|
In Search of Giants Who Cared About Me
a new play by Dr. Von Washington, Sr.
Play Synopsis:
In search of new and useful knowledge about the giants of the American past, Doc, a well-meaning professor, makes several trips to a Museum in Schoolcraft Michigan that was once a safe house conducted by Doctor Nathan Thomas and his wife Pamela, on the famed Underground Railroad. Traveling alone, his first visit is insightful and mysterious, bringing him closer to understanding the Thomas family who ran the house, and the enslaved visitors who sought refuge there, while hoping to reach freedom in Canada, the Promised Land.
Prior to his second visit, Doc comes into contact with a descendant of the Thomas family and learns more about the activities of the house as well as one invited guest in 1844, Mister Henry Bibb. He also leans of a conjuring technique that he thought might be helpful in his next visit to the museum. To aid him in learning more about Henry Bibb, Doc procures, from his trusted computer, a not so well known narrative, written by Henry Bibb, before his death in 1849.
During a third visit, he goes straight to the room in the museum where his enslaved ancestors were kept while waiting to go on to freedom; and there, to his surprise, he immediately senses the spirits of other fugitives who have already arrived. Doc quickly prepares himself to conjure up his main participant, Henry Bibb but, before he can utter one word, Bibb's spirit suddenly appears and begins to relive how he escaped the brutality of slavery, and lived! Eventually, other spirits join in to help this giant of a man recount the story of his many escapes on the Underground Railroad, aiding others in breaking the yoke of slavery, for a better life.
|
