Passage Theatre Company presents the New Jersey Prison Cooperative's 'Caged'

While, in theory, concentrating on a few characters may seem more manageable and relatable, in practice the story of Omar Moore (Brandon Rubin) and his family’s struggles shows the limitations of playwriting by committee — a committee that includes not only the 28 formerly incarcerated participants but also six theater professionals, who worked on the script’s development.

A sad and familiar story

Omar struggles to support his family, particularly his son Zaire, newly born when Caged starts in 2000. Mother Chimene (Monah Yancy) needs cancer meds and easygoing teenage brother Quan (Ural Grant) would rather bowl than roll with a gang. Sister Sharonda (Nicolette Lynch) also cares for the baby, since his mother is an addict living on the streets.

They’re upbeat despite their struggles, but their tenuous existence crumbles when Omar is arrested. “The streets stay fast,” he tells Quan, “but we get slow.” Years pass while Omar is incarcerated, with scenes of denigration and despair (especially a dehumanizing strip search) punctuated by rare family visits and even rarer kindness from fellow prisoners.

Rubin gives a powerful performance as Omar. Will Badgett convinces as both Omar’s unreliable father Jimmy and his wise cellmate Ojore, and Boris Franklin likewise plays opposites as brutal Officer Watkins and hardened but compassionate inmate Slash.

Unfortunately, the storytelling lurches forward unevenly, with cliché-ridden dialogue familiar from television and movies. Insights seem few and far between, though we learn that the old honor code requiring revenge has given way to a more pragmatic live-and-let-live truce with one’s enemies in prison. Lynch excels in Sharonda’s huge monologue about what women endure in prison, but it’s just one outburst, presented as a letter recited while she stands on a bed, and then the subject evaporates.

Not sure what to be

German Cardenas-Alaminos’s gray cinderblock set feels ripe for more prison action. However, it lacks bars and doors that might make incarceration feel real for us, and much of the play occurs in the Moore apartment. By being two things, it’s not effective as either.

A tall, imposing wall doubles as a screen for Miranda Kelley’s stylish projections. These present Zaire in dated pictures as he grows up without a father and also suggest the play’s many settings. Daniel Schreckengost’s lighting highlights prison’s bleakness.

While the Moore family story is gut-wrenchingly sad, believable, and acted with sincerity and bravery, it’s hard not to wonder what first-person anecdotal revelations from the prisoners’ workshops were cut to accommodate the play’s familiar fictional family.