Delbert Tibbs, a black man hitchhiking through Florida, was arrested in 1974 for the murder of a 27-year-old man and the assault and rape of the man’s 17-year-old female companion. He was soon tried and convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to death.
The only problem was there was no proof that he was anywhere near the couple, nor did his description match that given by the female victim.
Tibbs’ story, as well as five other death row inmates’ is the focus of Theatre MSU’s latest production, “The Exonerated.”
Written by Erik Jensen and Jessica Blank, “The Exonerated” is a heart-wrenching true story detailing six death row inmates’ convictions and subsequent exonerations.
After watching a full rehearsal, it was hard not to be in awe of the ridiculous circumstances in which these people were imprisoned. Yet it’s all true to word.
“Everything said in ‘The Exonerated’ is true,” director Jo Durst said. “It was all taken from court transcripts, interviews and letters from the actual inmates.”
“I think it really shows that we’re not nearly as civilized as we like to think,” Courtnay Greer, who plays the part of Sue, said. “We still have that sort of barbaric animal instinct in us.”
“The Exonerated” is a bit different than any other performance these actors have undertaken.
The performance takes place in the McComas Lab Theatre. It’s an intimate “round table” setting with no backstage and hardly any distance between the actors and the audience.
“We’re all always on stage,” Ian Stoutenburgh, who plays Kerry Max Cooke, said. “It’s a totally different process. Nobody’s going for cigarette breaks or anything. It’s a very intense show.”
“The hardest thing for me,” Greer said, “was playing a part of one of the prosecutors. I’m supposed to be accusing Stoutenburgh’s character of being a homosexual and that being why he killed some poor girl. I know he’s innocent, but the person I’m playing truly believes in what they’re saying.”
“With other shows you can’t really take the performance home,” Stoutenburgh said. “But for this show, I think it’s really affecting us outside of just practice. I think we’ve all become a little more liberal in our views of capital punishment.”
But the actors hope that they won’t be the only ones to take this performance home.
“We want everyone to be open-minded in everything they do in life,” Greer said. “Otherwise, you end up judging someone in a way that they never deserve to be judged.”
“In dealing with these trials, a lot of it is shown to be political,” Stoutenburgh said. “Whether it’s a sheriff running for re-election or something like that, we want the audience to see that it’s not always a justice system. A lot of the time it’s just about politics.”
“We just want people to be aware of the fact that this is still going on,” Durst said. “And we want them to see to the extent that it destroys their lives.”
The intensity of the show spills over into everything, including the set and lighting.
Taking from the “less is more” approach, the set is a stark minimalist homage to the drag, gray concrete of prison walls. Wayne Durst, technical director and theatre professor, took the idea from the concrete slabs that now act as beds in most prisons.
Even though the performance weighs on the minds of the audience, it’s not necessarily always depressing. Most of the inmates have a newfound lease on life after they leave prison. They weren’t going to just sit and pout about what they had gone through.
“It’s very beautiful within its sadness to see how these people endured and appreciated how much life is worth living,” Jo Durst said.
“There’s a lot of hope in seeing that these people did reintegrate into society,” Stoutenburgh said. “They’re still contributing members to society even when society basically shunned them.”
There will be a donation box at each performance, and all proceeds from the box and ticket sales goes to the Exoneration Fund. The fund is set up to give those that have been exonerated the ability to reclaim their lives.
“These people are just put out there without money or job training or anything of the sort,” Jo Durst said. “So all donations and proceeds go to the actual exonerated inmates.”
“As one character in the play puts it,” Greer said, “they have to learn to be human again.”
The performances will run from Feb. 22-24 with each show starting at 7:30 p.m. in the McComas Lab Theatre. Tickets will cost $5, and the show is expected to sell out fast.
After Thursday’s performance a symposium featuring professors from the MSU department of sociology will be held. They will discuss the use of capital punishment in the United States. The symposium will be free to those who attend Thursday’s performance.