David Farnor | On 01, Mar 2025

Director: Greg Kwedar
Cast: Colman Domingo, Paul Raci, Johnny Simmons, Sharon Washington
Certificate: 15

If there ever were any doubt that Colman Domingo is one of the best actings working today, Sing Sing is resounding proof. A drama about the power of drama – and, specifically, theatre – it’s a big-hearted, wonderfully thoughtful piece.

Inspired by the Rehabilitation Through the Arts project that gives US prisoners experience in the theatre, it takes us behind the bars of Sing Sing maximum security prison. There, John Whitfield (Colman Domingo) – aka Divine G – is a key player in the project, writing for it and often taking the lead roles. But as they start to put on a new production, he finds himself unexpectedly challenged for the main part by another inmate: Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin.

As Divine G is simultaneously frustrated by others not taking the whole endeavour as seriously as he does and determined to give Divine Eye a chance to join in, Sing Sing finds a wonderful tension and solidarity in its ensemble approach. Colman Domingo invests Divine G with a layered earnestness that’s immediately absorbing and consistently undercuts any sense of this almost-celebrity becoming too self-absorbed.

Divine G is so sincerely committed to the way that art can help people find catharsis that the film effectively follows his lead, creating a prison drama that focuses not on the dehumanising elements of the penal system, but on the humanity and connection that can be found as they escape it through creativity.

It’s fitting that most of the cast are, in fact, former inmates playing versions of themselves – although Sound of Metal’s Paul Raci makes a winning appearance as Brent, the group’s focused and heartfelt director. Not unlike his Sound of Metal role, he’s as much therapist as shepherd, and the scene in which the actors improvise together – reliving their own improvising at an earlier stage in their lives – are beautifully open and vulnerable.

The more time we spend in these rehearsals, the more Divine Eye comes to life. Played himself with an intensity that’s magnetic, he movingly swaggers from intimidating and unforgiving to more confident in wearing his actual feelings on his sleeve. Maclin and Domingo’s moments together are filled with chemistry and compassion, each one handing the scene to the other to steal at every opportunity.

Director Greg Kwedar – who co-wrote the script with Clint Bentley – subtly disappears into the background, crafting what feels like a documentary rather than a drama. Indeed, it often recalls 2012’s superb documentary Caesar Must Die, which follows a group of Roman prisoners performing Julius Caesar. The existence of such programmes around the world is proof of theatre’s ability to foster empathy and healing, and Sing Sing succeeds because it takes that truth seriously. That doesn’t stop the inmates worrying about upcoming parole hearings, of course, which leads Divine G – who maintains his innocence – to start questioning the point of all this treading the boards. But when we see him reciting Shakespeare in a darkened room to a spellbound audience, all those questions melt away with a quiet, remarkable magic.

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