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February 21, 2008 issue

The Exonerated Gives Voice to Innocents on Death Row

Story by Anna Oakes

Challenging. Powerful. Troubling. Hopeful.

Each of these words can be used to describe the subjects and experience of The Exonerated, a play presented by Appalachian State University’s Department of Theatre and Dance from Tuesday through Saturday, March 4 to 8, at 8:00 p.m. at I.G. Greer Studio Theatre.

The Exonerated chronicles the experiences of six innocent people who spent from two to 22 years on Death Row and were eventually cleared—often because an attorney took on their case pro bono or dedicated law school students wanted to right a wrong. Culled from interviews, letters, transcripts, case files and the public record, the script follows the six innocent victims through their arrests, trials, incarcerations and eventual releases when found innocent beyond doubt.

The exonerees are:

• Kerry Max Cook, played by Jordan Westra, convicted in 1978 of murdering a woman acquaintance. He was wrongly imprisoned in Texas for 22 years.

• Robert Earl Hayes, played by Corey Monk, convicted in 1991 of murdering and raping a co-worker. He was wrongly imprisoned in Florida for six years.

• Delbert Tibbs, played by Kerry Dunlap, convicted in 1974 of murdering a man and raping his companion. He was wrongly imprisoned in Florida for three years.

• Sonia Jacobs, played by Lindsay Laws, convicted in 1976 of murdering two policemen. She was wrongly imprisoned in Florida for 16 years.

• Gary Gauger, convicted in 1993 of murdering his mother and father. He was wrongly imprisoned in Illinois for three years.

• David Keaton, played by Reggie Singletary, convicted in 1971 of murder. He was wrongly imprisoned in Florida for two years.

Director and theatre faculty member Ray Miller said The Exonerated—originally produced in New York in 2002, with more than 600 off-Broadway performances—is often done in a reader’s theatre style, with actors sitting on chairs reading the script.

“We’re not doing that,” Miller said. “We’re giving it a full staging.” In the small, intimate setting of the I.G. Greer theatre, actors are within an arm’s reach of the audience, sharing profoundly emotional and graphic stories about gang violence, prison rape and executions. The challenge as a director, Miller said, is to find the balance between staying true to the exonerees’ words while not scaring away the audience. To do this, the actors help the audience identify with their characters early in the play before revealing the darker parts of their stories.

But the play has its lighter moments, Miller said.

“The characters themselves bring a certain degree of levity and humor to their experience. If not, they probably would have gone nuts,” he said. “And that gives us hope, I think, as an audience.”

The nature of the subject matter has made The Exonerated a very demanding play to direct and to perform, Miller said. “It’s a challenge for me as college professor to help the actors go to these dark, highly emotional places and to come back out. They need to be able to leave the material—you can’t carry it around with you,” he said. “It has been one of the most emotionally mature experiences I’ve had with college students doing subjects like this.”

Because The Exonerated deals with the real words of real people and a politically controversial topic, those involved also have a sense of responsibility to make the play as authentic, honest and “compassionately enlightening” as possible to the audience as a citizenry, Miller said.

“The fact that these people are still with us makes it particularly poignant,” he said. “That’s been a special privilege and obligation.”

Miller worked with ASU criminal justice professor Matt Robertson to coordinate the play with the ongoing Capital Punishment series at the university. The actors in the play have attended the series’ films and speakers’ events to add depth to their performances.

Tickets to The Exonerated are $4 and are available at the box office in Valborg Theatre. Because of language and subject matter, the play is not recommended for children. For more information, call 828-262-3063.