When we are born, we cry. Because we’re born to a stage of fools.
Clarence Maclin, aka “Divine Eye,” liked that (paraphrased) line from Shakespeare’s King Lear. But if he’s cried since he was born, he ain’t telling.
You don’t cry in Sing Sing. You don’t show weakness. In a notorious prison full of killers, you gotta keep your eyes dry and your head on a swivel. To survive, you gotta become like Sing Sing itself: as sharp as razor wire, as hard as the brick. As cold as prison bars on a dark January morning.
Eye is sharp, hard, cold. He knows the score. He looks, and acts, at home. A one-time drug dealer before being incarcerated, he deals drugs on the inside now. And the incarcerated men who work for him? They might be the ones who cry.
“This is f—ing aspirin!” Eye tells a cowering coworker. Eye warns him that if he doesn’t turn around real merchandise for real money, “I’m going to tear your f—ing face off.”
Still, that line stuck with Divine Eye. He liked the feel. The rhythm. Even the sentiment.
Eye knew that Sing Sing’s Rehabilitation Through the Arts program sometimes performed a little Shakespeare. So when he heard the RTA was looking for a few new members, Eye thought, why not? Might be something to do, anyway.
But when he shows up for his first day, the whole thing feels just silly. Here they are, grown men—in a maximum security prison—warming up for rehearsal by pretending. I won the lottery! I’m a zombie! They look like fools. And then, they sit down and talk. They share feelings. Grown men, some of who’ll never see the outside of prison again, talking like middle-school girls.
And there he is— John “Divine G” Whitfield—practically the self-proclaimed king of this whole silly club. He writes plays. He takes all the big parts. He spoons out advice like he’s everybody’s daddy.
Well, that’s gonna change. G ain’t Eye’s daddy. Won’t ever be.
Stage of fools? Yeah, Eye sees the stage. He sees those fools. But he’s not one of them.
And he ain’t gonna cry for nobody.
Turns out, Eye’s got it all wrong. Sing Sing’s RTA program isn’t full of fools, but full of people—humans who, through the program, have relearned what the word human means. RTA rehearsals become the ultimate safe space in a horrifically unsafe place—where grown men can show cracks in their über-tough personas and share. Even find friendship.
John “Divine G” Whitfield—G for short—is indeed this strange troupe’s informal leader. He’s written plays and even whole books inside prison (books that circulate in other prisons that incoming men ask him to sign). And he, more than anyone, drives the RTA’s agenda. G lobbied for Eye’s admission. And when Eye arrives, he does his best to befriend the guy and show him the ropes.
Eye’s not having it, not at first. He wants to knock G down a peg or two, not allow G to pull him up. But the two eventually find a way to coexist. And they slowly become friends—not in some sort of sappy, saccharine way. Rather, they forge a friendship that feels completely authentic to their difficult environment. And G encourages Eye to think of himself as more than who he’s been thus far: He can be better.
“Sometimes I think that this might be the best place for me,” Eye admits. But G insists that’s not true. And he encourages Eye to work toward getting release.
These two aren’t the only characters in the movie, of course. We meet several other inmates who’ve been shaped by the RTA (many of whom are played by real vets from the real program). We know that many of these people have done some pretty terrible things. But Sing Sing reminds us that these criminals were, like all of us, created and designed by God—imbued with their own talents and instilled with possibility. We see these people rediscover that possibility here. And that, honestly, is a beautiful thing to see.
Sing Sing never explicitly talks about that sense of God-given possibility, of course. While the film could be a springboard for many a spiritual conversation, there’s not a lot of overt faith or religious content to point to here.
A couple of very small exceptions: When an RTA member dies, one of his friends suggests that he has “not left the building.” Another man recalls how he was called down to the prison chapel when his mother died. There’s a reference to heaven. Someone says that his grandmother was “my word and my god.”
Members of the RTA discuss who they should bring into their program. One potential member is rejected because “he only sits next to the females. … He makes women uncomfortable.” (Sing Sing is obviously segregated, but the troupe does bring in female volunteers to perform a given play’s female roles.)
G talks to a friend about his love of ballet—and how that love forced him into plenty of fights. “Everybody thinks something about you just because you dance,” he says.
We see characters in their boxers and T-shirts.
Prisons have walls and bars and razor wire to keep the people outside safe from its inmates. The people inside? Sometimes, they’re on their own. And while we don’t see much violence here, the film acknowledges that prison can be an extraordinarily dangerous place.
