A Review of tHE new, all-true, off broadway play

By Michael Ramirez, Senior, Grover Cleveland High School

 

The Castle is a new kind of drama-one that is innovative and intense, and truly lives up to the name of the theatre where it is playing. New World Stages offers everything that is standard in the classic theatre experience and more, with all of it exhibited with a futuristic state-of-the-art twist.

The theatre has been renovated with a creative cinema-style appearance that consists of five separate but equally vibrant stages, each one presenting numerous performances. Overall, New World Stages delivers luxury with a striking array of colors and high-tech designs, and that's before the play even starts.

"the four men and women on stage are the real deal ...There is nothing fictional about this performance"

Unlike anything I've seen before, The Castle is the true story of four very successful, educated and experienced human beings. The twist is they are all ex-convicts. Conceived and directed by David Rothenberg, the drama takes you into the life of a runaway, a murderer, a drug-dealer and
a thief, each with his or her own unique story. But the performers aren't actors. The breathtaking situation of this play hits you when you realize that the four men and women on stage are the real deal, telling their own true stories. There is nothing fictional about this performance.

Drug addiction, domestic violence, poverty and death were all familiar topics in the grim lives of Vilma, Kenneth, Angel and Casimiro-four young New Yorkers who, by their teenage years, had already discovered perhaps the only thing life had in store for them: prison. With nothing more than a few chairs on stage, they introduce themselves, quietly sit down, and begin to narrate their journey. From vivid childhood memories in grade school to forlorn flashbacks at Rikers Island, each story is read out loud from their self-conceived scripts. With poignant pauses and real tears in their eyes, they describe their desperate circumstances in the past, reveal their broken dreams and confess the corrupt choices that nearly destroyed them. But at the climax of it all, they all recount the fortunate experience of having become a part of The Castle-the institution that embraced them and slowly gave them back their lives.

Each one describes a daily struggle to read, learn and educate themselves in a place where all the odds, and even the government bureaucracy, were against them. Reminiscing about the time he sold a watch to buy a comic book, Casimiro declares his love for reading, even behind bars, while Angel speaks about the skill he discovered programming computers from inside the prison. Five minutes into the play, you will be pulled into four riveting situations. This 80-minute performance packs a powerful message: that even with a total of 60 years of incarceration, there is always hope-the kind of hope that helped Vilma begin college, and that helped Kenneth become a pastor.

 

The Castle by David Rothenberg. $20 seats for all performances. Weekends through June 29o New World Stages, 340 W. 50 St., www.newworldstages.com