Photo courtesy of UMass Amherst Fine Arts Center. The Mount Holyoke Department of Film Media Theater performed "Short Eyes" by playwright Miguel Piñero this semester at Rooke Theatre, above.
By Melanie Duronio ’26
Staff Writer
Content warning: This article discusses child abuse, homophobia, racism and sexual violence.
During the weekend of Nov. 18, the Department of Film Media Theater acted out selected scenes from the play “Short Eyes.” Performing two shows, they hosted talkbacks after each as well as a symposium on Friday, Nov. 18.
“Short Eyes” by Miguel Piñero, which premiered in 1974, follows a group of inmates who meet in a house of detention and turn against a prisoner accused of child molestation. Based on Piñero’s own experiences, the play unabashedly depicts the lives of those living in the American incarceration system. It explores themes of morality and justice, as well as what it means to find humanity within a dehumanizing institution.
“The choice to do this play was exciting for me personally,” Michael Ofori, the director of “Short Eyes” and visiting lecturer in Film Media Theater, said in the playbill director’s note. “It intrigued me with its compelling questions — questions I’ll continue to ponder for a long time because Piñero’s sophistication does not provide us with an easy way out.”
However, the cast and crew encountered challenges throughout the production. Out of the final cast of ten actors, only three originally auditioned for the play. “A lot of people were dropping out, just because it is a really hard show. I think even when you audition after reading the script, you’re not fully realizing how much goes into it,” Nicole Tripp ’23, the actor who portrayed Clark Davis, said.
The play includes a descriptive monologue of pedophilia and scenes consisting of sexual and physical violence, fighting and a death containing blood. Characters also use racial and homophobic slurs as tools to further dehumanize one another, reinforcing Piñero’s themes. Tripp shared that it was difficult for the team to find actors willing to step up to certain roles, such as Longshoe and Clark Davis — the former using slurs and the latter being a sex offender.
“Obviously, we’ve had a lot of conversation around where it’s appropriate to use language like that. I think if it wasn’t essential to the story, first of all, we wouldn’t have chosen the play, and secondly we probably would have taken the slurs out,” Tripp said. “But it is so essential to the character of Longshoe that we just couldn’t.”
Ofori also stated in the playbill that the decision to perform “Short Eyes” “caused unease in some sections of [the] community.” Due to a lack of rehearsal time, the team chose to cut out certain scenes. Two shows were scheduled instead of the department’s usual several per production and some scenes from the play were omitted from the final performances.
“We’ve made it a little bit easier to digest, which is good in a way, [but] … this play is meant to be a punch in the stomach — I think it’s more a slap in the face now,” Tripp said.
Despite these circumstances, the cast and crew remained committed to “Short Eyes,” determined to perform the play to the best of their abilities. The cast performed affirmations with one another to bond after difficult rehearsals. An intimacy coordinator was hired to assist with scenes of intense physicality, and actors were provided access to Mount Holyoke’s Counseling Service. Overall, the team made sure to create a support system with one another.
“I’ve realized how important it is to really have a strong connection with your classmates. I would look over to my scene partner and we would just take a breath together. And it would help us keep going,” Tripp said.
While rethinking the production, the team’s symposium “Is God in the House of Detention?” was hosted for audience members to discuss its content in an academic setting. This, along with the talkbacks, served as platforms for the department to speak on why they chose “Short Eyes.”
“Why watch art that hurts? … I think it’s because it leads you to think about our reality in our society. And I think that’s what Miguel Piñero’s work is doing,” Liz Almonte ’24, the assistant director, said. “This is not digestible, and it’s not supposed to be. That [discomfort] that you may be feeling is okay. And that’s what you should be tapping into and looking at.”
Additional speakers, such as Cass Sever, a visiting instructor in the sociology department, and Truth (Sean Evelyn), a writer and spoken word artist, were invited to the symposium. Sever observes marginalizations that occur in the relationships of everyday life, and the consequences of these interactions. As part of this work, she has worked with sex offenders who share similar offenses as the character Clark.
“No matter who I talked to, no matter what they had experienced or been incarcerated for, always the folks that were most stigmatized were folks who were labeled sex offenders,” Sever said. “This one subgroup of people, everyone hated and could get behind.”
This stigma is part of why the characters target Clark. Even when Clark expresses that he wants to get help, they still take action against him. “There’s so much stigma that folks are fearful to go to a psychiatrist or a therapist because they’re worried that … someone [will] refuse to help them,” Sever said. “Imagine being in a place where no one will even help you to process your trauma or process what you’re going through now. Because you’re so dehumanized and villainized.”
Both the characters and audience of “Short Eyes” are led into making judgments about the events they witness, even if they have doubts about them. It asks the question, what leads people to take the actions they do? Truth questions this himself due to his personal experiences within the incarceration system.
“I went into [a] system that developed a theory about who I was and what drove me and squeezed me into that theory without asking me, ‘What did you have to [do to] survive?’ … How much violence was perpetrated against you before you did the thing [you did]?” Truth said.
Additionally, Sever and Truth commented on the mistreatment of individuals within the incarceration system, many of whom are healing from injustices their community committed against them. Truth in particular believes that the only way to achieve true “justice” is to understand the context behind one’s actions, and make change within the community to prevent others from falling under similar circumstances.
Truth also asks what leads certain people to be placed in incarceration more than others, especially Black people and people of color.
“How much license do we have to perpetrate a lot of the injustices and enable these systems of oppression?” Truth asked. “Who grants us that license and, when do we exercise it and why do we not question it in certain instances?”
“Short Eyes” offers a sliver of insight into the lives of incarcerated individuals and encourages its viewers to question what they believe is truly “good” and “bad.” For this reason, the cast and crew believed it to be an important play to perform.
“Similarly to how there’s good and bad in the play, there’s good and bad everywhere,” Almonte said. “This play is … not about specific people. It’s about what you do, what they do with what they’re learning from this environment. What they do with the power that they have, and in general how they got there and how it reflects reality.”