Mixed Magic goes biblical in new play

‘The Red Tent’ re-tells the story of Dinah, daughter of Jacob

PAWTUCKET – In Anita Diamant’s 1997 novel “The Red Tent,” the titular locale refers to a gathering place for women in the days of the Old Testament.

“It was a women’s meeting place. It was the menstrual tent. It was the birthing tent,” said Ricardo PittsWiley, co-founder of Mixed Magic Theatre. It was “where all the women in the village came to one place and communed with each other, and there were no men, no pressure from men, any of those types of things.”

Pitts-Wiley and Mixed Magic Theatre actresses have struggled to think of modern equivalents of the red tent. There was some level of consensus that a women’s church group qualified as such a place, but there was disagreement on sororities and women’s business organizations.

“In some ways, the groups are organized as women having to protect themselves or look out for each others’ interests in light of a male- dominated society,” Pitts-Wiley said. “But in the red tent, men were not a factor.”

He has had these discussions with the actors and actresses cast in his adaptation of “The Red Tent,” which he started working on about six months ago and will present at Mixed Magic Theatre from April 21-May 14.

Tickets are $20 for general admission, and performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m.

Pitts-Wiley first read Diamant’s novel 10 or 12 years ago, and he developed a workshop based on the book about six years ago, when he was a guest artist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“The Red Tent” is not a retelling of Biblical events but a re-imagining. Diamont’s book tells the story of Dinah, a minor character in the Bible who is Jacob’s daughter and Joseph’s sister.

She was “allegedly raped by the prince of a nearby village, and her brothers avenged her assault by murdering all of the men in the village,” Pitts-Wiley explained.

The King James Version of the Bible states of the impetus for the slaughter, “And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, her took her, and lay with her, and defiled her. And his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spake kindly unto the damsel.”

King James is the most-read version of the Bible in the United States, but other versions – like the Contemporary English Version and Good News Translation – specifically characterize Schechem’s actions as rape.

Shechem wanted to marry Dinah, but Dinah’s brothers “were grieved, and they were very wroth” because of Shechem’s actions. They killed all of the men from Shechem’s city, took their animals and held their wives captive.

But in Diamant’s re-imagining, Dinah is in love with Shechem and is distraught at her brothers’ killing spree.

Diamant also re-imagines Dinah’s childhood as the only girl of 12 children, spending time with her father’s four wives – Leah, Rachel, Zilpah and Bilhah – in the red tent.

Upon first reading the book, Pitts-Wiley was drawn to the story because “it had a lot of action” and because it speaks of “very powerful women in sometimes very difficult situations.” Pitts-Wiley noted that he could see the book as a stage play, while not every novel speaks to him that way.

He also noted, “What’s interesting to me about the novel was it felt like it was written about a time and a place where the world was about to explode, and in this sense, this was a part of the world where Judaism, Islam and Christianity where all going to be born out of the same group of people and the same place in relatively the same time period.”

But the project fell to the wayside for a number of years. Part of PittsWiley’s decision to begin working on the adaption half a year ago was the encouragement of his wife, Mixed Magic co-founder Bernadet Pitts-Wiley.

Secondly, he had been looking for something with strong female characters. His cast features: • Maureen Bodden as Dinah • Jeannie Carson as Leah, Dinah’s mother

• Jomo Peters as Jacob, Dinah’s father

• Melody Vasquez as Rachel, one of Jacob’s wives

• Denyse Wilhelm as Zilpah, one of Jacob’s wives

• Kaiasia Boyer as Bilhah, one of Jacob’s wives

• Melodie Thompson as Rebecca, Dinah’s grandmother

• • Rudy Cabrera as Joseph, one of Dinah’s brothers

• Ezekiel Olukoya as Shalem, Schechem in the Bible

• Kathleen Russell as Re-nefer, mother of Shalem

• Veronica Mays as Ruti, the mistreated wife of Laban, who is the father of Leah, Rachel, Zilpah and Bilhah • Kim Trusty as the musician Boyer is a junior at Central Falls High School, where Pitts-Wiley does some project work.

Lifetime adapted “The Red Tent” into a two-part miniseries that aired in December of 2014, and PittsWiley is not the only one to write a stage adaptation. But he is holding off on reading or watching other adaptations until his production is over.

On opening night on Friday, there will be a gala reception from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., featuring hors d’oeuvres, music and a silent auction. Tickets are $20 in advance or $25 at the door, including admission for the show.

Everything at the gala reception will be red, Bernadet Pitts-Wiley said, from the red carpet to the decorations.

“I was just trying to create a mood that will take us into the actual show,” she said.