Liz Lauren
Left to right: Johnny Lee Davenport, Cedric Mays, Gavin Lawrence and Jennifer Latimore.
In The African Company Presents Richard III, a company of black actors struggles for the right to pursue their art with dignity, to perform classic plays where they inhabit the roles of kings and queens on the stage.
Carlyle Brown’s play — which runs through Sept. 14 in the Touchstone at American Players Theatre — presents unforgettable characters from a story based on actual events. However, the script does not live up to the promise of the source material or the talents of the actors performing under the direction of Derrick Sanders.
Historical records indicate that in the early 1820s, a free black man from the West Indies named William Henry Brown founded the African Company in New York City, producing Shakespeare with all-African American casts for primarily black audiences. Seen as a threat to theaters run by the white establishment — and perhaps an unnatural expression of classical English texts — the company was harassed by law enforcement until it was eventually shut down. Stephen Price, the white owner of the popular Park Theatre, was particularly outraged that Brown’s company had rented a space right next to his to put on the same show: Shakespeare’s Richard III. Toward the end of the play, Price (David Daniel) tells the constable (Tim Gittings) that after the company members are arrested he wants them to “swear before whatever God they swear, never, never, never to play Shakespeare again. Or by heaven, they will never see the light of day.”
The members of the African Company are a fascinating and diverse group of former enslaved people. James Hewlett (Cedric Mays) was jeered into performing minstrel songs on other stages and is now quite serious about his art; Papa Shakespeare (Johnny Lee Davenport) is a griot adorned with garlic and shell-bead necklaces, punctuating the action with a traditional drum slung at his side; William Henry Brown (Gavin Lawrence) is a confident entrepreneur determined to keep pushing racial and artistic boundaries with his company; Ann Johnson (Jennifer Latimore) is a young domestic who is more passionate about being with James than being onstage; and Sarah (Greta Oglesby) is a pensive and patient soul who sews costumes and acts in the productions, much to the delight of her eccentric white employer.
All the cast members soar in scenes that explore the blatant prejudice that free blacks faced in early 19th-century New York. They convey their passion for embodying characters onstage and for telling their own stories of escaping bondage. Lawrence brings a sly intelligence to his role, and Latimore is especially affecting as the heartsick and reluctant actress who cannot personally square playing the part of a woman who would love her enemy and oppressor. Davenport’s mischievous nature provides most of the humor in the show; he steals the scenes where he acts as a translator and intermediary for two disagreeing parties. And Oglesby exudes an extraordinary strength and calm, conveying that she is cautiously optimistic about the future and weary of fighting.
Richly dressed and carrying a walking stick, David Daniel makes a substantial effort to play the reprehensible Price as more than just a cartoon villain, but the script backs him into a corner, much as it does Gittings’ billy club-brandishing Irish constable.
With such rich possibilities inherent in this story, the script of The African Company Presents Richard III is frustrating. It contains many tangents: monologues, interactive moments with the audience and scenes that are utterly disconnected from the larger through line. Disconnected vignettes don’t coalesce into a compelling whole, making the ending seem particularly melodramatic.
In a play that exposes and explodes the antiquated prejudice that non-white actors cannot perform great works onstage, it is a shame that these great actors do not have better material to work with.
