Gregory Freeman: Voices Echo The Pain Of Women In Slavery. P-D 2/22/1994

Headline: VOICES ECHO THE PAIN OF WOMEN IN SLAVERY
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Tues., Feb. 22, 1994
Section: WAR PAGE, Page: 5C, Edition: FIVE STAR

I MET MY great-great grandmother last week.
Not in body. She died long before I was born.

But certainly in spirit, in a play performed by the Holy Roman Repertory Company.
For an hour and a half, I was transported to the days of slavery, and listened intently to the words of 50 black women who had been slaves in the 1800s. And I was spellbound.
The production was performed in reader's theater but was brought to life by the four actresses - Glynnis Brooks, Peghee Calvin, Asa Harris and Sharita Kyles Wilson.

The play, "From Darkness Cometh the Light, " was written, created and directed by Patton Hasegawa, the company's artistic director. Each word spoken by the actresses was written or spoken by slave women.
Hasegawa read volumes of slave narratives, searching for the words for the play. That was no easy task. More than 6,000 narratives exist, most of them written between 1850 and 1890. At times the women wrote their own stories. Others dictated them to friends who could write. Some narratives were recorded by WPA writers who interviewed former slaves in the 1930s.
Hasegawa went through those narratives to produce this play. The experiences recounted are not extremes, but instead those that were repeated over and over in slave narratives. It is special because it recounts slave experiences from the viewpoint of women, a rarity.

The play is broken into different kinds of experiences.
   For example, dating, slavery style, is described by former slave Rachael Cruze: "Saturday afternoons and Sunday nights were the times the young fellows looked for likely mates. Master Macabee had a great number of lively looking girl slaves. All the young men in the neighborhood would make it their business to get over there. Master Macabee, he watched his girls closely - used to sit on a chair between his two houses where he could see everything. . . .
   When a well-built, tall, husky man came over, Master Macabee would call him and say, `Whose Negra are you?' When he was told, he'd say, `You can come over and see my gals anytime you want. You're of good stock.'
   "But if a skinny, reedy sort of Negra made his appearance among the young girls, Master Macabee would call him over and say `Whose Negra are you?' The boy would tell him. Master Macabee would look him over and say, `I don't want you comin' over to see my gals. You ain't of good stock.' "

The play offers insights into sex between slaves and slaveowners, such as these comments by an unknown slave woman: "Old Marsa (master) was always tryin' to make Sukie his gal. One day Sukie was in de kitchen makin' soap. Had three grea' big pots o' lye jus' comin' to a boil when old Marsa come in. He tell Sukie to take off her dress. She tole him no. Den he grabbed her an' pull her dress down off'n her shoulders an' try to pull her down on de flo'.
"Den dat black gal got mad. She took an' punch old Marsa an' made him break loose an' den she gave him a shove an' push his hindparts down in de hot pot o' soap! It burnt him. He ran from de kitchen, not darin' to yell, cause he didn't want Miss Sarah Ann to know 'bout it. Well, few days later he took Sukie off an' sol' her."

These words, by former slave Mattie Jackson, were telling: "My little brother was taken sick in consequence of being confined in a box in which my mother was obliged to keep him. If permitted to creep around the floor her mistress thought it would take too much time to attend to him. He was two years old and never walked. His limbs were paralyzed for want of exercise. Mother saw him gradually failing, but was not allowed to render him due attention. The morning he died, my mother was compelled to attend to her usual work."

Each segment is broken up by the actresses singing old slave spirituals, passed down from generation to generation for more than 100 years. The authenticity of the music is overseen by Ron Sadler, president of the Legend Singers Choral Ensemble, a group that works to preserve the Negro Spiritual.

Few plays speak to me as this one did. I suppose it's because it's not every day that I get to hear from my great-great-grandmother.

"From Darkness Cometh the Light" will be performed at ___ at CASA, the St. Louis Conservatory and School for the Arts, 560 Trinity Avenue, University City. [Note: 1994 performances]

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

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