“Can you name three African-American women who lived before 1865?”
Playwright and director Valerie Joyce set out on a mission to answer that question. A span of 250 years, and yet, complete silence. Not atypical, as women of color’s voices have had a long history of being diminished; none of us are shocked that, beside a few big names like Harriet Tubman, we come up blank. And if we can recall, we most definitely do not hear their stories spoken in their own words.
I Will Speak for Myself is a one-woman show performed by Kimberly S. Fairbanks that showcases a collection of 15 stories as told by women of color pre-1865.
Stories like that of Ona Marie Judge, who escaped from George Washington: a riveting story of a woman that starkly juxtaposes the history of someone who is considered one of the most important figures in American history. We are taught in this history that all men are created equal… and there’s a keyword there… because not everyone was granted the freedom that men like Washington thought he was fighting for. Ona didn’t have that freedom, so she fought for her own freedom. And it’s a shame her history isn’t in the books: “You see, I am free now and choose to remain so.”
Then we have Lucinda, who escapes, but comes back: she gives up her physical freedom to be with the love of her life. It’s compelling to hear her words, and to go through her thought process of what it means to be free.
And Joice Heth, an attraction for P.T. Barnum; she died seven months after being in his custody. People later paid 50 cents to watch a doctor dissect her. We know she never got to speak in her own words. We know she was never given bodily autonomy. And we think, this is history; it would never happen in 2018. But it’s still happening — so many people live their lives without a choice — it’s still very much a relevant topic today.
Matilda, social reformer in 1828, demanding education for women, exclaiming that women’s minds are capable; she fought for women’s advancement. And, as she speaks, we wonder how much incredible work must have been lost, but for the fact that women were deemed incapable of competing with white men.
Or how much work was presented but not credited — like that of Elizabeth Keckley, seamstress to Mary Todd Lincoln.
And, finally, we have Mary — a constant figure, compared to the women who can speak, until we finally learn that Mary cannot: “These are not my words”; “You are not my people.” At her trial for fornication, she is forced to recite words that are not her own, so when she does finally speak, we are left completely shocked by the truth. And this force… this is violence; this is what spanned 250 plus years, and still continues to this day.
The Tao House’s barn s as the stage for this incredible work, and it becomes quite site-specific; because these stories were never told, we feel we are catching a glimpse into something private. We imagine these women all meeting each other inside this barn, and telling each other their stories. It would have been deemed as gossip, and the semantics of that tells us so much about how women’s stories are perceived. Fairbanks does an incredible job shape-shifting into these different characters, and Joyce’s words and direction come with a clear message of the work we still need to do in order to make sure our voices are always heard.
I Will Speak for Myself played at Eugene O’Neill’s Tao House, 1000 Kuss Road, Danville, CA on July 7-8, 2018. For more information about productions at the Tao House, please visit http://www.eugeneoneill.org/ or https://www.nps.gov/euon/index.htm
