Theatre in Review: Nat Turner in Jerusalem (New York Theatre Workshop)

	Rowan Vickers, Phillip James Brannon. Photo: Joan Marcus

Nat Turner in Jerusalem introduces us to Nathan Alan Davis, a very interesting young writer who, a play or two down the road, is going to give us something really interesting. But not just yet: His current effort contains any number of gripping passages, but stumbles while trying to find a dramatic framework in which to address one of American history's more complex and troubling figures.

That would be Nat Turner, whose name reverberates throughout the terrible history of slavery in America as thoroughly as those of Dred Scott, Sojourner Truth, and John Brown. Actually, the last name is the most apt, even if Brown, who was white, was never himself a slave. But, like Brown, Turner took bloody action, in 1831 leading an armed insurrection that resulted in the murders of 55 white people. As the production's program notes, "The dead included all of those who had ever claimed to own Turner, including his current legal owner, a ten-year-old boy named Putnam Moore."

While you're contemplating which is the more horrible fact -- that Turner killed a child or that the child "owned" him -- consider this: The campaign set off shock waves in the South, unleashing a flood of anxiety similar to today's fear of ISIS. Of course, there was retaliation; before it was over, nearly 50 blacks, both free men and slaves, were executed. It is arguable that Turner set back the cause of abolition by decades, having confirmed in the minds of many the prejudice that blacks were inherently violent and had to be controlled. And yet, as evil as Turner's actions were, the system against which he struck a blow was infinitely more vicious, all the more so for having normalized its sins as part of God's plan. Turner's story lays bare a tangle of moral questions that resonate to this day, and Davis is hardly the first to tackle them. William Styron had a controversial bestseller with the novel The Confessions of Nat Turner. The soon-to-be-released film The Birth of a Nation is widely expected to be a major contender in the coming awards season (or was, before the involvement of the director, Nate Parker, in a campus rape scandal, was exposed).

There's no question that Davis has made a fascinating character of Turner, here presented as a true believer, convinced that his murderous rampage was ordained by God. The play takes place in his jail cell in Jerusalem, Virginia, on the night before his execution, and there's something more than a little disquieting about the cheerful attitude he presents on the eve of his death. ("You're standing in my sunset," he tells a visitor who is unwittingly blocking his view of what, after all, is the last twilight he will ever experience.) He can be equally charming and cagey when asked about his motives, or whether he feels any guilt for his actions. But visitors had better take care: Pressed on how he could murder children, he thunders in response, "Do you not know how many children are being crushed beneath the foot of this nation? Stolen from their mothers, driven from their homes, hunted as sport?" And he can rise up with the force of a Biblical prophet, denouncing an evil so systemic, so normalized, that even those who claim to fear God are unable to see it: "I am the return/Of all the plagues of Egypt/Come in this day to this nation/The earth's most prideful and most prosperous./Do not grieve for your slain children./They are in heaven with their innocence." At moments like these -- and, as aided by the sound design of Nathan Leigh, which fills the pauses between scenes with selections of blues and hip-hop, it seems blazingly clear that Turner's crimes unleashed any number of ghosts that continue to haunt the national conversation today, from the Black Lives Matter movement to the violent Islamist fanaticism that dogs Western society.

The production is aided enormously by the performance, in the title role, of Phillip James Brannon, one of the most accomplished young talents to emerge in the last several seasons. Brannon has the knack, without doing anything obvious, of totally transforming himself from one role to the next, and here he pulls together Turner's many facets -- he is, by turns, friendly, enigmatic, and possessed of a godlike fury -- into a coherent characterization, while continuing to honor the mystery at the man's core. It's a tightrope walk of a performance and Brannon doesn't make a single false step.

But if Davis' words sing, his handling of dramatic structure still needs work. Nat Turner in Jerusalem consists, in alternating scenes, of Turner's encounters with the guard outside his cell and with Thomas R. Gray, his lawyer. Gray, who has pulled together Turner's "memoir" from interviews, wants to extract from him some kind of explanation -- hopefully accompanied by signs of remorse -- that will soothe the rattled nerves of white readers, turning the book into a bestseller. (Gray, a widower raising his daughter on his own, suffers from money problems.) On the other hand, Turner wants to ensure that the guard will attend his execution -- he wants to see one friendly face in the assembled crowd, otherwise filled with those who have come for the pleasure of watching him hang.

Neither conflict is strong enough to hold the play together, although the theological tussling between Turner, who believes he is the sword of God, and Gray, an atheist with lukewarm feelings about slavery, is always interesting. There's also a telling passage in which the guard tries to pass himself off as a man of virtue, having turned down a bribe to let a lynch mob into the jail to take care of Turner. Also, the back-and-forth structure dictates that each plotline undermines the other. Also, rather oddly, the playwright has specified that Gray and the guard be played by the same actor, which leads to all sorts of awkwardness: Gray is made to talk offstage repeatedly so the actor playing him can change costumes. "The lawyer will be back soon," the guard says, and all I could think was, well, you ought to know. (This is nothing against Rowan Vickers, who plays both Gray and the guard with understated skill; he is a new face, too, and one that we will be seeing again soon.)

There are other infelicities in Megan Sandberg-Zakian's production. It's easy to appreciate the clean, elegant lines of Susan Zeeman Rogers' set, which places the audience on two sides of a long, narrow stage, but there are unnecessarily lengthy pauses between the scenes while the stagehands reposition the deck. These changes add extra dead weight to a play that already suffers from a certain static quality. In addition to Leigh's sound, the other design credits -- costumes by Montana Blanco and lighting by Mary Louise Geiger -- are solid achievements, however.

The result is both engrossing and more than a little frustrating. Time and again, the play works up an atmosphere of tension, only to let it dissipate. It's a stop-and-start approach that keeps us from becoming fully engaged in the dramas attached to Turner's last night on earth. Still, even if Nat Turner in Jerusalem drags at times, the author's words never totally fail him, and there's something equally moving and chilling about the sight of Turner, alone in his cell, joyfully greeting the dawn, fully aware of what happens next. Anyone who can pull off a moment like that is a name to remember. -- David Barbour