Through November 5
Is it true that in order to understand your present you must understand your past? If you understand the past and could insert yourself into the events happening, could you change your present? Could you actually change the course of history? Those and other esoteric questions are at the base of Robert O’Hara’s Insurrection: Holding History, now on stage at convergence-continuum.
The plot centers on Ron, a gay black student, who attends a family reunion to celebrate his great-great-grandfather T.J.’s 189th birthday. Despite the fact that T.J. can’t move, hear or speak, T.J., given voice by a spirit of a relative long dead, convinces Ron to take him back to his old home in Virginia.
Fracturing the space-time continuum, they arrive on the eve of Nat Turner’s doomed 1831 uprising. Encouraged by the facts of the historical rebellion, the desperation of the slaves that encouraged them to face certain death with little chance of success, and the historical pattern of being gay, Ron gains a grasp of his past. This leads him to an understanding of his present, and how the authenticity of history unfolds depends on the perception of the storyteller. He realizes that his frustration with his thesis is based on the concept that his writing will only make sense when he accepts that he is the product of his history.
Jeannine Gaskin, the director of the play, did not seem to grasp the concept of the satire in the script, and staged the show as a realistic drama. This was unfortunate as that approach eliminated the whimsy and creative writing that was described by one critic of a previous staging as “remarkably exciting, deeply provocative, [and] comically profound.”
There was no humor in the c-c production, thus fracturing much of O’Hara’s writing and seemingly confounding the audience, thus making for a long sit. The cast, which featured Andrew Pope, Chelsea Anderson, Isaiah Betts, Kadijah Wing, Laprise Johnson, Matthew Raybeam, Mike Frye, Sydney Smith, and Wesley Allen, put out full effort.
Capsule judgment: Insurrection will confound many and satisfy some, getting a less than effective production at con-con.
Insurrection: Holding History runs Thu-Sat at 8pm through November 5, at convergence-continuum’s Liminis Theater. Tickets and information are available at www.convergence-continuum.org and 216-687-0074.