THE EXONERATED

Jessica Blank, Erik Jensen

Riverside Studios, Hammersmith

In the summer of 2000, script writers Jessica Blank and her husband Erik Jensen interviewed 40 of the 89 death row inmates in the US to create the play ‘The Exonerated’, which started a 16-week run at London’s Riverside Studios, Hammersmith at the end of last month. It is a play about the American legal system, and about corruption, ignorance, racism and ambition – demonstrating everything bad about the desperate rush to convict.

This verbatim theatre is dramatically brought to life by the cold, emotive performances of its cast. At the risk of glamourising the production, the list of present and previous artists who have appeared in Bob Balaban’s award-winning production during its New York leg is exceptionally impressive: Robin Williams, Richard Dreyfuss, Vanessa Redgrave, Alanis Morissette, Danny Glover and Kathleen Turner to name but six. The names of the A-listers from both sides of the Atlantic who have appeared in the play goes on and on. But this story is not one of glamour, but a true tale of six very different people who were condemned to death in the US penal system for crimes that they did not commit. Crimes for which they spent decades on death row awaiting execution.


‘The Exonerated’ is made up of their true-life stories, in their own words. The tale of Sunny Jacobs, a mother of two who spent 16 years on death row on the basis of false evidence; Kerry Max Cook, a Texan who was wrongly convicted of murder; Delbert Tibbs, a black Chicago poet who was falsely accused of rape and murder while hitchhiking across America.


The performances are spell binding, compulsive and somewhat surprisingly invigorating. While the cast changes every few days, the star character is Sunny Jacobs. Her quiet resilience illuminates the stage, everything she says is spoken to a silent audience hungry to devour her every word. When I attended she was played by Stockard Channing, who played the First Lady in US drama the ‘West Wing’.


However, there will be an opportunity to witness Sunny playing herself from 11-15 April – now that must be harrowing. Not only was Sunny on death row for a murder that she did not commit, but so too was her husband Jesse Tafero, under identical circumstances. He was not however exonerated. He lost his life to the electric chair: ‘It took thirteen-and-a-half minutes for Jesse to die. Three jolts of electricity that lasted fifty-five seconds each. Until finally flames shot out from his head, and smoke came from his ears.’


This is not a play for the faint-hearted, but it is a play about hope and it is highly recommended. In places it is terrifying, disturbing and unforgiving. But then again, this is the real world.


‘The Exonerated’ is at the Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, London W6 until 11 June. Tickets from the box office, tel: 020 8237 1111.


Jason Hadden is a solicitor-advocate