REEL | Staging 'Sing Sing' – Colman Domingo Rehabilitates Prison

"You guys are becoming actors just by being real and vulnerable with each other."

A24 / Elevation Pictures

A bespectacled Colman Domingo stars as novelist John "Divine G" Whitfield, who co-wrote the film's story, in the powerful real-life prison drama, Sing Sing, based on actual events revolving around the Rehabilitation Through the Arts theatre program. Directed by Greg Kwedar, the film follows a small group of inmates inside New York's notorious Sing Sing Correctional Facility, one of the most infamous maximum security prisons, as they attempt to stage their original time-travelling stage musical comedy, Breakin' the Mummy's Code, while fighting for their freedom and avoiding recidivism.

Sing Sing stars almost exclusively actual former prisoners playing versions of themselves including Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin, who gives a soulfully vulnerable performance, alongside Domingo and the Oscar-nominated Paul Raci. Due to an accelerated shooting schedule, limited rehearsal time or preparation, and the general economics of independent cinema while featuring mostly non-actors, there's a welcome ragtag, grainy, and lo-fi quality to its isolated setting thanks to being shot on Super 16mm film stock.

Scripted by Clint Bentley and Kwedar based on the Esquire article, "The Sing Sing Follies," by John H. Richardson, there's an obvious inspirational tone to the subject matter about the power of theatre in rehabilitating troubled individuals incarcerated for serious crimes. Beyond their status as prisoners, coming together with fellow inmates and creating art despite their circumstances has a profound effect on the characters based on real people. It's a powerful film told with care and compassion.

Sing Sing is a clear example of grounded, trauma-informed filmmaking where the artists made the conscious effort to recreate the real-life struggle of these prisoners putting on a performance in the most naturalistic way possible in going to the extent of bringing those former inmates into their creative process. Domingo is sensational as Divine G in capturing his pure sense of empathy to the screen despite years of wrongful imprisonment. It makes the case for the restorative and healing nature of theatre beyond "art as therapy" in the lives of the incarcerated.


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