France: immersed in a prison cell

I’ve always been interested in the theatre. I started performing in 1992, a while after my release from prison. I started out with stand-up comedy, but my routines didn’t focus on prison to begin with. I took classes at the Café de la Gare theatre in Paris and then began performing in my first shows. My teacher at the time was very supportive. After that, I had to stop performing for a few years to earn a living, but I still attended the arts festival in Avignon every year.

One time, I met a friend and fellow playwright there who didn’t know that I had done time in prison. I described to him what life was like behind bars and that gave me the idea to talk about incarceration on stage. We began writing the play in 2016 and it was performed for the first time at Avignon Festival the following summer. It was a hit, and we began performing it all over.   

What initially motivated me to perform wasn’t a desire to portray what my life had been like in prison. In fact, prison didn’t influence my desire to be on stage at all. There were many years between when I first got into theatre and when I created the play in Avignon. It wasn’t an outlet for me by any means.

My Life in Prison depicts life in prison as I experienced it: it’s purely autobiographical. I didn’t want to simply state what was good and what wasn’t. Instead, I share my journey and experiences from the moment I was arrested to when I arrived in prison and finally, my release. My goal wasn’t to tell a made-up version of events or a sob story. There are moments that are funny and others that are less so. If you took ten people who had all been to prison, they would undoubtedly come up with different shows to the one I have written, each with their own vision.

I tell my story on stage because it’s the only place I talk about what I experienced. When I perform this play, I am inevitably transported back to prison, to some degree. That is why I decided to recreate the prison environment on stage, with a cell identical to the one I had in the 90s. In this way, I am portraying what day-to-day life was like at that time. I certainly wasn’t living the high life, but I didn’t find it traumatic either. In any case, this experience changed me. Prison leaves a life-long scar on anyone who goes there, no matter what they say. That isn’t to say it’s something you think about 24/7, but there are lots of little reminders of prison. You never forget it.  

The play also provides an opportunity to talk about what comes after prison. Some people get sent back, but I’m sharing my story and the fact that there is hope after getting out of prison. The main message I want to get across is one of hope. That’s all that I can say. The play speaks for itself on everything else and the audience can draw their own conclusions.

I’m pleased when people watch the play, discover what it’s like in prison, and leave with a different point of view. The fact that someone is sharing their personal experiences makes a huge difference. Those who come to see the play and have never been to prison spend an hour in my cell alongside me. In a way, this allows them to feel what it’s like to be incarcerated. 

I always enjoy performing this play; however, I try not to do too many shows, as each time I do, it’s as if I’m back in prison for an hour.   

My main goal is to perform in theatres: nothing beats the intimate atmosphere that you find there. However, I have also performed in a number of different locations. I had the honour and pleasure of being able to perform at the prisons in Épinal and Nancy, for example. I was able to tell the prisoners that there is hope after they are released and to show them what prison was like back in the day, before the so-called “modern” prisons were built. In my mind, the play is timeless because the nature of prison remains the same. No matter what, whether it be run-down or modern, whether you have a TV or not, prison is still a place of confinement with all its issues.