The Importance of Theater
This week I’ve been binge watching the new Netflix limited series When They See Us. I would really recommend it to everyone. It tells the story of the Central Park Five. Five young black males, most of whom were children, convicted of a horrible crime, and later exonerated. It confirmed for me one of the reasons why we do what we do.
We believe theater can change people. It does this not by appeals to the intellect, but to the emotions. It allows the audience member to place themselves in the same situation as the character in the play.
A Wall Street Journal report on September 8, 2013 notes that thirty eight percent of convictions of people under eighteen, who were later exonerated, were due to false confession. It is one thing to read, or to hear this. It is a totally different thing to be sitting in the jury box and deciding how much weight to give a confession.
You may have read or heard this statistic, but you don’t feel it. If you are like most people you think, “Not me. I’d never confess if I didn’t do it”. But if you see someone you can identify with, do something you say you wouldn’t do, and realize, yes, I would do that in these circumstances, and take that bone deep understanding into the court room – perhaps in the future there would not be another Central Park Five. Or at least fewer.
This is one of the reasons we do what we do. We are grateful you are taking this journey with us.