Sea Island Nightmare: Or, That Miserable Matter of Slavery – A Black Comedy

Sea Island Nightmare: Or, That Miserable Matter of Slavery – A Black Comedy is inspired by Fanny Kemble’s Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation 1838-39. Kemble, a 19th century British actress, was married to Pierce Butler when he inherited a plantation of Sea Island, Georgia. Kemble was shocked by the treatment of 400 slaves and Butler’s seeming indifference. Her journal of the horrors she witnessed was published after her inevitable divorce, and the Medicine Show uses excerpts from her journal with speeches and music of the period, plus new contemporary scenes, to create this hallucinatory documentary.