"A Man Standing", a Belgian theater play on solitary confinement, will be presented in London on 21 November 2014
Directed by Belgian producer Jean-Michel Van den Eeyden (www.ancre.be ) former prisoner Jean-Marc Mahy puts his own experience of life in solitary confinement on stage. A Man Standing is a breathtaking message to end prisoner isolation.
Tickets: £10 full / £8 concessions/Upstairs/Unreserve
The play will be perfomed in French with English subtitles.
Book now : http://www.richmix.org.uk/what
(Venue 1 Rich Mix, 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1 6LA)
Amnesty International UK
: former Amnesty International case Jean-Marc Mahy will be performing
his play about his experiences in solitary confinement. http://www.amnesty.org.uk/
ICI Londres : http://www.ici-londres.com/fr/
Not Shut Up magazine : Prison life on stage : an extract from A Man Standing http://www.notshutup.org/
Reviews :
« A bold and powerful play..It's not an easy thing to do, since its all secret. Solitary is what we in the US call a `black site'. It is a hidden world. No amount of monologue, or phony recreations will do the trick of breaking it into open view. This is different. Finally a taste of the real thing. »
James Ridgeway, http://solitarywatch.com/
« In my time I have read, listened to, or watched, many accounts of penal life, fact and fictional; but not encountered too many that have transported my mind immediately back in a prison cell: Jimmy Boyle’s Sense of Freedom, Papillon, Mumia Abu Jamal’s Jailhouse Lawyers and maybe a handful more spring to mind.
Now there is one more to add to that list, the monologue, A Man Standing by Jean Marc Mahy. It is a short account of prison life, seen through the eyes of a 17 year-old Belgian boy who has fallen into bad company. Serving time for murder in Belgium, he escapes and travels to Luxembourg with two other fugitives. A police officer is killed and they are arrested. In any language, you cannot kill a cop and expect an easy time. Everybody turns against him, his family, his lawyer, even the prison priest.
You would not normally associate Luxembourg with harsh, brutal prison conditions, but as I say, you cannot kill a cop.
The language is dramatic and the picture of his time in solitary confinement is so bleak, you want to turn your eyes away. He is seemingly without hope.
As the title implies, the narrator eventually gains his freedom and redemption. Books and education were his saviours. (Take note Mr book-banning Grayling) His words on victims, especially those blessed people who seek answers and solutions rather than revenge, moved this old lag to moist eyes.
If I have any criticism, it is the account is too short. I wanted to know a lot more about this man and his journey. But for all that, it is a dramatic, highly charged tale, well told ».
Eric Allison, The Guardian’s prisons correspondent
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photo : Gloria Morrison from Jengba (Joint enterprise not guilty by association) and Jean-Marc Mahy.
Photo : Marek Kazmierski from Notshutup magazine
Photo : Jean-Marc Mahy at Amnesty International London
Conception, mise en scène et texte Jean-Michel Van den Eeyden d’après le récit de vie de Jean-Marc Mahy | InterprétationJean-Marc Mahy et Stéphane Pirard | Assistanat à la mise en scène et à l’écriture Nicolas Mispelaere | Création vidéo Kurt D’Haeseleer | Création lumières Christian François | Création son Nicolas Mispelaere | Régie Abdel Bellabiad / Arnaud Bogard |Réalisation scénographique Jean-Luc Moerman | Conception décors Jean-Luc Moerman et Olivier Donnet | Travail graphique/décors Luciana Santin Poletto | Accompagnement psychologique de l’acteur Françoise Derot | Modérateur / débats Luk Vervaet | Responsable technique tournée Christian François.
Production L’ANCRE (Charleroi) | Coproduction Théâtre National/Bruxelles, Maison de la Culture de Tournai | Soutien La Cité, Maison de Théâtre & Compagnie (Marseille) | Remerciements GSARA, le B.P.S.22., Le Théâtre de la Guimbarde.
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