But, in reading the follow up on-line, I learned that so many of the inmates continued to have problems with the law. Some were sent back for more years when their parole hearing arrived. Some were released only to be incarcerated yet again. Only a few were released and seemed to live a happy life. How much had the program changed any of their lives no one but the inmates themselves would ever know. And, perhaps whom among any of us can ever really say? After all, do we know the measure of change following anything in life?

One man made a deep impression on me. He had lived a sad childhood and actually seemed like a nice enough guy. Yet, it was this man who had strangled a woman who reminded him of someone who had caused him great pain in his childhood. When I was a teenager, my relationship with my step-mother was quite stormy. Little did I know then that the stormy waves she rode were part of what is called bipolar disorder today. And what does it even matter? We are still accountable for our own actions. It took me many years after moving away to college to realize that I didn't have to tie my little raft to hers. She would surely drown us both. The life I live with my husband today is miraculously joyous, calm and soothing. What accounts for drama is having to go back to the grocery store for another baguette because we finished the one we had for breakfast.

The irony of the Shakespeare prison program was in the meaning that the one inmate was so desperate to find in his own life. The Tempest explores the ideas of guilt and innocence and the fine line between them. It also explores the cyclical nature of injustice, or justice as the case may be. One good turn, so they say.

The one inmate expected to live out his life in prison. He had not come to any true life meaning by the end of the documentary, just as surely as many of us will not come to one at the end of our lives. Yet, to the audience it seemed clear that he should have. And perhaps if he never does, then he will truly continue to live the Tempest's life imprisoned on his own island.

The difference between happiness and tragedy in life is both personal and delicate. Sometimes those who have suffered great tragedy find the greatest happiness. Other times it is those who should be the happiest that continue to suffer the most. Shakespeare seemed to know this. The final scene in The Tempest has Prospero calling for the audience to end his spell by their applause. And in this way the meaning to life seems clear. It is but ourselves that set us free, for we are gods.