Susan B. 2020
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Susan B. __________________________ A full-length play By Daphne White Contact: Daphne White 2107 Sacramento Street Berkeley, CA 94702 301-704-2860 [email protected] ©2019 SUSAN B. Synopsis Susan B. was a fierce fighter who refused to let anything stand in her way: not the gun- toting mobs who burned her in effigy, not the blinding snowstorms that kept male speakers at home, and not the newspaper editors who tried to deny her free speech. A Quaker and abolitionist, Susan B. had the outlandish notion that women and men were created equal. But in a world where women were considered the property of their husbands even after the slaves were freed, Susan B. had to make gut-wrenching choices. Should she support the Fifteenth Amendment, which offered suffrage to black men but not to women? Should she accept funding from a Trump-like racist who supported woman suffrage, but not black suffrage? More than 150 years before the #MeToo movement, Susan B. Anthony was defending women who had been sexually exploited, discarded, and left to die in insane asylums. She was called “shrill,” she was called “unreasonable,” and if she were running for office today she would certainly be called “unelectable.” How can we understand the battle between the sexes if we don’t even know our own history? 2. CHARACTERS (5F, 4M) Susan B. Anthony, white, 31 when we first see her. Tall, thin, tightly wound, stands very erect. In the first two scenes she wears simple plaid dresses; from the third scene forward she wears all-black dresses; in later scenes she adds her trademark red scarf. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, white, 52 when we first see her. Short, stout, sunny, brilliant, forthright, but also haughty. She is matronly and cultivates a Martha Washington look. Also plays First Woman. Lucy Stone, white, 33 when we first see her. Plain-looking, with a mole on her face, but famous for her mellifluous yet very powerful voice. Also plays Phoebe Harris (Phelps), an upper-class white woman in her early thirties. Anna Dickinson, white, 24 when we first see her. Petite, charismatic, brilliant, temperamental, a prima donna, and one of the most famous lecturers of her day. Also plays Elizabeth Warren and Second Woman. Sojourner Truth, black, 54 when we first see her. Six feet tall and muscular, she speaks with the confidence and cadence of a practiced preacher. She wears home-spun clothes, and always carries her autobiography and photos with her in public settings. She speaks with a slight Dutch (not Southern) accent. Frederick Douglass, black, 49 when we first see him. Tall, dignified, elegantly dressed, and charismatic. His hair is not yet gray. Wendell Phillips, white, 56 when we first see him. Wealthy Boston brahmin, lawyer, orator, one of best-known men of his day. Also plays First Minister, First Senator, and Judge Hunt. George Francis Train, white, 38. Eccentric, narcissistic, colorful Trump-like figure who was the real-life inspiration for Around the World in 80 Days. Wears patent leather boots; a white vest; blue jacket and lavender kid gloves. Also plays Second Minister, Second Senator, Jack Winthrop and District Attorney. 3. ACT ONE SCENE ONE At rise, the stage is dark. After a few seconds, there is a very loud clap of thunder, followed by bursts of lightening. Suddenly, SUSAN appears out of the darkness. She is disheveled and wind-blown, her clothes fluttering around her wildly. She looks lost and disoriented, until she notices a door in the middle of the stage. (This door is not connected to anything, but we cannot see what is on the other side.) Susan straightens her hair and tries to get her dress under control as she walks over to the door and starts knocking frantically. SUSAN Elizabeth! Open the door! ELIZABETH Unseen, speaking from behind the door. No! SUSAN Do you know how hard it was for me to get here? ELIZABETH Silence. SUSAN The border is almost impermeable now! ELIZABETH You don’t need to tell m that. SUSAN So let me in! ELIZABETH No! 4. SUSAN Elizabeth Cady Stanton! You open that door right now! ELIZABETH Excuse me? SUSAN Elizabeth, please! I don’t know how much time we have. [Beat.] You have never even tried to cross! You have no ideas of the dangers involved. ELIZABETH Who is this? SUSAN You know perfectly well! ELIZABETH Actually, I haven’t the foggiest. SUSAN Well, perhaps my voice has changed, what with being on the other side for so long ... and, come to think of it, Elizabeth, you don’t sound quite yourself either. [Beat.] All right, then. It’s Susan! ELIZABETH Susan who? SUSAN Susan B. Anthony, that’s who! Now open up, before I have to break that door down. I’ve done it before -- do not make me do it again! Elizabeth Warren opens the door, wearing her signature outfit of black pants, a black top and a jewel-tone jacket. SUSAN Who on earth are you? I am looking for Elizabeth! ELIZABETH I am Elizabeth. [Beat.] Elizabeth Warren. SUSAN Elizabeth who? [Taking in Elizabeth’s pants.] I would have been stoned for wearing trousers like that. But ... they are quite attractive, actually. Even nicer than Bloomers! 