Eye is one of the most dangerous men in that dangerous place, but he’s still intimately aware that he could fall victim any time. And when he feels threatened, he lashes out. It doesn’t culminate in a physical assault, but his aggression stops just a quarter-step short of that outcome. For instance, when G draws him aside to talk with him, Eye again fires off expletives, telling G never to lead him into a dark corner again.
When an RTA member dies, we hear someone talk about how people sometimes hang themselves or get stabbed in prison—deaths he can understand on some level. Elsewhere, a frustrated actor pushes another.
But the stage itself contains plenty of play-acted violence, too. The play that the troupe is performing—one penned by the program’s volunteer director called Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code—involves gladiator fights, Old West gun battles, pirate ships and more. We see some of these scenes enacted. When a handful of state officials come by to check out the RTA in action, its members decide to perform a wildly “violent” scene for them, featuring people getting stabbed and pummeled and killed, the scene punctuated by screams. (Someone even licks pretend blood off a pretend knife.)
And when men try out for roles in an upcoming play, the lines they read can sometimes be a bit grotesque. (“Nothing pleases us more than an exposed liver or a popped eyeball!” one recites. Another talks about “ripping their hearts out with my bare hands!”)
We learn that G was convicted (wrongly, he says) of murder, and we hear some details of that murder. We hear about someone’s mother passing away from cancer.
About 65 f-words, 40 or so s-words and uses of the n-word. We also hear “a–,” “b–ch,” “d–n,” “g-dd–n,” “h—,” and “d-ck.”
In one of the movie’s most poignant moments, a character talks about his own out-of-control drug use—and how that habit broke his grandmother’s heart. “That’s why I’m good in here,” he says, referencing his forced sobriety in prison. “I’m here, and I’m good.”
Eye sells drugs on the inside, and we see some alleged merchandise change hands. He sold drugs on the outside, too, and he laments that his own son followed in his footsteps. We hear that G also sold drugs for a time outside, but he says it was only for a short time.
When a guard is insulted by an incarcerated man, the guard tells him that he’s lost his cigarette privileges.
Divine Eye starts his acting career with a pretty bad attitude, belittling the acting exercises and scowling at all the participants.
We hear a reference to smelly toilets.
During one of the RTA’s first rehearsals for Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code, someone crosses the stage behind Eye—sending the acting newbie into a rage. In prison, that simple act could presage a choke hold or a shiv in the back or worse.
“Don’t walk behind me!” he shouts, about ready to kill his fellow actor.
But another guy, not on stage, tries to calm him down: People walk behind people all the time on stage. It’s normal—just like it’s normal on the outside.
“Brother, we here to become human again!”
And that, in a sentence, sums up the soaring message of Sing Sing.
Sing Sing (a prison just north of New York City), is a hard, violent, unforgiving place filled with hard, violent, unforgiving people. That hardness might’ve landed them there. And if they weren’t so before, they sure are now. The shells men build around themselves can be as thick as prison walls.
During tryouts, one man—his face covered in tattoos—is asked if he’s ever acted before. “I’ve been playing a role my whole life, bro,” he says.
But ironically, acting becomes a pathway to authenticity. Role-playing becomes a door to the real. In the process of bringing a crazy comedy to life in the walls of Sing Sing, Eye, G and the rest of the cast confront deep, uncomfortable truths … and cultivate a deeper sense of hope.
Sing Sing isn’t religious. And yet, we hear the rhythm of salvation and redemption here. We see humanity in this inhuman environment. And as we spend time with these secular sinners, perhaps we’re reminded that we’re not so different. We too can be imprisoned by our own angers and desires. We too can become cold and hard to the world around us.
We here to become human again.
Most of the cast we meet in Sing Sing are actual veterans of the prison’s RTA program, including Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin himself. The film features only a small handful of professional actors—including Oscar nominee Colman Domingo in a role that forced him to be (according to an interview with The Playlist) “more raw than I think I’ve ever been.” And the movie itself was filmed in a real prison.
All that authenticity cuts both ways, of course, and it slices ragged, like a shiv. This world isn’t a pretty one, and the language can be downright ugly. With more than 60 f-words fired off during the film, walking through Sing Sing’s cinematic gate shouldn’t be done lightly.
But it’s not a light movie. It feels raw and real and—language or no—redemptive. And Sing Sing, in its own ragged way, does indeed sing.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
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