Shakespearean Convicts

The story of prison inmates performing Act V of Hamlet makes me wonder how prison transforms people. Seeing that the play was performed by criminals living out the consequences of crimes similar to Hamlet's, I am curious about these inmates' behavior and character changing as they undergo Hamlet. This reminds me of the film Das Experiment, the portrayal of a psycho-social experiment that explored violence and ultimately dehumanization. Any contact with prison transforms people, but then how does Hamlet transform inmates? 

While Das Experiment depicts the loss of humane behavior in an attempt to temporarily study volunteer guards and inmates, the production of Hamlet in jail civilized and humanized real criminals. After some of the inmates got "intimate" with Hamlet, they spoke with their own ghosts. They contemplated their past crimes like Hamlet contemplated his own, resulting in a deep and personal connection with themselves. Hamlet  allowed them to understand themselves better and their thinking at the time they did their wrongs. In Das Experiment the case is quite the opposite. Some "clean" civilians experiment with prison life and end up committing crimes similar to the crimes in Hamlet. 

The play served as a therapy for the criminals to relieve themselves from the regret and pain of their crimes. Danny Weller, one of the inmates performing Hamlet, chose to perform as the ghost because he felt that a man he killed talked to him through the ghost. "He wanted me to know what I put him through", said Waller as he explained the impact of Hamlet in him. The perpetrators of violence in Das Experiment go berserk and immerse themselves in a civil war. Playing to be convicts, they committed savage crimes whereas real convicts reincorporated into civil society enacting Hamlet's violence.

Madness?

In these two examples one sees different how different types of violence may lead to change in human behavior. Studying Shakespeare's violence helped inmates know themselves better and find tranquility after having committed their crimes. In Das Experiment some innocent men were mutated by a prison into savage criminals. In prison, Hamlet serves as an aid to men in need of forgiveness, company and revitalization. It will not change who they were or what they did, but it was a "rehearsal", said Jack Hitt in the podcast. This is a rehearsal of civil life and possibly to prepare some of the actor to reintegrate themselves into society. Something that prison alone never taught either in Das Experiment or at the Missouri Eastern Correctional Center. Seeing the coarse ferocity that prison is (not saying that people don't deserve it), Hamlet is a therapy that may cure or relief the stigmas of confinement.