We met on the penitentiary for the efficiency “Time Out” by the theater group of the Inmate Psychiatric Establishment.
Sunday midday and earlier than I move the primary gate of the Korydallos Psychiatric Detention Heart to observe the efficiency of the Prisoners’ Private Improvement Workshop (EPAK), I hand over my private belongings. For anybody who has by no means visited a penitentiary it’s troublesome, nearly unattainable, to grasp the way it feels when the doorways shut behind them. Like dropping contact with the world. Not solely the skin but additionally the within. Each ten meters doorways shut and open. You’ll be able to’t go wherever until the guards open the door for you, and so long as you take a look at the bars your imaginative and prescient turns into vertical. A brief sense of confinement. A brief sense of escape I think about the therapeutic impact of artwork may provide. The objective is, nonetheless, to enhance the psychotherapy of the handled prisoners, contributing to their easy transition into society as a complete.
This system of the Nationwide Theater
Since 2018, the Nationwide Theater has been implementing the Prisoners’ Private Improvement Workshop in detention facilities, with the director Stathis Grapsa in control of planning and implementation. Workshops, rehearsals and all conferences happen on the Particular Youth Detention Heart of Avlona and the Prisoners’ Psychiatry of Korydallos. “Time Out” is EPAK’s third work. It was preceded by “Marbled Time” in 2019 and “2nd Division 43” in 2022.
The PSKK staff works for about 18 months and when all members are able to take the following step they suggest a brand new challenge created by the staff members. For the director Stathis Grafsa and the Nationwide Theater, EPAK, as he explains to us, is a lifelong imaginative and prescient: “Since 2018, the Nationwide Theater has been supporting the efforts made in prisons by EPAK. Whether or not we’re speaking in regards to the Korydallos Psychiatric Hospital or the Particular Youth Detention Heart in Avlona. In Thebes, Diavata and Chania, its function is extra advisory, however in Korydallos and Avlonas, the help of Ethnikos is decisive.” And he continues: “The success of this system is predicated on the consistency that’s created between the sufferers and that takes time. We do not go to the present for its personal sake. What we care about is that each one members really feel assured to have the ability to converse. To take heed to their considerations, discover the energy to look inside and create actual relationships. The issue, usually talking, is that we do not hear. We predict we’re listening to our neighbor however in actuality we’re not. This entire course of, the sharing, the stripping if you’ll, helps the healers to choose up the thread from the start. These persons are combating their demons. The non-public points which can be touched on within the present are their very own ideas and it took time for them to have the ability to dig inside and see them.”
The stigma of psychological sickness
Of all of the teams of prisoners or drug addicts that take part in these workshops, the theater group of the Prisoners’ Psychiatry of Korydallos has to face yet another stigma, that of psychological sickness. There are various elements that have an effect on folks in therapy: institutionalization, relapses, appeals court docket choices and something that may disrupt their each day lives.
Konstantinos, the “good big” of EPAK, is ready for the court docket’s resolution on his launch on the finish of Could. The very first thing he’ll do is go to Kefalonia to see his mom. Later he shall be enrolled within the theater group of Sami. With Giannis, once more, we mentioned politics. He advised me that we’re commanded by those that didn’t go to vote, i.e. one in 5. Nicely, the results of the nationwide elections of 2023 isn’t actual but it surely took place by way of the foolery of those that received bored with going to vote. Dimitris was asking once they would have a gathering once more as a result of he had been ready all week for the rehearsal day to be together with his staff. He says that for the primary time in his life he made mates and would not have to cover who he’s.
On the finish of the day Stathis Grapsas confessed to me a narrative that moved him very a lot. A person and a lady, incarcerated in several prisons, have been briefly in a detention middle awaiting the court docket’s resolution on their circumstances. Whereas chatting, they confided to one another that they’re members of the theater group of the jail the place they’re serving their sentence, with this director. Two unknown folks, incarcerated, have been discussing in a cell about theater and what they need to do when they’re launched…
#Theatre #present #Time #Korydallos #prisons
