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2024-2025 SeasonThe Return of Benjamin Lay

Quantum scores a coup with ‘The Return of Benjamin Lay’

By February 2, 2025February 3rd, 2025No Comments
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onStage Pittsburgh – Quantum Theatre is staging more than just a play, but a theatrical coup. Securing The Return of Benjamin Lay and its actor, Mark Povinelli, Quantum brings this play from its London premiere in 2023 to the Braddock Public Library, now under impressive restoration.

The University of Pittsburgh historian Marcus Rediker, who wrote the play along with Naomi Wallace, discovered the life and work of an obscure abolitionist who campaigned against slavery in 18th-century America, mostly in Quaker meeting houses whose members owned slaves. A Quaker himself, Lay was banished from those places of worship for his outspoken, at times theatrical, protests.

Rediker’s 2017 biography, “The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist,” caught the attention of British playwright Wallace. The two collaborated on this one-person show, using Lay’s life to confront the prejudices and intolerance of today.

In a way, The Return of Benjamin Lay is a polemic, a direct assault on injustice against all minorities. Lay himself was a “little person,” a 4-foot-tall hunchback who refused to be ignored or ridiculed.

“I’m just a mouthy midget,” Lay calls himself. “I have been to jail for what I believe.”

In 1738, Philadelphia printer Benjamin Franklin published Lay’s book, “All Slave-Keepers That Keep the Innocent in Bondage, Apostates.” Lay points out that Franklin didn’t put his name on the book while confronting Franklin’s slaveholding.

Povinelli, whose career covers the stage, film, and television, fills the bare stage of the library’s performance space with his powerful version of Lay.

Rediker labels Lay a “dwarf,’ while Povinelli calls himself “a little person,” but both are giants of belief and energy. Ranging from a small table to a few chairs, Povinelli is acrobatic, tumbling across the shallow stage and off it to confront the audience with nagging questions.

Stretching across the space are colored beams of light, bringing an added sense of drama to the play.

It’s no longer 1738, but 2025 as well in this production. Ron Daniels, who directed both the Quantum and original play, writes in the program notes that Lay’s message is still being heard.

“And will we, in our world and in our lives today, heed his warning?” Daniels asks.

Much of the work of the staff of the London debut is reproduced in Braddock, including Daniels and the lighting, sound, and scenic designers. Quantum Artistic Director Karla Boos said the play will be produced in New York and Philadelphia this year.

The Return of Benjamin Lay is a unique and challenging play, a no-frills work powered by the talented Povinelli and the strong words of its namesake.

TICKETS AND DETAILS

Quantum Theatre’s The Return of Benjamin Lay at the Braddock Public Library has performances now through February 23, 2025
Tickets: www.quantumtheatre.com

Read the full story here.

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