Sunlight filters through a western window and beams onto Nat Turner, his hands and feet chained, on the floor of his cell.
Turner, a formerly enslaved preacher who believes his crimes were dictated by a heavenly master, considers the sunset, his last. He will be executed with prejudice the following morning.
“What do you call a preacher whose congregation is his chains and shackles?” he says, addressing first the chain he holds, then God. “You’ve placed a window within these prison walls, and even here, you’ve shown me heaven.
“But how can I go there with peace tomorrow if my work on Earth has come to nothing?”
Gavin Lawrence gives a powerful performance as the title character in “Nat Turner in Jerusalem,” a 2016 drama by Nathan Alan Davis produced by American Players Theatre through Nov. 10. Tyrone Phillips, founding artistic director of Chicago’s Definition Theatre, directs the two-man production in the Touchstone Theatre at APT.
Gavin Lawrence plays the title character in “Nat Turner in Jerusalem” by Nathan Alan Davis, at American Players Theatre through Nov. 10.
Set designer Nathan Stuber elevates the square edges of Turner’s prison, a space of dull grays and browns with a whiff of fairy tale. The stonework at the back looks like a castle, with gothic tree branches and a dungeon-like door. Willow James’ sound design, an otherworldly blend of spirituals, adds to an out-of-time aura.
For this 90-minute drama, Davis drew on real history: In the summer of 1831, Turner led a rebellion of enslaved people against white slaveowners, citing prophetic visions. Dozens of people died. Retaliation was brutal. Turner, at 31, was hanged in the fall.
Nat Turner — charismatic, impassioned, doomed — defies definition. Is he divine righteousness, blessed by God, interpreter of mystical signals in eclipses and blood-red corn? Is he a heartless murderer, unfazed by killing children, delusional?
Jim DeVita, left, and Gavin Lawrence play a lawyer and an imprisoned preacher in “Nat Turner in Jerusalem.”
As Turner, Lawrence, a core company member at APT who has moved in recent seasons toward directing and playwriting, has the magnetism of a tent preacher. His voice commands and coaxes.
Lawrence’s Turner is unshakeable in his faith, capable of minor miracles. He doesn’t need to raise his voice to conjure a shiver: “What do you think holy vengeance looks like?”
Into Turner’s confinement, lawyer Thomas Gray (Jim DeVita) comes to extract a story he can sell, like Truman Capote or the journalist in “Inventing Anna.” He, too, claims a higher calling — “my country’s fate yet hangs in the balance.” Royalties from distributing Turner’s confessions “far and wide” won’t hurt.
Gavin Lawrence plays Nat Turner and Jim DeVita plays the lawyer who wants to sell his confessions.
DeVita switches smoothly between the exhausted, tightly wound lawyer and Turner’s jailer, a guard who has warily befriended Turner. In transformation, DeVita modulates his voice and affects a slight limp. It’s subtle and effective, with at least one costume change that takes barely a blink.
“Nat Turner” tips the balance of power between prisoner and scribe with a delicate hand. As Gray presses Turner for intelligence about other rebellions (“stop the doomed conspiracy before it starts”), Turner negotiates to preserve his own narrative.
Gavin Lawrence and Jim DeVita play opposite each other in “Nat Turner in Jerusalem” at American Players Theatre through Nov. 10.
“This was not war, Mr. Gray,” he says. “This was warning.”
Phillips, aiming for productive discomfort and deep engagement, adds a frame to emphasize both. At the play’s open, a free Turner circles the edge of the stage with a bloody sword and a Bible, making brief eye contact with each audience member. Soon, he’ll be captured by a rifle-toting white man.
Pay attention, the gesture says. Stay alert. See yourself, honestly, in this historic struggle.
