The American prison system merits a lot of scrutiny, as does any penal system in any society that lays any claim to accountability. Oakland’s Lower Bottom Playaz have been doing their part to shine light on the system’s workings this year in multiple theater pieces by executive producing director Ayodele Nzinga.
In late summer came “Beyond the Bars: Growing Home,” depicting a support group of formerly incarcerated men talking through their difficulties adjusting to life outside. Nzinga’s latest project goes deep into the life of one Oakland man who recently emerged from a half-century in prison.
Playing at the Flight Deck in downtown Oakland, “Lifer” is adapted from the story of 85-year-old Glenn Bailey.
“Glenn was rightfully convicted of a double homicide,” Nzinga explains. “He served a total of 42 years for that conviction, but in total Glenn spent 52 years inside the penal system in California.”
“Lifer” emerged from the work Nzinga was doing collecting prisoners’ stories for other work. “I met him because when ‘Beyond the Bars’ was in development, a group of people, including one of Glenn’s devotees — Glenn has devotees — saw it and was very moved by the work,” she says. “And he approached me with a book commission about Glenn Bailey.”
That project is still in process, and Nzinga is using the play as a way to look at the story from another angle, pared down, while she works on the longer book version.
“He went to jail for a double homicide that he never, ever said he didn’t do,” Nzinga says. “I was just working the other day on a scene where he’s before the parole board, and they’re asking him does he feel remorse. He falls short of feeling remorseful, because he says he knew the people, and they were horrible people. They tried to kill him, their major mistake was they didn’t, and what happened to them was actually quite predictable. And the world was not any poorer for these people not existing, was sort of his stance. But he felt regret for taking a life.”
That equanimity extended also to the people who put him in jail. Bailey introduced Nzinga to the district attorney who prosecuted him. He also has a relationship with the officer who arrested him, Doug Butler. When Butler later went to jail himself, Bailey — who by that time had built great influence and respect not just with prisoners but with authorities as well — was consulted about whether having them in the same prison was going to be a problem.
“Bailey’s attitude toward it is that Butler was doing his job,” Nzinga says. “When he arrested him, Bailey felt like he was doing his job out in the streets, and Butler’s job was to catch him. And so Butler did his job a little better than Bailey did, so there was no animosity.”
There’s a whole lot to cover in the story, from West Oakland life in the early ’60s that set Bailey on a path to crime to the experience of going into prison as a youngster and coming out as a senior citizen.
“One of the things that fascinates me about incarceration is it gives people time,” Nzinga says. “And that’s not just metaphorical. I mean literally, time. People, especially poor people, operate on a survival mentality. In prison, you’re given a lot of time you have to fill some kind of way. And so for the first time ever some people get a chance to expose themselves to other philosophies, to sit with themselves to actually get in touch with themselves.”
However much growth Bailey may have experienced in his decades inside, the impetus to share his story comes from wanting to spare others the same experience.
“His purpose in life I think is to redeem those 52 years, to turn them into a cautionary tale that saves people like my sons and at-risk youth that I work with,” Nzinga says. “He says he wants to save them his wasted time.”
Contact Sam Hurwitt at shurwitt@gmail.com, and follow him at Twitter.com/shurwitt.
‘LIFER’
By Ayodele Nzinga, presented by the Lower Bottom Playaz
When: Jan. 12-28
Where: The Flight Deck, 1540 Broadway, Oakland
Tickets: $20-$40; www.lowerbottomplayaz.com
