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Deborah the Mostly True Tale of a Revolutionary Woman by Elizabeth A

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Deborah the Mostly True Tale of a Revolutionary Woman by Elizabeth A Deborah The Mostly True Tale of A Revolutionary Woman by Elizabeth A. M. Keel Elizabeth A. M. Keel 5415 Scott St. #50 Houston, TX 77021 832-277-6858 [email protected] elizabethamkeel.com © 2020 2 SYNOPSIS Deborah is a feisty reimagining of the life of Deborah Sampson, a real woman who dressed as a man and fought in the Revolutionary War. As a strong, unusually tall girl sent into servitude by her parents, she despairs of the avenues of life available to her. instead, she swaps her fate for a man's and enlists in the Continental Army, where she proves a fantastic soldier. After the war, Deborah marries and squeezes into the role of wife and mother. With the impending loss of the family farm, Deborah pens her autobiography with the inept help of writer Herman Mann, and sets off across America to give rousing speeches about her past. As she straddles the realms of both genders, Deborah embodies mother and warrior, loner and celebrity, wild rover and wife. This rebellious drama vivifies her astonishing journey through personhood, and her lifelong quest to discover how her restless heart might ever truly find a place to belong. CAST 3W / 3M Deborah Sampson: (Ages from 16-60). Tall, sturdy, androgynous. A powerful speaker with a soft heart. Hannah Snell: (20s-30s) Tiny, spry, and British. Also androgynous. A singer who knows how to work an audience. The ensemble actors play a vast range of people, of all ages and social statuses. They need to be quick, flexible, and physical. Their suggested breakdown is: Male 1: Herman Mann, Traveler, Eliphalet Thorp, Doctor Binney, Paul Revere, Thief, William Dunlap Male 2: James Summs (Hannah’s husband), Ebenezer Sproat, Calvin Munn, Jacob Towne, General Henry Knox, Uncle Zebulon, Officer, Journalist, Heckler Male 3: Benjamin Thomas, Male Student, Man O.S., Drunk Soldier, Roger Barrett, Benjamin Gannett, Gil Blass, Heckler 2 Female 1: Susannah Thomas, Female Student, Camp Follower, Widow Hunt, Nurse, Patience Payson, Female Audience Member, Heckler 3 PRODUCTION HISTORY Deborah was previously workshopped at 14 Pews in Houston, Texas, in September 2013 as part of an Artist-in-Residency program. It also received a staged reading at the Playhouse Theatre in San Antonio, Texas in October 2016, and with the Shattered Globe Satellite Series in Chicago in July 2019. Deborah’s descendent, a trans writer named Alex Myers who has written his own novel about his foremother’s exploits, was kind enough to read the play and approve of it in 2017. 3 ACT ONE Projection: “If all our Men are drawn off and we should be attacked, you would find a race of Amazons in America.” -Abigail Adams Lights up on Deborah: a large, simple, unremarkable woman in a homespun gown. Yet something in her bearing that suggests one day she may be much more than this. DEBORAH When this began, I was just a girl. Not pretty. Too tall and wide for flirtation, far too poor for dowries. I was a servant. I did a woman’s chores. Milking, weeding, weaving, mending, cooking, cleaning, gathering, mothering, babying. But there was more to me than that. Why waste all this? (She gestures to her body.) Male chores fell to me as well. Chopping, hauling, carving, slaughtering, whittling, ploughing, haying, hauling, hunting. Fetching things off high shelves. (Beat.) It did make me strong. (Beat.) When this began, it was my choosing time. Had I been a boy, I would have selected my trade. But as a impoverished, landless girl? I was too innocent for whorehouses, and really... who would have me? I was too proud to beg a husband. I was sick to death of chores, and other people’s children. I could weave. That was the only career open to me in which I could earn the same pay as a man. But there is little in this world quite as dull as the back and forth of warp and weft. (Beat.) When this began, I was faced with terrible choices. Did I want a life as plain as my face? Predictable, tame? Or did I want more? And how could I go and get it? (Beat.) When this began, when I began: the world was ending. Drums, flutes. MALE VOICES 1775. Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes. DEBORAH I was fifteen. MALE VOICES Give me liberty or give me death! The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. April. An echoing gunshot. 