The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell

Joe Loya robbed between 30 and 40 banks (he lost count) in the 1980s. He made off with around $250,000 and lived rich until the FBI, which dubbed him the "Beirut Bandit," caught him, after which he spent seven years in federal prison. Five years ago, he was released, and now he has a house in East Oakland and a Passat -- and a solo show through which he recounts his criminal exploits and violent childhood. It's hard to believe the soft-spoken Loya, looking affable enough in black-rimmed glasses, a plaid short-sleeved shirt, and black jeans, stabbed his abusive father in the neck, beat up a fellow prisoner for selling a borrowed Playboy, smuggled drugs into prison through his mule, and talked an inmate into masturbating with Ben-Gay. The lack of pretense works. Loya, who's now a journalist with a forthcoming book, isn't so much a performer as a storyteller. He's the cool guy at the party telling tales about Chupa, whose muscles make him more wide than tall; the prison chef Fruity, from whom Loya gets extra sandwiches through his dope line of credit; or Heavy D, an obese character whose story is straight out of a Jerry Springer episode. Loya punctuates his yarns with some dialogue and choreographed fights. Samples from Pink Floyd's The Wall, Soundgarden, and Bob Dylan, along with video projections of childhood photos, mug shots, and hometown scenes, round out the show's design. Unfortunately, the script reads more like a memoir than a play with dramatic tension; Loya doesn't take the audience on a journey or let us discover anything, but rather tells us what happened. Still, he relates some damn good stories, and they overcome the production's weaknesses. His account of the mental and physical abuse that occurs in the prison's segregated housing unit ("the hole") is especially harrowing. Here's a man who has seen hell and lived to tell about it.