"Denmark's a prison."

From This American Life: "We devote this entire episode to one story: over the course of six months, reporter and TAL contributor Jack Hitt followed a group of inmates at a high-security prison as they rehearsed and staged a production of the last act—Act V—of Hamlet. Shakespeare may seem like an odd match for a group of hardened criminals, but Jack found that they understand the Bard on a level that most of us might not. It's a play about murder and its consequences, performed by murderers, living out the consequences."

Listen to the show here. It's fascinating, chilling, poignant.

One chilling moment: The man who plays The Ghost is in prison for murder. He talks about how when he first read the Ghost's opening speech--describing his own murder--he felt it was his own victim speaking through the lines, about the horror his victim had endured. When he delivers this speech, he says it his victim is speaking through him.

The program also talks about Claudius--in particular, the soliloquy Claudius delivers, admitting the horror of his crime (III.iii: O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven...). Claudius admits to the abject horror of what he is done, and also admits he will not give up everything his foul crime has brought to him: the queen, the kingdom. Says the director of the play, when that soliloquy was performed in front of an audience, "You could hear a pin drop. These are guys with deep regrets."

At one point the reporter says, "The actors tell me they've been practicing their lines whenever they can, often shouting them from cell to cell."

The most poignant moment for me was listening to one of the Hamlets (there are four) speak about grappling with Shakespeare's language. We hear him stumbling over the lines, Up from my cabin,/My sea-gown scarfed about me (V.11.13-14). The director tells him "sea-gown-scarfed" means "fog" (in my version it says this actually means a kind of sailor's uniform--but anyway). The inmate is really struck by this image, then talks about Shakespeare's language, about how wonderful it is. Sounding surprised, he says, "he's actually really good."

Yes.

The pic above is the prison cast, part of Prison Performing Arts. Their trailer is spooky, especially in the first half--the guy who plays the ghost is scary. You can see razor wire in the background