‘Still,’ tense historical drama inspired by abolitionist’s book, premieres at Kean University

MIKE PETERS

Carl Hendrick Louis, left, and Brian D. Coats in “Still,” with Nafeesa Monroe shown in silhouette.

The main surprise in Benjamin V. Marshall’s historical drama “Still,” which is currently having its world premiere at The Bauer Boucher Theatre Center at Kean University in Union, is so improbable that if this were a different kind of play, you might think to yourself, “That would never happen in real life.” But “Still” is based on a nonfiction book, Williams Still’s 1872 “The Underground Railroad Records,” and the twist is taken directly from it.

That play — a sometimes harrowing but ultimately uplifting look at both life under slavery and life in slavery’s aftermath — was commissioned by Premiere Stages at Kean’s Liberty Live initiative, which helps playwrights create works that have to do with New Jersey history. And it is directed by Marshall Jones III, whose previous credits include a 13-season stint as producing artistic director for the Crossroads Theatre Company in New Brunswick.

William Still, played by Carl Hendrick Louis in the production, was a Jersey-born abolitionist who aided slaves, before The Civil War, as chairman of the Philadelpha-based Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society (the play has scenes set in both Philadelphia and New Jersey) and has been called “The Father of the Underground Railroad.” Drawing from his diaries, he collected former slaves’ stories he had witnessed or been told in “The Underground Railroad Records.”

He is not the central character of “Still.” That would be Peter Friedman (played by Brian D. Coats, who was just seen, recently, as Eli in “Gem of the Ocean” at Two River Theater in Red Bank). Friedman — a rough-edged country type in sharp contrast to Still, who is portrayed as a dapper urbanite — arrives at Still’s Philadelphia office one day, asking for his help in finding members of his family. He says he is a former slave who recently has bought his freedom.

Especially in the play’s tense early scenes, Louis effectively emphasizes the young but wise Still’s calculated reserve. Coats, playing a more elderly character (“I’ve got scars older than you,” Friedman sneers), does the same with Friedman’s desperation.

MIKE PETERS

Ashley Nicole Baptiste and Brian D. Coats in “Still.”

Still wants to help Friedman, but it is not an easy task. Friedman is looking for his mother and sisters, but has had no contact with them since he was just 6. He doesn’t know where the plantation that enslaved them, at that time, was located, and doesn’t know anything about what happened to them since they vanished from his life.

Both men are wary of each other. Friedman does not know if Still can be trusted, and his hesitation is understandable: It is an era when bounty hunters were in pursuit of escaped slaves, and even though Friedman is not one, he is afraid that he could be apprehended, and it could be claimed that he is someone else. Still also doesn’t want to reveal too much. There are legal limits to what he can do as an abolitionist, and he has to consider that Friedman could be some sort of secret agent, seeking to entrap him.

So they circle around each other, verbally, but Friedman eventually tells his story, and it is a compelling one. It takes up most of the first act, with three other actors — Ashley Nicole Baptiste, D. Malik Beckford and Nafeesa Monroe — playing a variety of minor characters, sometimes shown only in artful silhouette. And a sixth actor, Perri Gaffney, makes a crucial appearance in the second act, in the play’s most powerful scene. (I won’t say who Gaffney plays, in order not to ruin the surprise.)

Baptiste, Beckford and Monroe also play 21st century griots in introductory segments at the start of the play’s two acts. They have quite a bit of dramatic flair, as well as a mischievous streak. When one, in the first segment, tells the audience that the play will depict “cruelty beyond belief,” another responds, “Why should the past be any different than today?”

MIKE PETERS

Carl Hendrick Louis, left, and Brian D. Coats in “Still.”

I did feel that the way Marshall structures the play creates a problem. As mentioned, Friedman spends most of the first act telling Still his life story. And he goes into great deal. But there is no reason for him to be doing so. He has come to Still for help in finding family members. But the vast majority of the information he gives Still will be of absolutely no help, in that regard. It is hard to see why Still — who is portrayed as a brusque, no-nonsense kind of guy — wants or needs to hear all of this, and so this part of the play does not feel as urgent as it should, when there is so much at stake. (For a play that aspires to be a slice of history, it also might have helped, I think, to give more of a sense of what Still’s work for the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society entailed.)

But the action of the play’s second act makes a lot more sense, dramatically, and everything does eventually build to a memorable conclusion.

Premiere Stages will present “Still” at The Bauer Boucher Theatre Center at Kean University in Union through July 28. Visit premierestagesatkean.com.