Living for the Stage

The spotlight for Colman Domingo is moving, but it should shine more on his co-stars.

- ALISON WILLMORE

THE CAMERA CLOSES in on Colman Domingo's face early and often in Sing Sing, a film about a theater program set within the walls of the maximumsecurity prison for which it is named. The urge is understandable. Domingo has a genuine movie-star face, defined by its handsomeness and mobile features capable of transmitting emotions that his character, John "Divine G❞ Whitfield, may not be fully aware of.

The movie opens in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream that's shot as though it were floating in space, the performers standing in front of an audience unseen in the dark.

Divine G is playing Lysander, and as he delivers his speech-"So quick bright things come to confusion" we get a detailed look at his expression, which is rapt.

He's transported by the experience, as lit up from within by what he's doing as he is by the spotlight. The crash to earth happens backstage as the cast members shed their costumes and line up to be counted by a corrections officer before being sent back to their cells. Incarceration is a crushing halfexistence, and it's obvious these moments onstage provide one of the few opportunities for Divine G to feel fully alive.