4 MALE VOICES The shot heard round the world. June. George Washington, Commander in Chief. The Spirit of ’76! These are the times that try men’s souls. We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal. DEBORAH All men. I was sixteen. MALE VOICES September. The British hold New York. ’77. Valley Forge. Bloody footprints on the snow. We’re losing. We’re saved! The French have come. Sons of Liberty! DON’T TREAD ON ME! DEBORAH The world was watching us. Taking bets on how soon we’d fail. MALE VOICES ’78. (Beat.) ’79. DEBORAH Revolution was everywhere, in every mob, every mob cap. Picture, if you will, the colonies. 13 young, supple bodies, in various states of fleshiness, ripe and rich with promise. And behind them, pulling the strings of their bodices tighter and tighter, her knee upon their neck, was fat Mother England. Americans gasped from her taxation, swooned for lack of representation, saw stars bloom in their vision as each valiant protest was ignored. “Mother, enough! We cannot breathe.” And so these colonies, sequestered in their Western boudoir, began to whisper among themselves. There had to be another way to live. Sisters Massachusetts, Virginia, Georgia and New Hampshire, Jersey and York, Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Maryland and the Carolina twins, pooled their chicken money and bought a pair of shears.They took a long last look at the throne that kept them bound. No one wanted to become Mother. They were wary of the limitations of imitation. And thus, their corsets set, they sailed. The colonies sliced through muslin and whalebone, to shed their lunatic King. There was a glorious, scandalous, terrifying moment of naked breathing. And then they pulled on instead: farmer’s breeches, and fisherman’s boots. They donned democracy, and it was outrageous. 5 (A private smile, like a girl in love.) I was uniquely sympathetic to the cause. (Beat.) Ladies and gentlemen, the one thing I ask you to recall, through the fantastic story that is to come: We had every reason to believe we would fail. We would be caught, hung, shot, gutted, beaten, imprisoned, disgraced and worse, for the crime of being rebels. Patriot rebels, and in my case, a female one. Despite that risk, looming every day, we pressed on. You repose here now in the tranquil shade of peace, and assuredness. But know that then, on the original side of peril, we had only just begun to walk in heat of the sun. (Beat.) It is time to begin. A shift. DEBORAH At one point, there was a writer. A printer, from Dedham. Some idiot, or rather, a young romantic, who thought I was worth the price of ink. I was never quite sure how much to tell him. HERMAN MANN (Rising.) Herman Mann. DEBORAH Herman Mann. Her man-man. (A pity laugh.) What was wrong with his parents. HERMAN Tell me about your father. DEBORAH (No longer to audience.) He hated being poor and having so many children. He left when I was five, and ran away to Sea. HERMAN (Writing.) Hmm. Father... died. DEBORAH He remarried. HERMAN Tragically drowned. And your mother? DEBORAH She hated being poor and having so many children. 6 HERMAN How many– DEBORAH Jonathan, Elisha, Hannah, Ephraim, myself, Nehemiah and Sylvia. Seven, in all. We were farmed out. I was sent on to a Miss Fuller, who died when I was eight, and then the widow of Reverend Peter Thacher, who died when I was ten. The widow was fond of quoting Judges to me, at four in the morning: Projection: “Wake up, wake up, Deborah! Wake up, wake up, break out in song! Arise!” –Judges 5:12 DEBORAH “Wake up, wake up, Deborah! Wake up, wake up, break out in song! Arise!” She loved the mornings, and died at night. Between the two of them, I learned to read. HERMAN An orphan, raised by women of God... (She squints at him.) Maybe. I might have to bring back your parents. For flow. We shall see. DEBORAH After that, the Thomases. Five boys, their mother, Susannah, and a father who hated to see me near a book. BENJAMIN THOMAS “You are always hammering upon some book. I wish you wouldn’t spend so much time in scrabbling over paper.” HERMAN Oh, wonderful! ...Academic... tendencies... Female education is all the rage these days. I don’t suppose he beat you? DEBORAH (Ignoring both men.) The Thomas boys went to school in the warm season of the year, but I could not be spared. BENJAMIN THOMAS She’s got her Scripture, what more does she need? ’Tis vanity! She’s too proud of her reading. Child, I forbid it! DEBORAH I read every book I touched. 7 She seizes a book and drops down into the reading of it. HERMAN She shows a real thirst for information. She is able to read almost any book in her language! Ms. Sampson is versed in nature, astronomy, and geography, the Almanacks, Pamela, Shakespeare, Robinson Crusoe. She can recite the Catechism verbatim, years after she last studied it.
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