Eyes closed, imagination flying. For an instant, a group of male inmates at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility are no longer restrained by prison walls. Their minds are free.
That’s the effect that the Rehabilitation Through the Arts, or RTA, program has on the men in writer-director Greg Kwedar’s Sing Sing, a life-affirming, superbly acted ensemble piece about the deep impacts of creativity. In a case of reality bleeding profusely into fiction, Sing Sing surrounds Colman Domingo’s extraordinary star turn with a supporting cast whose first exposure to performing came during their incarceration in the titular maximum security prison. That meta component speaks directly to how RTA empowered them to fashion a new self-image.
They were once inmates playing at being actors, now they are actors playing inmates on the big screen. Exuding an air of nonchalant positivity, RTA veteran Divine G (Domingo) has taken on a leadership position in the group. The victim of a wrongful conviction, he writes new plays, helps with direction, and recruits new members.
The charismatic-yet-short-fused Divine Eye (Clarence Maclin) enters the fold for its latest production, shaking up the established order and pushing everyone’s buttons. It’s Divine Eye’s admitted, unexpected interest in Shakespeare that convinces Divine G of his raw potential. But it’s not all Macbeth and King Lear for these men – one of the ways Sing Sing depicts RTA’s documented benefits is in the way the program�.
