By Sheila Barth
BOX INFO: Two-act, two-hour, two-person play, written by Mat Smart, directed by renowned playwright-actress-director Jacqui Parker, making its New England premiere through Oct. 7: Wednesday-Saturday, 7:30 p.m.; matinees, Saturday, Sunday, 2 p.m., 267 East Main St., Gloucester. $35-$45, discount tickets for senior citizens,18-year-olds and younger, and Cape Ann residents. 978-281-4433, gloucesterstage.com.
“I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand.” – Susan B. Anthony
“I didn’t know I was a slave until I found out I couldn’t do the things I wanted.”
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons or property will be safe.” – Frederick Douglass
American history heralds the tireless efforts of pioneer crusading abolitionist, civil rights, anti-slavery and women’s rights leaders, Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony, but few people are aware of their 50-year friendship and collaboration. Mat Smart’s two-act, two-hour, two-person play, “The Agitators,” set in 1849 to 1895, is currently playing at Gloucester Stage Company, and brings their relationship to life. Garbed in Mary Hurd’s resplendent, historically accurate costumes, actors James Ricardo Milord and Sarah Elizabeth Bedard deliver compelling performances, tracing the two leaders’ oftentimes-tempestuous relationship.
From their initial meeting at her activist father’s home in Rochester, NY, when Susan B. Anthony was a chatty, starstruck young woman and Douglass, a famous African-American anti-slavery, abolitionist and civil rights firebrand, the two realized their goals were intertwined. She was a civil rights leader and pioneer crusader who championed temperance, abolition, African-American rights, labor rights, and equal pay for equal work. But for 50 years, she joined other women’s advocates, published a newspaper, formed two organizations, and traveled around the country, giving speeches and lectures about women’s suffrage.
She also served as chief New York agent of William Lloyd Garrison’s American Anti-Slavery Society, from 1856 until the early years of the Civil War.
Under Jacqui Parker’s deft direction, we see, close-up, these two dynamic leaders who relentlessly pursued their causes, despite threats to their lives. They also met when it was unpopular and potentially dangerous for a Black man to speak with a White woman in public. During their meetings, they shared intimate information about their lives. Lee Francois’ black-and-white background video images enhance scenes, as do Dewey Dellay’s sound effects.
In an impassioned reminiscence, Douglass tells Anthony how he was taken away from his mother a few weeks after he was born, lived with his maternal grandmother until he was 6, then taken away to work on a Maryland plantation. “You have birthdays, you know when your birthday is, but I don’t know mine,” he tells her. Luckily, he was taught to read and write. Although he was still a slave, he married a free black woman, changing his life dramatically.
Anthony was raised in an activist home, where she was taught to help others. The two aided and supported each other throughout the years, until Congress passed the13th, 14th and 15th amendments, outlawing slavery, granting free slaves citizenship and equal protection under the law. It protected all citizens from racial discrimination in voting, thus giving voting rights to African American men only. In a fiery scene, Anthony chides Douglass for supporting the 15th amendment, which didn’t include voting rights for women. Douglass argued success must be accomplished in small steps. Anthony insisted the 15th amendment should have been re-written. Eventually, the two reunited, but their work remains unfinished, their causes resonating more loudly than ever today.
