Standing ovation for Quaker prison theatre
Journeymen Theatre group performed at Ashfield Prison
A Quaker theatre company performed in front of an audience of sixty inmates at a prison in the south west of England this month.
The Journeyman Theatre company presented And the Beat Goes On… at Ashfield Prison in Bristol on 16 June. The play explores Quaker peace initiatives from the abolition of slavery to current Quaker work in Palestine.
Russell Richards, the local Quaker prison chaplain, told the Friend: ‘It was a very powerful presentation and kept the audience of sixty-plus prisoners enthralled.’ The event, which received a standing ovation, replaced the usual Sunday Morning Christian service and included hymns and silence which, according to Russell Richards, was ‘very moving’. He added: ‘The service got the Quaker peace message across to the men in a much more powerful and engrossing way than any other medium I can think of. I’m sure interest in Quaker values amongst the men has increased significantly.’
Some of the men commented after the event, saying: ‘We’re never had a Sunday Service like that before, it was brilliant’ and ‘I felt I was in Palestine when [one of the actors] was doing her monologue, so moving and full of emotion’.
