Baltimore Opera Company

Study Guide

Dead Man Walking

Perspectives on the Role of Joseph De Rocher

When I won the part of the Death Row inmate for the World Premiere of Dead Man Walking to be performed in San Francisco , I immediately went to work on researching the role. I had already watched the movie starring Sean Penn several times and read the book by Sister Helen Prejean. In fact, a chance meeting with the Sister while she was lecturing at Swarthmore College had led to us being pen pals. She told the composer that she had met a young man going for the part of Joe and had thought that he was an ex-con. “I didn't hear him sing but he sure looks the part.”

I was astounded by how many books there are on prison life and I found myself drawn to the stories of the men who had been on Death Row, in particular, those that had been located in the South. “The Farm”, a recently released documentary, dealt with life at Angola State Penitentiary and included an interview with a young Cajun man on Death Row. I took my accent directly from his speech. Later, during the second production of DMW , I used a language coach who criticized my work all the way up to opening night. It was satisfying to see her notes diminish from several pages to only a few lines as rehearsals drew to a close.

But the most compelling experience occurred when KQED, the PBS station in San Francisco , called to invite me along for a tour of the prison located in Louisiana . I jumped at the chance to see Death Row and perhaps speak with a few inmates. There are several tours a week at the prison but none of those tours see Death Row or certain parts of the Death House. As I hung up the phone I felt a little twinge in my guts. “What had I gotten myself into?”

The following are excerpts from the journal I kept during my visit to Angola with the film crew from KQED: The yard leading to Death Row is lined with beautifully maintained flowerbeds that are in a raging bloom at this time. They contrast sharply with the razor wire that surrounds the yard on all sides. Several guards meet us as we enter the doors to the Administrative and Death Row building. I can see monitors of Death Row in the office and I lean in to get a better look. The tiers are only ten to twelve cells long, all on one side facing windows covered with a heavy mesh. There is movement on the tier and I see several men wandering around. I inquire who they are. “ Oh. Those are the prisoners,'' says my guide. “They are allowed one hour out of their cells each day.” “They can walk the tier or, weather permitting, they can go outside up to three times a week…”

Three gates later there it is just as Sister Helen described it, “Death Row” in large letters stenciled above the gates. I can hear men talking in conversational tones to the left of me but the tier grows quiet as we approach. “They know you're here,” a guard says. My view from the gate only allows me to see the first cell. It is empty. The first cell is reserved for those that are near their execution date so they can be watched for suicide attempts. Otherwise, the other cell interiors are not visible from the guard's station. The other tier on the right is almost empty because the prisoners are in the yard taking their hour. I ask if the yard can be seen from here and the guard points to the window on the right. “You can look but the crew must stay put,” he says and I cross him to see. What I see brings tears to my eyes. There are individual fenced yards about sixty feet long that begin with a width of 25 feet and taper to nothing. In other words, the pens are long triangles. There are five inmates out in the yard now throwing a Nerf football to each other over the razor wire that tops each of the pens. Their age is what moves me. None of them is over 30 and most look under twenty. If not for the pens I would have thought I was looking down on a schoolyard. “It's all very sad until you remember that some of these guys are here for killing as many as four people,” the guard says to me.

So how would one feel if they were stuck in a cell 23 hours a day and never had direct contact with anyone, I ask myself?

On the final day, the prisoner to be executed is brought from Death Row to the Death House. It is a ride that lasts ten minutes and covers most of the ground that is Angola . While visiting Angola , I went through the final hours exactly as a prisoner would. They put me in shackles and manacles and drove me to the Death House where I was put in the last cell. I was fed my last meal and then led to the execution chamber. As I exited the tier I heard an inmate exclaim that he was glad he didn't have to wear those anymore. He meant the shackles that were rubbing against the thin skin of my shins and ankles. Each step made me wince and I wondered if they were too tight. I didn't have a chance to voice my complaint because I found myself looking at the table for lethal injection. “That was fast,” I exclaimed and took a deep breath. The unexpected sight had knocked the breath out of me. The majority of the prison is painted in muted tones. This room was all white. White florescent lights hanging high from the ceiling lighted the dazzling white walls and ceiling as well as white curtains. A large window with a white curtain held the witness booth and only three feet away stood the only black thing in the room, the death table.

After the visit things really started to get moving and I was asked to New York several times to try out costumes and provide input on the look of the character. The production team wanted Joe to look quite young and “stuck” in the era in which he was incarcerated so they decide a mullet haircut would do the trick. Since that production I have gone with a much simpler greased back look that can be easily transformed to everyday hair. I also think it works better for where this character has evolved for me since the premiere.

I was shown several ideas for footwear and chose the work boots since I don't think Joe was a sneaker kind of guy and the area where he lived was kind of swampy. There is nothing worse than being in a pair of soggy shoes all day.

The biggest change, however, since the premiere has been to shift the opening sequence, the rape and murder, from the edge of the stage to the back of the stage. This allows the scene to look more real and not so choreographed. The end result being an experience in which the audience is both reviled and drawn into the action taking place. There is no doubt that Joe did the crime and the audience hates him for it right from the beginning. Everyone begins at the same point. Joe did it and deserves to be punished. They can then watch as the journey to Joe's redemption brings out varied emotions in them. In the end most audience members are changed by the event that is Dead Man Walking .

John Packard

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