Joanna and Connie Treves discovered Rene Denfeld’s award-winning novel The Enchanted in 2014, after hearing the author – a death penalty investigator – speak on BBC Radio 4’s Women’s Hour. Exploring the complexities of the U.S. justice system and the treatment of prisoners on death row through performance, puppetry, choreography and sound, Pharmacy Theatre’s adaptation of The Enchanted opens at London’s Bunker Theatre this week following a successful run at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe.
“The Enchanted is a story about death row in America, but it’s also a story about how we find hope in the most terrible circumstances,” explains Connie, who in addition to co-adapting also directs the play. “It seeks to uncover the reasons why people end up committing horrific crimes, and affirms that even men who have been locked up by society for what they have done are able to reach for beauty and truth.”
Rene Denfeld’s first novel is set in a maximum security prison in Oregon, and invites us to consider how its characters have found themselves caught up in the never-ending cycle of violence that is the death penalty. “Denfeld’s novel is such a holistic portrayal of those who work in and around death row,” says Connie. “The novel is not judgmental and Denfeld has spoken widely about how she did not want the novel to be overtly political. For me, it is so political though in its honesty. It addresses the complexity of the penal system and how we must view it within the wider structures of our society – we must always try to understand.”
Not surprisingly, adapting Denfeld’s 300-page novel has been a long and complex project. “For me, the novel is also very theatrical,” says Connie. “At the heart of the story lies the universal human need to be witnessed – to be seen – which is very interesting onstage. The whole theatrical experience suddenly becomes even more charged. Firstly, we had to create a loose script which could be worked on for the stage. The novel consists of many different overlapping stories and it was clear from the off we would not be able to keep all of the different plot lines. There was then a long process of narrowing the content and experimenting with the actors on what translated on stage. At the heart of our work was trying to keep the same ethos of the novel. That was the hardest part.”
As director, Connie has nothing but praise for her creative team, which includes movement director Emily Orme, composer David McFarlane and a cast of six actors: Corey Montague-Sholay, Jade Ogugua, Hunter Bishop, Georgina Morton, Liam Harkins and Jack Staddon. “They’re all wonderful! The process of devising is always demanding and especially working on a piece about death row. Everyone has also fully thrown themselves into the research – every day I come into rehearsal and someone is talking about a new documentary they have seen or article they’ve read!”
Although the UK no longer uses capital punishment, Connie believes the play is still essential viewing for British audiences: “We may not have the death penalty, but the UK justice system has many of the same failings as that of the USA. Both systems need to be seen as part of a whole system of social care, and it’s so important to see the correlations between failures in other parts of the social care system and an increase in crime.”
The play was made with the support of the novel’s author Rene Denfeld and Professor of Child Development Elsbeth Webb. In addition, Pharmacy Theatre also enjoy the backing of prominent human rights lawyer and founder of the charity Reprieve, Clive Stafford Smith. “Clive’s just fantastic,” says Connie. “He is such a brilliant man who does such hard and important work. To have his support and be able to learn from his experience has helped us all so much. We are very lucky.”
The Enchanted goes beyond simply portraying the realities of death row, and Connie hopes it will make audiences think about much deeper questions. “I hope they’ll take away that it’s so important in so many different areas of life to strive to understand why things are happening,” she explains. “By looking back to the root of a problem we are able to uncover a huge amount of hope – if there is a cause there is also the possibility to intervene in these cycles of pain. Above this though, The Enchanted is about a shared humanity. If audiences are able to come away from the production thinking about what are the things which make us human then I’ll feel we have done justice to the book!”
Book now for The Enchanted at The Bunker until 17th June.
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