5. ELIZABETH Thank you. But I don’t quite see ... SUSAN Remind me who you are again, young lady? ELIZABETH Young! Right. Of course. My name is Elizabeth Warren. I am ... er ... running for President of the United States. The election is coming up in 2020. SUSAN I see. That is splendid, dear, splendid! I predicted this, you know, more than a century ago. So tell me: how many women presidents have we had so far? ELIZABETH Silence. SUSAN Go on, don’t hold me in suspense! Three? ELIZABETH No. SUSAN Heavens to Betsy! More than three? I always said that failure was impossible. So five? Seven? ELIZABETH Actually ... none. SUSAN None? But that is not possible! I have heard that women got suffrage ... let me see now ... one year ago our time, that is 100 years your time! You mean to tell me that in all that time, you did not manage to elect one woman President? You cannot be serious, Elizabeth! ELIZABETH Well ... the deck has been rather stacked against us. SUSAN For one hundred years? 6. ELIZABETH We have tried. We are still trying! Persisting, even. But any time a woman dares to run for president, she is immediately demeaned and called “unelectable.” SUSAN Unelectable! What a pile of horse manure! [Beat.] You still have horses, don’t you? ELIZABETH We have horse’s asses. SUSAN Is that why you were hiding behind that door? ELIZABETH I am having a ... dark night of the soul. I rarely allow myself the luxury, but tonight ... it has been rather a lot lately. SUSAN There is no time for that. No time! Look, half the population fo this country is still female, is it not? ELIZABETH Yes, but/ SUSAN /And when women are given the opportunity to vote for another woman, surely/ ELIZABETH /It hasn’t quite worked out that way, Miss Anthony. SUSAN I don’t understand. Why on earth not? ELIZABETH They say we are shrill. We are not “likable.” SUSAN For heaven’s sake. Andrew Jackson was not likable -- but he was still elected president! ELIZABETH Well, that’s different. He was a man. And people could imagine having a beer with him. SUSAN Excuse me? 7. ELIZABETH “Likable,” today, means that a voter would want to have beer with you. SUSAN So if you want to run for president, you have to like beer? ELIZABETH Well ... no. But people have to like having beer with you! SUSAN I have never tasted any alcoholic drink in my life. I would as soon touch arsenic! ELIZABETH Temperance is not what it used to be. SUSAN I am sorry to hear that. You know, even at the Boston Tea Party, the men took care to throw the women’s favorite beverage into the harbor, but they kept their own drinks dry. And the tax on tobacco and whiskey was just as high! ELIZABETH Increasing taxes on the tobacco-and-whiskey crowd is a big part of my plan, actually. But people say that I want to change too much, too fast. SUSAN My dear, they told us the same thing! We were called “unreasonable” and “hysterical” and “fanatical radicals.” We were even called “unsexed socialists.” ELIZABETH Unsexed socialists? SUSAN Oh, yes! Elizabeth and I were great admirers of Karl Marx. We believed it was important to reconstruct the very foundations of society and teach the nation the sacredness of all human rights. ELIZABETH That sounds like deep structural change to me! But why “unsexed?” SUSAN Because men were under the impression that when women think too much, the blood needed to sustain their ovaries and womb is delivered to the brain, which results in serious illness. With severe and irreversible consequences. 8. ELIZABETH Men are still spooked by female bodies. Our current president has said that a female journalist had blood coming out of her “wherever.” SUSAN I would have thought that kind of claptrap would have ended by now! You know, we were told that women should not go into polling places, because politics were filthy and would sully our dresses. ELIZABETH So you did you do it, Miss Anthony? How did you keep up the fight for five decades? SUSAN We dealt in thunderbolts, Elizabeth and I. She forged them, I threw them. We always understood that cautious, careful women never can bring about a reform.