At first glance, prison may seem like the last place for one person to make a profound connection to another. On the other hand, being in prison is a life-altering experience--
particularly if the incarceration is the result of an opportunistic crime of passion. Alan (James Jordan) was a caring, responsible husband and father until he lost his job, his pride, and his wife, who not only started cheating on him but also maliciously flaunted her infidelity in his face. She pushed the already distraught Alan so far over the edge that, in the heat of an agonizing, hopeless moment, he retaliated with murder.
Now, locked up on death row, white, educated, atheist Alan has bonded with Joey (Stephen Rider), an illiterate Christian black man with little formal schooling and even less desire to make the best of his situation. "Why improve yourself if you're in here for life?" he asks. But Alan, feeling that they are kindred spirits, tries to give his friend hope by teaching him to read so he can find heroes in books and courage in imagination.
Daniel Keleher's vibrant script erupts with lyrical poetic imagery of juggling stars and a hero's responsibility to make him dream and strive. In less than a heartbeat, his writing swerves from being easily pithy ("Faith is a lack of research") to dynamically explosive. Director Tom Burmester heightens Keleher's fast and furious stream-of-consciousness dialogue with a rapid-fire approach that is mostly effective, although occasionally lines become so smeared with energy as to become unintelligible.
Jordan and Rider may indeed be kindred spirits along the lines of their characters: They are either that personally connected or that good as actors, or both. As Alan faces the punishment for his crime, he also faces the reality that he may be less of a man than he believed himself to be. If there is any fault to be found in this otherwise tight drama, it is the lack of information, on balance, about Joey. We come to know far more about Alan, his crime, and the repercussions of it than we ever discover about his friend. While this is largely Alan's story, it is the final time spent with Joey that changes him, and making him as fully fleshed-out as Alan is would better serve these kindred spirits.