Well-Intended But Premature
Tempest Opens at 40th Street

The premise of Norfolk playwright Terrance Afer-Anderson’s latest theatrical venture—Tempest, which opened at 40th Street Stage August 28—is intriguing enough. An estranged couple involved in a bitter divorce is trapped together in the New Orleans house they’re battling over in court as Hurricane Katrina bears down on the city.

Forced against their wills to depend on each other to survive, philandering businessman Jean Luc Theroux (Afer-Anderson) and scorned wife Patrice (Sheila Lee) work their way through their issues, which are considerable, to rediscover the pure flame of love which originally brought them together, even as their outer world, like their marriage, crumbles into a sea rising all around them.

The timely opening of Tempest—the weekend of the 4th anniversary of Katrina—should only add to the dramatic impact of the situation, one would think. And the possibility of a happy ending—the rekindling of love and a reconciliation coming out of what all people of conscience must acknowledge was a failure and scathing indictment of a heartless social contract—offers a burst of optimism to a general audience accustomed to images of devastation associated with Katrina’s visit to New Orleans.

But the very timeliness of this play’s opening may have been its undoing, for in no way was it ready for prime time when it opened on August 28. The script needs pruning and reshaping, the direction needs refining, and the actors and tech crew need several more rehearsals—which I suppose they will now achieve in successive performances—before Tempest is likely to rise to its creator’s expectations.

One element of production which was ready on opening night is designer Dave Olson’s set—a raked, neatly shingled roof with a handsome brick chimney and a serviceable trap door through which Jean Luc and Patrice emerge to escape the flood rising from below. Yet, with sound effects suggesting a pounding rain and howling wind, two dry actors on a dry roof work against the suspension of disbelief.

Many such challenges to credibility bother this production, despite good intentions and energetic performances, particularly by Ms. Lee. Yet neither can compensate for the overall impression of a play rushed into production prematurely.

Tempest continues at 40th Street Stage, 809 W. 40th St., Norfolk, through Sept. 19, with Friday and Saturday performances at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. Admission is $10. Call 423-4084 for reservations.

Defending the Slaughter
“Nat’s Last Struggle”

Like many of us, I suppose—African-American or otherwise—actor George T. Davis III thought of Nat Turner as a hero for his famous 1831 armed rebellion against slavery in Southampton County, VA.

But that was before he was offered the role of Nat in “Nat’s Last Struggle,” playwright P.A. Wray’s one-act, one-man drama which opened in preview on August 15 prior to a run the last two weekends of the month at The Venue on 35th in Norfolk.

Once he read the script, Davis confided in a talk-back discussion following his opening-night performance, he realized the Nat Turner story is a good deal more complicated than he thought. Many in the audience, including myself, were with him on that.

In fact, as Wray’s reasonably researched drama makes clear, Nat Turner’s Rebellion, the only armed slave uprising in the sorry 250-year saga of American slavery, is as clear an example as any in history of the power of religion to support believers in extreme delusional acts.

Davis, despite some apparent opening-night nervousness, is powerful as Nat Turner. In fact, his booming basso profundo may be a bit too powerful for The Venue’s small, cafe space, and at times I wished he would modulate his delivery with a bit more variety of emotion—or that I had sat further back from the stage.

That said, it’s easy to believe in him as preacher and prophet, as Nat came to be regarded, his voice easily reaching all who gathered to hear him teach his people how to bear their oppression as he interpreted verses from the Good Book, which he’d learned to read, according to Wray’s version, pretty much on his own through an intuitive recognition of letters and words.

Increasingly convinced, then, that Apocalypse—the end of the world foretold in Revelations—was not only imminent but that he, Nat Turner, was appointed by God to lead the final battle, he and a rag-tag band of blacks set out on the night of August 21, 1831, on a murderous rampage through Southampton County, killing 55 white householders before the militia arrived to put an end to the madness.

Wray’s drama, beginning with Nat’s court sentencing and hanging, focuses on his after-life doubts as he defends his actions before God’s seat of judgment, though we’re not so sure God is there to hear him. As he makes his defense, reviewing the chronology of his life from birth to rebellion, his conviction solidifies that, indeed, all along the way he followed God’s will, God’s direction. In the end he fully convinces himself of this and victoriously dons the white robe of salvation.

Praise be to God.

Yet one can’t help but wonder what metaphysics are operative here if Nat Turner’s criminal madness, however we may empathize with its root causes, can be so easily washed clean. At the least we might wish for some small measure of angelic therapy.

At the same time, though, ambiguity stalks us in any reflection upon this story. Historically Nat Turner’s rebellion has been said to have hardened attitudes both North and South on the issue of slavery and pointed events inevitably in the direction of Civil War. In that sense, a case might be made to validate Nat’s visions and voices, his blow against “the Serpent,” as he calls the evil of slavery, a necessary first shock that did, indeed, eventually lead to freedom for his people, though much blood would be shed—is still being shed—in that process.

Such considerations inevitably arise from Wray’s thought-provoking play, capably directed by Pinky Chappell. A recorded vocal and drumming sound track by Minerva, including a rendering of “Strange Fruit,” the unnerving lynching song made famous by Billy Holiday, adds to the emotional power already in motion, and George Lampkin’s voice-over as the Southampton County death-sentencing judge strikes just the right note in revealing the limitations of the law, where all a society seems equipped to do in the case of a Nat Turner is wash its hands of him and speed him out of this world.

“Nat’s Last Struggle” will play at The Venue, 631 W. 35th St., Aug. 21, 28, and 29 at 8 p.m. and Aug. 23 and 30 at 4 p.m. Admission is $10. For reservations, call 469-0337. For more information on this and upcoming shows and events, go to http://www.venue-35.com/.