Liberating Words : Inmates at Juvenile Camp Find Relevance in Shakespeare

Love, hate, betrayal and violence are themes too well known to the boys locked up at Camp Kilpatrick, a maximum-security youth offender camp in the Santa Monica Mountains.

But recently the teens began discovering those themes in a world far removed from their violent, insular reality: the 16th-century Europe of Shakespeare’s “Othello.”

By learning and staging “Othello,” the members of Kilpatrick’s drama group tapped a creative energy they did not know they had. Some have become avid readers of the playwright. All have been exposed to an art--and a broader way of thinking--they never knew.

The boys, who come from tough neighborhoods and in many instances dysfunctional families, say Shakespeare taught them that human emotions transcend time and place.

“Words live on,” said Marco G., 15, who has been housed at the county camp for seven months for robbery. “This place, Camp Kilpatrick, may close and nobody will remember it in a few years, but Shakespeare, his words will live on.”

For three months, the eight drama group members rehearsed their lines and painted scenery with guidance from a troupe of actors who volunteer with the Foliage Theatre Project, a nascent organization that focuses on exposing young people to classic literature.

They called their version of the tragic play “Thugs in Tights: By the Young Gentlemen of Camp Kilpatrick,” performing it at the Getty Museum earlier this month. They hope to continue performances in other playhouses next year.

In rehearsals, the boys used their own experiences with heartbreak, jealousy and trust to shape contemporary dialogue that they occasionally substituted for Shakespeare’s.

The elemental nature of the play made it easy to understand: Othello, a brilliant general but an insanely jealous man, murders his wife Desdemona after being tricked by his best friend, Iago, into believing that she was cheating on him. When Othello discovers that the story was conjured up by Iago, a betrayal he cannot forgive, he kills himself.

“The dilemmas an inner city teenager faces on the street are no different on a fundamental level than the problems people faced in Renaissance Spain,” said Deborah Gruyer Greene, founder and director of the Foliage Theatre Project. “Anguish, love, morality, terror, sexuality, yearning, anger--these are not 20th century issues. They are human issues.”

(These days, another dilemma faces the boys of Kilpatrick: County supervisors last month voted to dismantle the extensive juvenile probation camp system, and has stopped sending teens there. If the county fails to receive crucial state funding before February, the camps--now housing 2,100 boys and girls convicted of crimes ranging from theft to manslaughter and murder--will be closed. Most of the youths would be given early releases and sent home on probation.)

Greene, an actress, was initially nervous about working with the boys, uncertain how they would respond to her and Shakespeare. But within minutes, she found that Shakespeare had captivated them.

“The [normally skeptical] questioning in their eyes was not there,” said Greene. “They were wide-eyed. This hit them on a visceral level.”

At first, Eddie M. held back. A heavyset young man, Eddie was more comfortable with the physical challenges of playing football for the Camp Kilpatrick Mustangs. But today he also finds himself happily dressed in tights, softly expressing the words of a distraught Othello as he prepares to murder his wife.

Eddie, 17, understands the importance of defending his reputation and maintaining respect. Like Othello, those impulses brought him down: He was responding to them, he said, when he punched out a man at the beach for calling his cousin racial slurs.

Even though Eddie likes to pose for football pictures without smiling, with glaring eyes and a tough-guy stance with his arms crossed, he has a gentle side he found he could express onstage.

“When you are around your friends, you can’t be soft,” said Eddie. “But in drama you can, and it’s cool. You have to be real with yourself ‘cause if you try to impress people you are not being true with yourself.”

Othello, a brilliant general who was never secure with his abilities, didn’t trust himself. Neither does Marco G.

“I am not afraid to get out [of the camp],” said Marco, a soft-spoken young man with a piercing stare. “I am afraid of getting back to [how] I was [behaving].”

Marco says he learned his lesson. He says the rosary he wears around his neck is intended to protect him from his worst enemy--himself.

Like Marco, Jeff B., 17, sent here for robbery, has a problem with trust. Jeff says he’s aware that Othello was betrayed by Iago because he trusted him. That can never happen to him, Jeff says, because he trusts no one--except his mother.

“You can’t really put your trust in one person,” said Jeff, who wrote a short play at the camp. “Anyone can backstab you at any time. People lie to each other to get respect, but most of the time they get killed.”

Greene, hopeful that the play will have a lasting effect, intends to set up mentoring programs for kids who are interested in acting, writing, directing or painting once they are released from camp.

“I definitely think it changed them,” said Greene. “But, I don’t know to what degree. Their success living on the outside will all depend on the kinds of choices they make.”

Jeff says he enjoyed the reading Shakespeare because his work mirrors the complex personalities and dilemmas faced in real life.

“I don’t really like stories that have happy endings. Sometimes things don’t come out the way you want,” he said.

He smiled nervously.

“But, I want my life to have a happy ending.”