How Long Should a Paedophile Suffer For His Evil Acts?

 

In downstate Illinois, an old man is sitting in a rickety wheelchair, listening to one of his favourite Chopin CDs, and hovering his shivering hands over the keyboard of an electric piano to mimic the tones. He loves Nutter Butter biscuits and is given to childishly repeating "Shooty shoot shoot!" when he is sad. But who can imagine this white-haired, kindly-looking, soft-spoken pensioner was once a piano teacher who raped two of his pupils thirty years ago? In "Downstate," Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Bruce Norris smartly presents us with sharp questions about how society should treat these offenders, and how long they should suffer, both physically and mentally, for their "evil" acts.

 

In the play, Fred (Francis Guinan), wears an electronic tag on his right ankle, and lives in a group home with three paedophiles: Gio (Glenn Davis) is a statutory rapist who thinks he shouldn't have been arrested as the girl lied to him about her age; Dee (K Todd Freeman) is a former dancer who had sex with a 14-year-old actor in a production of "Peter Pan", and still insists that he gained the boy's consent in their 2-year relationship; and Felix (Eddie Torres) is a shy and faithful religious believer who sees his sexual harassment of his daughter as a form of love.

 

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It is not the first play about prisoners' lives and how we should judge prisoners as individuals rather than simply treat them as evil. Norris doesn't exonerate his characters, yet is willing to picture them as human beings: flawed, pitiful, emotional and multi-dimensional.

 

The central conflict of “Downstate” is when Bruce Norris smartly introduces a grown-up victim, Andy (Tim Hopper), to confront the four men in the house. Andy and his anxious pushy wife come to visit Fred, simply looking for a closure of the summer when he was 12-year-old, and Fred sexually harassed him. But when he comes for a solo visit later, Andy turns into a hysterical, furious spokesman of all the victims in society. He even mistakenly believes that Fred's crime towards another pupil victim, Tommy, was done to himself. Though Andy's experience is sympathetic, he takes his tendency to victimize himself too far, which is also unfair to Fred.

 

Todd Rosenthal's set design conveys the theme of "Downstate" simply yet eloquently. A scruffy poster with the highlighted word, “perseverance,” is rudely pasted into the dingy wall. The window of the group home is broken, as it is always pelted with rocks or hit by local residents who are showing their hostility to these "bad guys" in the area.

 

Interestingly, Chopin’s music is a key motif that runs through the whole play. The opening scene is underscored by the melody of Chopin's Nocturne op.9 No. 2, which really punches the audience when the terrible fact is revealed that Fred was a paedophile. Fred also plays the CD of Bids Adieu twice, telling the story to everybody how Chopin wrongly fell in love with a teenager, which brings him back to the time when he taught Andy how to play this song and discovered his musical talent.

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"Downstate" is not a comfortable or entertaining play. After watching Felix's emotional collapse, the audience members are confronted by his limp body, and shocked to learn that he had hung himself; they are then forced to look at the hard truth that people who appear kind and easy going have at some point committed abominable crimes. However, Norris and director Pam MacKinnon don't mean only to provoke hatred towards the four "villains." They have already served the sentence they deserved, and we shouldn't inflict further mental punishment on them. The final scene culminates with Fred and Dee eventually forgiving themselves from their hearts. As they do so, the background music of another Chopin CD illustrates a fragile reconciliation after experiencing a long-term conflict within their minds. The "evils" forgive themselves, and thus comes the question: how long should a paedophile suffer for his "evil" acts? Downstate forces us to accept that all of us, including paedophiles, are human.

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