Peeking in on “Revolution’s Edge”

A month ago I noted the upcoming premiere of “Revolution’s Edge,” a play dramatizing the stresses affecting three men associated with Christ Church in the North End on 18 Apr 1775.

The three characters are the Rev. Dr. Mather Byles, Jr., planning to leave that church; his enslaved servant, Cato, worried about being removed from his family; and John Pulling, a merchant captain and vestryman who’s also interested in the movement of British soldiers. Byles is a Loyalist, Pulling a Patriot, and for Cato the lack of liberty cuts most deeply.

I attended that first performance at Old North and can recommend the show as a thoughtful exploration of how the Revolution’s big issues intersected with individual desires and needs. Performances run through 19 September.

WBUR’s report on the play included this passage:

Nathan Johnson, the actor who plays Cato, says it is one of the most important projects in which he’s been involved.

Johnson, who is Black, promised himself early in his acting career that he would never play an enslaved person. But the depiction of Cato, and the importance of the play’s message, made the role too compelling to pass up.

“I want everyone to see that we have all something to contribute to our history,” Johnson said. “I want everyone to see that it is not a matter of white and Black. It is a matter of America. It is a matter of progress. It is a matter of stakes, it is a matter of tension. And not just for Pulling and Byles, but for Cato as well.”

Cato is the least documented of the three characters. Playwright Patrick Gabridge had to gather vital records from Boston, Roxbury, and Nova Scotia, and then make an educated assumption that all those mentions of a man named Cato related to the same person.

To compound the challenge of building Cato’s character when none of his words survive, an enslaved man in a room with his owner wouldn’t have been able to speak his mind.

Gabridge turned that vacuum into an advantage by making Cato the character who addresses the audience, introducing the historic situation, the other characters, and his own unvoiced thoughts.

For folks who want to hear more, WBUR also ran an audio report.

The photo above of Johnson performing as Cato was taken by Evan Turissini, who plays Pulling, as he waited to enter.