T H E T A M P A T R I B U N E
Inmate Enrichment, August 12, 2005
Actress, writer and poet Liza Jessie Peterson, a former runway model, brings her one-woman show to Orient Road and Falkenburg Road jails.
Article by Mike Wells
In a hallway where the only sounds usually permitted are the scuffles of sandal-clad feet walking single-file, one woman's words moved a crowd to pealing laughter, lively chatter and affirmations of "mmm hmm."
When she's performing, Liza Jessie Peterson's wide grin and bright eyes are upstaged only by the words she spins into tales of redemption and respect.
On Thursday afternoon, she stood before about 80 women and 25 men in orange jumpsuits at the Orient Road Jail, trying to show not everyone considers them a lost cause.
Peterson is a former model who left the Paris runways for acting classes and prison commissaries. She travels the country reciting original poetry and performing a one-woman play exclusively for inmates. She performed twice Thursday for Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office inmates at the Orient Road and Falkenburg Road jails. In the play "The Peculiar Patriot," Peterson plays Betsy LaQuanda Ross, a name that gives an intended nod to the seamstress of the first U.S. flag. Instead of sewing the Stars and Stripes, this Betsy Ross is visiting a friend in prison.
She carries with her a handmade quilt and stories about others behind bars. "The character is both politically correct and politically incorrect because, you know, as human beings we have many different layers," Peterson told the audience at the Orient Road Jail. "We all have to take responsibility for our behaviors, and if you're called out on your behavior and it hurts you, that doesn't mean I don't love you," she said. The show doesn't shy away from tough street talk and a few expletives that more than once made those sitting on the sidelines shift uncomfortably. "The street language is the language that the inmates use," Jail Programs Manager Jan Bates said. "She was playing a character, and that is the reality." Bates said Peterson's performance was the first nonreligious presentation for inmates in Hillsborough County. Based on their reaction, she said she's open to inviting more artists to visit.
A "Powerful' Play
Peterson's characters criticize the prison system, asking why so many blacks and Latinos are in America's prisons. They also debate the origin of a prison construction boom structured for contractors who make money off the incarcerated in a "prison gravy train."
"As soon as you see the handcuffs go "ca-clink,' you hear the cash register go "ca-ching,' " Peterson said.
As she depicts Betsy and her two former boyfriends, Pablo and Curtis, Peterson puts the audience in the role of a prisoner on the other side of the glass during a visit. She wants them to recognize people they know in the characters.
"It was so powerful," inmate Florence Blue said. "The characters were so real. She really got down on some issues, especially on how relationships are." A former couture model and a classically trained theater actress, Peterson was introduced to the prison system in 1998, when she agreed to present a two-week poetry workshop at Rikers Island High School for incarcerated teenage boys. Her stint as a writing coach became a three-year gig.
With the inmates, she found something she missed during her days walking Paris runways in designer gowns, she said. She grew tired of being judged by her looks. "I have a mind, and I have something to say," she said after the performance.
She's performed on HBO's "Def Poetry" and been featured in movies such as Spike Lee's "Bamboozled." Highlighting Struggles As Betsy, Peterson practically dances in her chair with swishy laughter and an attitude that on a pin switches from comic to somber. The faces of the women in the audience, which before the show were as solemn as the cold white jail walls around them, brightened.
Much of the show highlights emotional struggles between couples when one or both are incarcerated.
By setting her hands on her knees and making smacking noises with her lips, Peterson morphs into Pablo, the handsome, nature-loving, antigovernment boyfriend who in a throaty voice says it's society's fault that he sells drugs. Both he and Curtis are men with many layers, faults and strengths, Peterson said. "It's possible that you can be a drug dealer with a heart of gold and not a kingpin monster," she said.
Her 25-city tour is being funded by Friends of the Island Academy, a national nonprofit group that helps inmates before and after their release. With the tour half over, Peterson still finds something new at each show. This time it was performing for a mixed crowd of male and female inmates. Despite the jail hallway's challenging acoustics and an occasional interruption by a rolling tool cart, she liked having the audience seated close on the floor before her.
"It felt intimate," she said.
