THEATER REVIEW : ‘Undersiege Stories’ Shoves Prison Life Into the Open

“The Undersiege Stories,” the new piece from Keith Antar Mason and the Hittite Empire at Highways, is a series of five monologues from a jail cell that asks us to consider if the billion-dollar prison industry in this country is replacing the military industrial complex. If common sense says no to this, Mason will supply other questions worthy of some thought.

Is this country putting African American men in jail at an alarming rate so that it doesn’t have to think about their problems? OK, possibly, in a slightly metaphoric sense, but that’s not the whole story. The first monologuist (Ellis Rice) went on a shooting rampage on a train. The killer recalls that one victim “was begging, just like I used to beg for a job.” Perhaps jail is not an inappropriate place for this man. Later, a young carjacker asks, “You’ve seen me as a nigger, you’ve seen me as a murderer, but have you ever seen me as a god?” To this, the only logical reply would be, “Well, if you’ve just hijacked my car, probably not.”

But Mason is not interested in strict logic, rather in poetic logic that is unlaced with irony. He never really addresses the question of responsibility in an evening that is equally divided between blame and despair. Also, there is a fair amount of writhing on the floor.

Between the monologues, Antar plays Warden Limbaugh, a puppet of the ultra right who addresses the Senate (the audience) to let us know that the prison system is in fact working. Mason imbues the Warden with his grave and rather uneasy stage presence, but he doesn’t really bother to develop a character, other than to just have the Warden say he’s glad about Proposition 187 and that we finally kicked all homosexuals out of the military and put them in prison (the setting is the past, the present and the near future).

The monologues, on the other hand, occasionally rise from the dreary litany of complaint to illuminate the real loss of individual lives in continuing race wars. Rice has an affecting moment when his delusionary lost soul imagines himself a professor of African American studies at Berkeley who, when attacked by an insane person, can simply say, “Security, take him away.” As the carjacker, Wheaton James lets you see the utter lack of hope just beneath his expert indifference.

The men perform in a net cage with nooses for each of them hanging off to the side. Dollar bills dangle above, just out of their reach.

Toward the end, when a prisoner moans, “You had the whip and chain in place when you brought me here,” one begins to despair of catharsis or dramatic movement. Perhaps to illustrate his characters’ lives, Mason never supplies it.

* “The Undersiege Stories,” Highways, 1651 18th St . , Santa Monica, tonight at 8:30, Sunday at 7:30 p.m., $10. (213) 660-8587. Running time: 2 hours.