The second play was
prepared in 2008 before the summer. It certainly represented
a step forward both in personal and group examination. This time the
participants decided to address the problems they face in prison and
make them take the old drug abuse path. They decided that the forum
was the best form for it. Forum is a form that allows the audience to get
involved in certain scenes immediately after they had seen the play
and change the protagonist and seek better solutions. The forum
theatre play requires a some sort of a guide i.e. a facilitator of
the entire process. In this case one of the inmates was trained for
this role.

The
play was about a young man who even besides a long period of
abstinence and hard will, managed to be dragged into the circle of
drug in the very prison block by being subject to pressures and
blackmails. The play shows the whole brutality of the prison life and
the specific weakness of the system. To speak of it, even in a single
dramatic, artistic form, it was not easy thing to do and the inmates
– participants were exposed to certain pressure during the work
itself. It was neither easy for the staff, although they knew what
that was about and they gave support to the entire process, but they
as well felt the pressure of the system that originates from the
rules of operation.

The
first time the play was staged for everyone in the
institution. Educators, commanders, other inmates, psychologists,
work therapists all of them came to see the play. Nothing was the
same again after this play. For days later people talked in the
institution commenting on whether and what the protagonist could have
done differently, and how close that situation was to reality.

The
second time the play had a guest performance. It was staged in the
Penitentiary and Correctional Institution for Juvenile Delinquents in
Valjevo, one of the penitentiary institutions with the cruelest
population. The audience-inmates were confused by the actors/inmates,
by the topic and possibility of taking part in the play. And so they
did take part, at a huge surprise of their educators, and the warden
himself.

The
play was staged for the third time in September 2008 in the BITEF
Polyphony festival, two times in a row. A precedent was made because
the manager allowed the Special Prison Hospital to open their doors
to the interested audience and allow them to see the play. Having
done that this institution showed and proved its willingness to speak
frankly about certain phenomena and issues, which can be seldom seen
nowadays even out of prison, let alone in it! It was an exciting and
dynamic experience. Inmates, staff members, students, theatre
workers, journalists, foreigners – all of them sitting together, side
by side, in the same room… And they all wanted to give their
contribution to finding solution for situations we presented. There
were numerous solutions, many different points of view, a lot of
passion and action.

Later
on, during evaluation the participants evaluated the play as being
their huge success, and the opportunity to present the
problems they deal with, and as a joy of achieving their
common goal, and as a thrilling emotion because we managed to
provoke so many reactions…