The scene is doubly resonant because it was precisely the attempt to throw off the chains of slavery, for himself and other African-Americans, that landed Nat Turner (Brandon G. Green) in the jail cell where he sits slumped in a corner, his shirt bloody, his pants torn.

It’s a November night in 1831, and Turner, leader of the most famous slave uprising in American history, has just a few hours to live before he is hanged in Jerusalem, Va. Early in the taut Actors’ Shakespeare Project production of “Nat Turner in Jerusalem’’ that is directed by Benny Sato Ambush, Turner holds up his shackles and, speaking directly to them, says:“Tomorrow all of Virginia will come to the gallows to watch me die.’’