Lenny, Norton, and Baxter are elderly men playing a card game. They are also serving life sentences on the same prison wing. They are the Lifers, the subject of this captivating new play by Evan Placey.
Commissioned by the Synergy Project, Lifers is one of the plays staged to “inspire change through groundbreaking work across theatre and the criminal justice system.”
There’s a lot to think about in this drama. Lenny is in failing health, but the prison system isn’t set up to support the needs of old age. Forms, rules, and “a duty of care, not to care” dog an incompassionate process.
Prison officer Mark crosses a line when he starts to care for the ailing prisoner, developing a bond with him and his memories. But can you separate the offender from the offence?
It’s a simple fact that UK prisons now have a growing percentage of elderly people on life sentences due to the abolition of the death penalty six decades ago.
A system that decrees any support request or hospital referral drowns in paperwork or insufficient budgets is unlikely to cope, and that’s before the matter of personal dignity.
Perceptions, bias, and prejudice (on both sides, prisoners, and escorts) lead to a toxic environment where nothing works as it should. Lifers is an angry play, but also blackly comic.
The three prisoners thrive in their routine of meals, group, and cards before lights out. Katy McPhee’s design with Tony Simpson’s lighting offers a sense of being caged, while staff members Mark and Sonya’s spaces are more open and free.
Esther Baker’s direction creates tension and empathy in equal measure, with two scenes of particular note: Lenny getting bad news in the hospital, and Lenny bring visited in prison for the first time in 17 years by his son, Simian.
The first scene echoes the dehumanising effect of ‘the system’; the second lets us into Lenny’s other side as a brutal, bigoted killer. “Got what you came for?” Lenny asks his son as he leaves. “I came to see … To see you dying and in pain,” is the answer.
It’s interesting that we never know the first names of Norton and Baxter, or their crimes. We see Norton’s distress at being the target of younger prisoners, who steal the batteries from his hearing aids. We sense the latent racism Baxter has learned to deal with.
Mark and Sonya both feel like square pegs in round holes, powerless to change anything. Mark is the more naive, Sonya, the jaded cynic who gets tough through reading about the crimes of those to which she provides medical care.
Wider issues around the NHS, social care, compassionate release, and the wider societal view of offenders is touched on, but Placey is right to make his play a personal one, albeit one strengthened by considerable research.
Peter Wight (Lenny) gives a standout performance showing both physical vulnerability and a violent temperament. Sam Cox’s Norton and Ricky Fearon’s Baxter offer strong support in their scenes together.
Both Mona Goodwin and James Backway are required to play two characters, and Backway infuses both Mark and Simian with understandable character traits. Goodwin’s Sonya/Wells have less depth but are still impressive.
Lifers is a strong argument for some type of prison reform, and should add to the discourse around an emotive subject.
4 stars.
Lifers continues at Southwark Playhouse Borough until 25 Oct – tickets here.
Image credit: Rich Southgate