Possibly it’ll be completely different when “The Return of Benjamin Lay,” opens right here in Might, however actor Mark Povinelli has his theories about why it’s been such an uphill battle for his one-man present to get the popularity it deserved in London and New York.
And his principle boils all the way down to measurement – his measurement.
Povinelli is 3 toes, 9.5 inches tall.
“What are the pictures that we’ve seen over centuries of Little Folks?” he stated, utilizing the accepted time period for folks with dwarfism. “The media portrayal, most of the people’s notion is of a munchkin, an elf, an Oompa Loompa. And you may look again farther. We have been within the freak exhibits, carnival exhibits. We have been used as leisure, however for nothing however our bodily stature – to be made enjoyable of, to be infantilized.”
“The Return of Benjamin Lay” opens Might 1 at Quintessence Theatre Group’s Sedgwick Theater in Mount Ethereal. The story has a novel connection to Philly historical past.
“That is undoubtedly a Philadelphia story,” stated College of Pittsburgh historian Marcus Rediker, who wrote a biography of Benjamin Lay and collaborated with playwright Naomi Wallace to pen the play. “All people knew him. All people talked about him. Not all people appreciated him.
“This story goes to be arduous for Quakers,” Rediker stated, “as a result of they wish to consider they have been at all times in opposition to slavery.”
However in 1732, nicely over a century earlier than the Civil Battle erupted over slavery, greater than 50 % of Philadelphia’s Quakers enslaved folks, Rediker stated, drawing on analysis he utilized in his 2017 e-book, “The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Turned The First Revolutionary Abolitionist”.
Lay’s relentless anti-slavery activism, primarily directed on the wealthiest Quakers, obtained him booted out of 4 Quaker congregations, two in Nice Britain and two right here – the Philadelphia Yearly Assembly, which is an organizing group of smaller native conferences, and the Abington Month-to-month Assembly in Montgomery County.
In between rehearsals, Povinelli plans to go to the historic areas, which he’s by no means seen, as a part of a documentary being made about him and the legacy of Benjamin Lay,
Lay’s most well-known activism truly occurred in New Jersey, on the Burlington Assembly Home, the place the Philadelphia Yearly Assembly was holding its 1738 annual gathering.
“He practiced what we name guerrilla theater in that he acted his concepts out in public to dramatize them,” Rediker stated.
Quaker worship is usually quiet with attendees meditating in silence till they’re moved to talk. Lay was greater than moved.
“He went to the Philadelphia Yearly Assembly and he dressed as a soldier,” Rediker stated. “He strapped a sword to his belt after which took an animal bladder and crammed it with pokeberry juice and hid it in a e-book. He wore an overcoat over all of it.
“He located himself close to the rich Quakers who have been slaveowners and at a sure level, he stood up and solid off the overcoat. Quakers have been dedicated pacifists and right here he was in a navy uniform,” Rediker stated.
Lay advised them that God will take vengeance on those that enslave their fellow creatures. “He runs his sword by way of the e-book after which he sprinkles the ‘blood’ on slaveowners so everybody can determine them,” Rediker stated.
To arrange, Povinelli, who grew up as a Catholic and served as an altar boy, attended a Quaker assembly in California, the place he lives.
“It’s such a meditative and soothing communal and spiritual expertise,” he stated. “I sat there, listening and attempting to slot in. No person had spoken but. What would it not be like if I stood up and began saying strains within the play? How wildly inappropriate it might really feel! How uncooked it might really feel.
“When you consider what Ben did, how wild and uncomfortable it might be. It will be one thing you’d always remember,” Povinelli stated.
Lay, who lived a back-to-nature way of life in a cave close to the Abington Assembly Home, turned a hero to Quaker abolitionists, Rediker stated. Over the past decade, each the Abington and Philadelphia Yearly conferences voted to embrace his legacy. They couldn’t formally reinstate him, since he couldn’t be requested if he would settle for the reinstatement.
Povinelli believes that Lay’s measurement gave him “an amazing quantity of empathy for different marginalized folks,” together with enslaved folks.
“Benjamin, in his writings, didn’t spend a lot time speaking about his measurement or his bodily situation,” Povinelli stated. “Primarily based on expertise and historic reality, there isn’t any doubt that he confronted quite a lot of persecution and belittling and infantilism.”
Povinelli, a previous president of Little Folks of America, an advocacy group, stated he wouldn’t have been within the play if it have been merely a few Little Individual and never an outsized dynamic historic determine like Benjamin Lay.
“This particular person and me portraying this particular person is as compelling as any one-man present that you just’ve seen,” Povinelli stated. “My measurement is a contributing constructive issue. It’s one thing you aren’t used to seeing and it’s fascinating, however you understand how not necessary it’s on the similar time.”
Producing the play posed challenges to the Quintessence group, because it labored to make its residence theater, the Sedgwick, a former film palace, accessible to Povinelli and to Little Folks within the viewers.
Carol Flannery, Quintessence’s advertising and marketing and communications director, headed the hassle. The theater despatched photographs of the complete house, together with the foyer, bogs and bar, to a consulting group.
The primary suggestion was for theater personnel to guage environment by getting on their knees and seeing what they may attain with their elbows. Usually, the torsos of Little Individuals are of common measurement, however their legs and arms are shorter.
Excessive tops within the foyer the place patrons collect for pre- and post-show drinks might be put in storage, changed by decrease tables. The theater will purchase a dozen footstools and put them in all places, together with the bogs. Ushers might be stationed on the bar, capable of hand drinks to patrons if vital.
There might be a particular affinity night time for Little Folks on Might 16.
“It’s so fascinating and eye-opening,” Flannery stated. “We needed to make the theater bodily welcoming for friends and for Mark.”
Up subsequent for Quintessence is “Giovanni’s Room,” a world premiere of a play primarily based on James Baldwin’s groundbreaking1956 novel a few man’s discovery of Paris’ queer group and his personal sexuality. Quintessence was granted permission by the Baldwin property – the primary such permission given – to current the play, tailored for the stage by Benjamin Sprunger and Paul Oakley Stovall. It runs Might 28 by way of June 22.
FYI
“The Return of Benjamin Lay,” Might 1-18, Quintessence Theatre Group, Sedgwick Theater, 7137 Germantown Ave., Mt. Ethereal, 215-987-4450