JAILS, HOSPITALS & HIP HOP American Directions

Writer/director/actor Hoch is a pure force to be reckoned with, presenting nine indelible characters in a seamless flow of kinetic energy set to a pulsing hip-hop beat. JAILS, HOSPITALS & HIP HOP is Danny Hoch’s one-man stage show brilliantly conceived for the screen.

Danny Hoch is a man with much to say and an utterly convincing way of saying it. From a streethustling inmate to a prison guard consumed with rage to a too-white wannabe rapper from Montana, Hoch’s characters are perfectly delineated. Alternately funny and tragic, their stories are unflinchingly honest and penetrating.

What makes this perhaps the most effective translation of a one-person show ever filmed is the inventive way Hoch presents his characters. Fully produced vignettes are intercut with actual performance footage of Hoch onstage, on street corners and in front of an audience of prison inmates. The result is truly potent.