BRUNSWICK — Elizabeth Davidson brings her play “Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Literary Soldier” home to the place where “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was born in historic First Parish Church at noon, Sunday, May 5.
Davidson’s one-act play is a fictionalized account of a meeting between Mrs. Stowe and the Rev. Joel Parker, a noted critic. Growth of the Abolitionist movement and development of the characters and incidents depicted in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is woven throughout the play.
When she began researching Stowe for the play, Davidson was amazed by Stowe’s fervor. “I did my share of protesting when I was a student at Indiana University, but I never expected Harriet Beecher Stowe to have been so outspoken,” Davidson said. “It just wasn’t done (by women) then.”
Davidson has performed this play throughout the country for the past seven years to rave reviews, a news release said. Discussion following the play will be led by Bowdoin professor and Stowe scholar Tess Chakkalakal.
“Some people claim that our Civil War began and ended in Brunswick,” said First Parish historian Mildred Jones in a news release. “Mrs. Stowe’s novel about slavery inflamed the nation in 1852, and when the war finally ended in 1865, Gen. Joshua Chamberlain of Brunswick accepted Robert E. Lee’s sword of surrender.”
The play will also be performed at Thornton Oaks today. A young people’s version will be given to grades 3 to 5 at Harriet Beecher Stowe Elementary School on Monday, May 6. The programs are supported by the Maine Humanities Council.
The performance on Sunday at First Parish Church is free and open to the public.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
