“Revolution’s Edge.” Written by Patrick Gabridge. Directed by Alexandra Smith. Produced by Plays in Place. Commissioned by Old North Illuminated. Staged at The Old North Church, 193 Salem St, Boston through August 10.
By Shelley A. Sackett
“Revolution’s Edge,” a site-specific play by the award-winning playwright, producer, novelist, and screenwriter Patrick Gabridge, packs a lot into 45 minutes.
It is set on the evening of April 18, 1775, a turning point in both the history of the Old North Church (then Christ Church) and the history of America. The church played a pivotal role in the nation’s fight for independence. It was in its steeple, after all, where two lanterns were hung on that very night to signal that British soldiers were heading across the Charles River.
The event has been immortalized by the line, “One if by land, and two if by sea,” in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1860 poem “Paul Revere’s Ride.”
Gabridge’s inspired drama is set in the North Church in real time during a moment that is almost invisible in history books. It was mere hours before the signals were hung. Three men whose lives intersect and diverge meet in the church’s vestry as altercations between British troops and American patriots threaten to boil over just outside its doors. The imagined conversation among three real people on that historic afternoon is the subject of the play.
Christ Church’s second rector, the Rev. Dr. Mather Byles, Jr., remains loyal to the British crown. Vestry member John Pulling, Jr. is a fervent Patriot and one of the men who will later hang the lanterns in the bell tower. The two have been friends for decades. Their children have grown up together; their families even share the same pew. (Be sure to look at the pew where both Byles’ and Pullings’ families have plaques).
Cato, a slave, has just been baptized by Byles, his owner. Fearing for his family’s safety, Byles recently resigned as minister and plans to move his family to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
All three characters are based on real people, and thanks to Gabridge’s fastidious research, they are as historically accurate as archival materials permit. The dramatic and personal details that transform them into three-dimensional characters are all thanks to Gabridge’s uncanny ability to dig deeply beneath the surface of his research and plumb the hearts and minds of his characters. “Revolution’s Edge” is no mere reenactment; it pulls back the curtain and lets a modern audience witness what really made these men tick.
That that audience is also sitting in the very place where the events of the play took place is nothing short of sublime.
As the conversation unfolds that tense day in 1775, Gabridge first focuses our attention on the characters’ commonalities. All three are fathers who value family above all else. They want the best lives possible for their children and are willing to sacrifice their own happiness to achieve that goal. They have all suffered profound losses and setbacks in their lives. At their cores, they are decent, practical and honest men, strongly opinioned yet respectful and compassionate.
The playwright then teases out all the ways in which they differ. Byles is an ardent supporter of the King of England and may have been colluding with the British troops. Pulling is just as ardent a Patriot, ready and willing to launch the attack that will finally set America free from tyranny.
Byles has his blind spots. For example, he can’t see the inhumanity of his assumption that, because he owns Cato and because he and his wife have five children they can’t care for on their own, Cato not only must leave his own family in Boston and accompany them to New Hampshire, but he also should be grateful for the opportunity. He is tone-deaf in his paternalistic attitude toward Cato, whom he sees as needing (and wanting) his master’s protection.
Cato, who was kidnapped in Africa as a child and brought to America as a slave, just wants to raise his family among the friends he has made during his many years in Boston. When Pulling asks Cato whether he wants to accompany Byles to Portsmouth or stay in Boston, Cato is stunned. No one had ever asked him what he wanted before. Yet he is comfortable and confident enough to point out the absurdity of asking that moot question now.
Instead of answering Pulling’s question, he poses one of his own. “Did they ask if I wanted to come to this country when I was seven years old?” he counters.
The play raises many thought-provoking issues in understated but effective ways. Pulling argues that he and his fellow Patriots refuse to be slaves to the King, yet he can’t make the connection that Cato might feel the same way about his enslavement. Byles insists that “all this” is God’s plan, but when pressed by Pulling, he can’t say which part he means. Is it taxation? Occupation? Slavery? “There’s not much subtle about the times we’re living in,” Pulling observes.
Finally, they address the elephant in the room: in a land where no one is native, who is a true American? Is it the English settler (and his fellow loyalists) who may live in New England but whose allegiance is to the original version across the pond? Or is it the colonists (and fellow Patriots) who have embraced their new homeland and no longer consider themselves English immigrants but full-blooded citizens of the autonomous and independent America?
The splendid cast of three last Thursday (two casts act in rotation) included Joshua Lee Robinson as Cato, Tim Hoover as Byles, and Kevin Paquette as Pulling. Most of the action takes place in the front of the pews, although the actors walk up and down the aisle from time to time. While they both bring style and authenticity to their characters, Hoover and Paquette might do well to temper their deliveries. Their rapid fire, loud, angry vocalizations rendered many of their lines incomprehensible, which is particularly unfortunate with such a dialogue-driven script.
As Cato, Robinson was much easier to understand. His even, clear, calm enunciation added much to the audience’s ability to relate to his character.
Gabridge is the founder and Producing Artistic Director of Plays in Place, which develops site-specific plays tailored to helping an audience find new meaning in the places, topics, and people at the heart of the piece. He hopes “Revolution’s Edge” enables its audience to appreciate that the people in our past were real people who led complicated lives that required them to make hard decisions.
“Sometimes we look back in history and we feel like it was easy for them to make their choices. You know, ‘It was so much simpler back then.’ But I think when we look at them as real complex humans, we realize that just like us today, they didn’t know what was going to happen next, just like we don’t,” he said.
For more information, go to www.oldnorth.com/revolutions-edge/
