PITTSFIELD — Twice a year, the three-member Minnesota Board of Pardons meets to consider applications for clemency from convicted and sentenced felons who have lived successfully in their respective communities for a minimum of five years after having served their time in prison. The board comprises the governor, the chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court and the state attorney general. Selected applicants are given 10 minutes to plead their case, accompanied, if they wish, by one or more supporters.
Anyone opposed to a particular pardon request also may speak. A pardon sets aside the original conviction and removes it from the applicant’s criminal record. What: “Forgiveness” by Mark St.
Germain. Inspired by the Minnesota Board of Pardons. Directed by Ron Lagomarsino With: Joyce Collins, Rodney Hicks, Darlene Hope, Peggy Pharr Wilson Who: Barrington Stage Company Where: St.
Germain Stage, Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center, 36 Linden St., Pittsfield When: Through Aug. 25 Performances: 7:30 p.
m. Wednesdays; 8 p.m.
Thursdays through Saturdays; 2 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 3 p.
m. Sundays Running time: 1 hour, 5 minutes (performed without intermission) Tickets: $25 - $67 Reservations and information: 413-236-8888; barringtonstageco.org “[It] restores civil rights including the right to vote, hold public office and own firearms,” one of the board members explains early in Mark St.
Germain's intellectually and emotionally stimulating new play, “ Forgiveness ,” which is being mounted in a smoothly crafted world premiere at Barrington Stage Company’s St. Germain Stage through Aug. 25.
“In the eyes of society a pardon means forgiveness,” says another board member. If a pardon is denied, the applicant must wait five years before applying again. Minnesota is the only state to have such a program.
The twist in St. Germain’s nuanced play is that the pardon board is not the only body to weigh in on the four cases under consideration over the course of the play’s 65 minutes. The audience also is invited to deliver its opinion by holding up one side or another of a placard that’s been placed on their seat.
The green side of the card indicates pardon; the flip red side indicates denial. At appropriate moments, the audience is asked to hold up one side of the placard or another. While two out of three votes are required for the Board to grant a pardon, a majority vote is required from the audience, which may be swayed as much by the charms of an individual actor as they are by the arguments waged by the character being played by that actor.
The determinations of the board and the audience are revealed at the end of the play. I won't reveal the board's decisions but the audience at the performance I attended voted to pardon two petitioners and deny pardons to two others. One of the board's decisions met with an overwhelmingly hearty chorus of “boos” from the audience.
The cases involve a woman named Elizabeth James (played by Peggy Pharr Wilson), who was convicted on an arson charge for setting a friend’s clothing on fire; Donnie Blazer (Rodney Hicks), convicted of second degree assault, essentially the result of defending himself with a gun after being jumped at a party; and Martin Johnson (Joey Collins), who did time for third degree criminal sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl. He is listed for life on a registry as a predatory sex offender. What he wants is commutation of the lifetime supervision provision of his sentence.
The fourth applicant, Florence Pullman (Darlene Hope), was convicted and served time for second degree unintentional murder in connection with an attempt to collect a debt and an assault on her son. Darlene Hope, as a petitioner, pleads her case in a scene from "Forgiveness" at Barrington Stage Company. The petitioners speak sincerely, earnestly.
Each is seemingly candid and forthright; exposed. Whether we believe any of them is disingenuous and to what, if any, degree is part of the play’s process. The cases are real.
St. Germain’s script is taken in large measure from actual transcripts; the names, however, are all pseudonyms. The arguments by petitioners and their supporters or opposers, the questioning by board members are layered and complex.
Seemingly extenuating circumstances abound, as do profound changes in life patterns, behaviors, attitudes, ways of being. St. Germain; his director, Ron Lagomarsino, who directed St.
Germain's “The Happiest Man on Earth” last summer at BSC; and an ensemble of four first-rate actors in four uniformly persuasive performances — are offering audiences an up close and personal look at a rarely seen corner of the American justice system. These cases all have been adjudicated; sentences have been imposed; time has been served. The question here has to do with what happens afterward.
“Forgiveness” is about restorative justice; how much convicted felons are entitled to as they reintegrate into a community and try to fashion lives that are decent and law abiding. The play stirs thoughts about the consequences of what have been judged to be criminal acts, years after they have been committed, years after felons have been released into the general population. More than that, St.
Germain raises questions about the nature of forgiveness; the capacity of a community, writ both large and small, to forgive if not forget. The most emotionally wrenching moment in “Forgiveness” comes in a fiery, gut wrenching exchange confrontation between Hope’s Pullman and Wilson’s Violet Hall, the daughter of Pullman’s shooting victim, who appears before the board to argue against Pullman's application with all the residual pain and resentment she can summon. “Forgiveness” is a gem of an opportunity for its diverse ensemble of two male and two female actors.
Over the course of the play’s roughly 65 minutes, each of the actors plays a Board member, a pardon applicant, and an advocate, either for or against a pardon. The portrayals of the pardon seekers are layered and nuanced. The applicant statements are each sincerely, if not always entirely honestly, waged.
The questioning from board members is expert, incisive, probing; at times revealing information about which some pardon applicants have not been entirely forthcoming. The play’s structure is straightforward without resorting to facile, cheap melodrama. Each sequence ends with the board members in a quiet huddle, exchanging thoughts and reaching a decision among themselves, out of earshot of the audience which, at the same time, is examining its own conclusions before being asked to raise the placards.
While deliberations are underway, quotations from a variety of philosophers, jurists, historians, writers, historical and political figures are projected across the upstage wall (a quote from Oscar Wilde – “Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much” – is my favorite). The only discordant note in this otherwise smartly assembled, non-preachy play comes at the very end when the actors join in a gratuitous kumbaya moment to sing “Forgiveness,” which has been written for this show by St.
Germain (lyrics) and Randy Courts (music), with whom St. Germain has collaborated on a half dozen or so musicals, most notably “The Gift of the Magi.” “Forgiveness” speaks to its audience far more eloquently and poignantly through the voices of four individuals who, irrespective of whether you feel they are deserving, want nothing more than a clean shot at the American Dream.
What: “Forgiveness” by Mark St. Germain. Inspired by the Minnesota Board of Pardons.
Directed by Ron Lagomarsino With: Joyce Collins, Rodney Hicks, Darlene Hope, Peggy Pharr Wilson Who: Barrington Stage Company Where: St. Germain Stage, Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center, 36 Linden St., Pittsfield When: Through Aug.
25 Performances: 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays; 8 p.
m. Thursdays through Saturdays; 2 p.m.
Fridays and Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays Running time: 1 hour, 5 minutes (performed without intermission) Tickets: $25 - $67 Reservations and information: 413-236-8888; barringtonstageco.
org.
