Today, people still come up to him and whisper about sweaty moments at customs. Hayes' story has been referenced in everything from “Family Guy” to “Entourage.” It even inspired the long-running series “Locked Up Abroad” on the National Geographic Channel. He just needs to tell it,” said Altshuler. “This is his story and it's powerful stuff.

He's purposely avoided overwhelming the show with the bells and whistles of modern stagecraft. One thing still too raw is reciting his first letter home.ĭuring rehearsals, Altshuler gently guides Hayes into taking advantage of the whole stage and incorporating movement. “There's a line I have to be careful of because this stuff is so personal and so powerful that I don't want to fall down and break down on the stage,” he said. Hayes, who built a career as an actor and director, is fit and trim - a result of years of yoga - and quick to laugh (He jokes that his education includes “five years of extracurricular work at Istanbul U.” ) But he can also instantly go back to the terror of Sagmalcilar prison. But people relate to their own crises and being as down as you can be and still finding a way out to come out, finding the light.” Mine was just a little bit more compact and dramatic. “It's my little, particular story but it affects everyone. “What I discovered was there's a story that resonates still with people. I was like, 'No, I'm still talking about this and people are sick of hearing it,'” said Hayes, whose business card is decorated with a little train track. In the show, Hayes recounts his story alone, with just a few projections, a stool and a bottle of water. Peter.Now he's turned it into a 70-minute stage show, which comes to the Barrow Street Theatre following a run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I suppose you knock three times and ask for St. Thought I heard a couple of dead Christians singing down there.īut how would you get into the shaft, Jimmy?

We can get in there, he says, we can get down into the catacombs. One of them is right in there, right next to our shower. The Kraut said there's a whole bunch of hollow sealed shafts sort of like dumbwaiters running along this wall. It's already built! There's a basement substructure where they used to keep weapons and stuff, but beneath that there's these old catacombs that the Christians built about a thousand fucking years ago to bury their dead.

Over the roof, but that's only one person, maybe two.

Midnight Express by Billy Hayes