Ro Boddie is Frederick Douglass and Marni Penning is Susan B. Anthony in Mosaic Theater Company's The Agitators/Photo by Stan Barouh
It is unlikely that I would have had the keen interest in Mosaic Theater's newest play, The Agitators, had I not read Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave nor had visited his Washington home earlier this year, Cedar Hill.
My visit to Cedar Hill was occasioned by the 200th birthday celebration for Mr. Douglass (1818-1895) although his exact birth year and date are conjecture since he was born into slavery when record-keeping of slaves was not guaranteed.
Mosaic's Agitators are Mr. Douglass and his longtime friend and collaborator-in-charge-of-change, Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) who happened to share the same time frame in life.
Seated are Ro Boddie as Frederick Douglass and Marni Penning as Susan B. Anthony with Adanna Paul and Josh Adams in Mosaic Theater Company's The Agitators/Photo by Stan Barouh
"Slavery is what stole the first 20 years of my life," Mr. Douglass says in the play, and, agitation is the spark leading to change.
Ms. Anthony says her father didn't vote because, had he voted, he would have become part of the corruption.
Mr. Douglass and Ms. Anthony are friends, they are rivals, they are revolutionaries, she, an ardent suffragette, and he, an impassioned abolitionist who also shared Ms. Anthony's ideas to get the vote for women.
They worked night and day to correct society's wrongs.
The Agitators' director KenYatta Rogers writes in program notes: "They spent a lifetime pursuing perfection for their fellow Americans....The time has come to learn from their example. 'To use the past only as it [is] useful to the present and the future.'"
Ro Boddie is Mr. Douglass and Marni Penning is Ms. Anthony who did not live to see the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting women the right to vote. For more than five decades, she worked tirelessly for the amendment's passage.
The play exceeded all forecasts for enlightenment, acting, format, and just plain good theatre, and its program includes an excellent chronology of important events in Douglass's and Anthony's lives.
Rather than two actors sitting on a stage reminiscencing about their times together, they fight and scream and don't always take to each other. They convincingly discuss their battles to win over public acceptance of their hopes and dreams.
Scenes (by Jonathan Dahm Robertson) change frequently, and they are more than a piece moving once or twice. The initial set led me to low visual expectations, given the rectangular outline with white flowing curtains, but the versatility soon became obvious.
In one of the most creative places, the duo stand on opposite elevated platforms at a railway station, shouting at each other over the tracks.
Time moves on, projected by listing of years, different hair colors, hairstyles, and Ms. Anthony's fashions (by Amy McDonald. In the manner of the Kennedy Center which exhibits costumes of ballerinas and opera stars in foyers, Ms. McDonald's designs would be welcome in the Mosaic foyer.)
After the show, the playwright, Mat Smart told me the play originated from a visit he made to Ms. Anthony's home in Rochester, New York.
He spent a year conducting primary research on the couple, pinpointing visits by both at the same times to the same places: Albany, Boston, Rochester, Washington, D.C. and more. Except for the baseball game which he could not say with certainty that Ms. Anthony attended, he speculated she was
there because "everybody in town was."
The game was one of the most hilarious scenes in the play which overall had much more humor than I anticipated. "Do not quote me to me."
Mr. Smart told me he left the music choices up to the director and the sound director, David Lamont Wilson, with the stipulation that they mix "the old with the new."
They did and lots more.
At intermission I turned to the stranger beside me and said I wanted a copy of the music, and she replied that she wanted a copy of the music. The only piece whose title I could positively identify was Jimi Hendrix's "Star-Spangled Banner."
The music was deliciously eclectic, modern with hip hop and a mix of 19th century songs and sounds, which are rare together, at least on my shelves.
Two nights after the Pittsburgh tragedy, the play ended on an emotionally charged stage with Ari Roth, Mosaic's founding artistic director, Victoria Murray Baatin, the associate artistic director, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Smart and others from the crew holding hands and leading the standing audience to sing several verses of "We Shall Overcome."
Many words from the script fit the sad times that we live today. Still, the agitators' hope that becomes reality illuminates the dark to tell us that a better day, a new day will come.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me. - (Emily Dickinson)
Also in The Agitators are Adanna Paul and Josh Adams who are background ensemble members.
Additional creative team members are Robert Garner, sound engineer; James Morrison, projections; Alec Sparks, assistant projections; Elena Velasco, movement coordinator; Alberto Segarra, lighting, Emily Boisseau, properties; Shirley Serotsky, dramaturg; and Laurel VanLandingham, production stage manager.
The Mosaic has scheduled other events in conjunction with The Agitators. Before you go, check with the box office about possible changes: 202-399-7993, ext. 2.
Nov. 10, 3 p.m. Voting Rights Today-The Meaning of Centuries of Struggle
Nov. 11, 3 p.m. Black Women's Suffrage-Abolition was Not Enough
Nov. 15, 11 a.m. Cast talkback
Nov. 17, 3 p.m. Inexhaustible Souls in Collision-The Struggle for the 15th Amendment Meets the Claims of Race and Gender
Nov. 18, 3 p.m. We Hold These Truths-Quakers in America
Nov. 20, 8 p.m. It Takes Two to Make a Thing Go Right-Necessary Coalitions/Imperfect Partners
Nov. 24, 3 p.m. What Makes a Movement?
Nov. 25, 7:30 p.m.The Rooms Where It Happens: Politics of Place and the Geography of Freedom
What: The Agitators
When: Now through Nov. 25, 2018 at 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday nights; 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 25; 8 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 20; weekend matinees at 3 p.m. A Nov. 15 student and senior matinee at 11 a.m. has sold out.
Where: Mosaic Theater Company, Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H Street NE, Washington, D.C. 20002
Getting there: Riding public transportation from Union Station on the streetcar is easy and free, if you can find the streetcar behind Union Station since signage in the station is poor. Parking options are available for those who drive to Atlas.
Tickets start at $20.
Language: Some of the songs drop the F-bomb, and maybe another epithet is heard here and there in the dialogue.
Duration: About two hours with one 15-minute intermission.
For more information: Please call the box office and leave a message: 202-399-7993, ext. 2.
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