Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, The Exonerated (play) Mumia Abu Jamal, Live From Death Row (essays) REQUIREMENTS 1) Reader Responses On our listserve, everyone will post at least six responses (approximately 500 – 750 words, about every other week) to our readings. Your reader response does not need to touch on everything you have read for. The Operation of the Criminal Justice System. But as both the play and Stanley Cohen point out, nothing else about the case supported Nadeau’s story. There was no physical evidence against Tibbs, and no witnesses could place him anywhere near the place where the crime took place. The case against Robert Earl Hayes (Robert in The Exonerated).

• The Exonerated Play Pdf
• The Exonerated Play

There’s a distinct sound made by audience members watching “The Exonerated.” It’s a sharp exhale, part incredulous, part angry, and delivered with a wince or a shake of the head. That sound is a visceral reaction to stories of people unjustly sentenced to die. It staves off the compulsion to cry out, or maybe just to cry.

Ten years after its New York premiere “The Exonerated” still has the power to unsettle. This documentary play recounts the tales of six former death-row inmates, using their own words, from court transcripts, interviews and letters. Some of those convicted were nowhere near the scenes of the crimes. A few were connected to the victims by the thinnest of threads. Whatever the case, their stories remain troubling.

“I finally volunteered to give what they call a ‘vision statement’ — a hypothetical account of what I would have done if I had killed my parents,” says Gary Gauger, a former inmate played here by a wisely understated . Such an account might jog memories of where he was on the day of the murders, he was told during some 12 hours of interrogation.

Exhausted, Gary agreed to give the statement, all the while denying his involvement. That version was then used by the police as his confession. Years later two other men were found guilty of the crime.

Similarly somber, mind-boggling tales are made increasingly intense by being delivered in a matter-of-fact way in this dark, spare reading, directed by . Issues of race, law enforcement and the death penalty are raised, of course (though conflicting accounts and other gray areas are skirted). But by focusing primarily on individuals, the play, by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, packs a greater wallop — the personal is always more affecting than the polemic.

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“So I’ll just give you a moment to reflect,” Sunny Jacobs (a gentle, marvelous ) says of her time in prison. “From 1976 to 1992, just remove that entire chunk from your life, and that’s what happened.”

Again, you hear that sound from the audience.

This production features 10 actors; 6 are full-time, and 4 roles are filled by rotating cast members (Ms. Channing, Mr. Dennehy, and on the evening I went). There’s not a false performance in the 90-minute show. (The theater at the Culture Project, however, was uncomfortably hot, a distressing — and, I hope, rectified — oversight for a stationary work that demands your complete attention.)

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In the end, despite horrific situations and years of incarceration, a few of these former inmates seem to have found a kind of peace. You may wonder how that’s possible, given their ordeals. Perhaps, as one suggests, they’ve just let go of the malice in their hearts. Or, perhaps, they think of others who were innocent but who weren’t released in time.

The Exonerated

Culture Project

Grand Hall at Saint Mary Church

Lower E. Side

CategoryOff Broadway, Drama, Play

CreditsWritten by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, directed by Bob Balaban

CastJim Bracchitta as Prosecutor 2, Amelia Campbell as Sandra Cook, Bruce Kronenberg as Prosecutor 1, Curtis McClarin as David Keaton, April Yvette Thompson as Georgia Hayes, JD Williams as Robert Earl Hayes and Leonard Robinson as Robert Earl Hayes (thru 11/18); also a rotating cast including Anthony Arkin, Ron Cephas Jones, Trudie Styler and Steve Earle (11/20-25) Kathleen Chalfant, Roger Waters, Chris Sarandon (11/27-12/2) and Trudie Styler (12/2)

The Exonerated Play Pdf

PreviewSeptember 15, 2012

OpenedSeptember 19, 2012

The Exonerated Play

Closing Date December 2, 2012