It isn’t often that a piece of theater can successfully combine the falsetto wailing of Prince with serious drama concerning slavery in the antebellum South. And if it does, it almost certainly won’t include references to the Hokey Pokey or wicked witches from “The Wizard of Oz.”
Then again, there aren’t many playwrights like Robert O’Hara.
O’Hara not only marries a world filled with very real, heart-crushing violence to a divine and cackling comedy, but he bridges the past with the future in “Insurrection: Holding History,” a surprisingly funny and shockingly irreverent odyssey through Nat Turner’s infamous slave uprising before the Civil War.
But don’t confuse O’Hara’s playmaking with sheer impudence for his subject matter. “Insurrection” may get carried away with its lighthearted touch to a bloody era of ignorance, but its soul is filled with the burden of rendering a difficult and distanced journey relevant to contemporary audiences.
That journey lives in the story of TJ (Cedric Mays), a 189-year-old former slave, and his gay grandson Ron (Frank Britton). It’s 1996, and Ron is writing his Columbia University thesis on slave history in the United States, and he believes he can hear the inner voice of his mute grandfather summoning him on a road trip to his former home in Southampton, Va.
As TJ and Ron drive farther and farther into the night, they travel through time and space to experience life on the same plantation with Nat Turner.
Drawing on pop culture references from an eclectic array of music to classic film vignettes, Douglas’ time-tripping tour effectively transports you to another world that is free to jump between reality and fantasy — a formidable trick that can happen only in live theater.
The magicians here are an enthusiastic ensemble with substantial contributions from Freeman and Mays, MaConnia Chesser and Maya Lynne Robinson. A cluttered homosexual subplot is left open for Cleo House’s quiet Hammet, and House gamely explores O’Hara’s half-sewn thread late in the second act.
But it is the fervent conviction from KenYatta Rogers as both a raucous Nat Turner and the malicious Ova Seea Jones that makes this his strongest performance to date.
As disorienting as it can seem, Dan Covey’s extraordinary lighting helps delineate the now from then as O’Hara and Douglas march down a path of reliving American history. It’s exciting writing from a new theatrical voice, and with large ripples of imagination, “Insurrection: Holding History” will make you fall in love with the art of theater all over again.
‘Insurrection: Holding History’
By Robert O’Hara
Through April 1
Theater Alliance, H Street Playhouse, 1365 H St. NE, Washington
Director: Timothy Douglas
Tickets: $26
Performances: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday; 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
Info: 866-811-4111, www.theateralliance.com
