I booked tickets to this show purely on the fact that Alanis Morissette was going to be in it so I had no idea what the play was going to be about. What we got was an education on faith especially in the face of death.

The Exonerated tells the true stories of six innocent survivors of death row, each convicted for a crime they didn’t commit and sentenced to death. The stage was set out fairly simply with 10 chairs set out in a row. Each survivor tells their story but we switch between each of them as we find out how they came to be on death row and their escape. As an interview type format is undertaken, with the audience as the interviewer, we are drawn in and able to feel the emotion that each survivor, and their family, feels.

It is at first heart-breaking when you hear of the circumstances of their conviction but then inspirational as each and every suvivor finds something in them to believe that justice will win out, and that life is too short to spend it angry and vengeful. So even though these survivors have never received compensation for their wrongful conviction you get the feeling from their testimonials that freedom was enough for them.

The Exonerated is a play that I would recommended. Sure it seems like a biting attack on the US legal system and also raises questions about whether the death penalty has a place in any legal system but ultimately its about the amazing fortitude of these six survivors and the importance of hope in all our lives.

As a side note Alanis Morissette didn’t break out in song in the middle of this.