Harriet Beecher Stowe coined the phrase “Uncle Tom” in her fictional novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (1852), while Harriet Jacobs chronicled her own escape from slavery in “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” (1861).
Now, the two Harriets collide in the world premiere of the new play “The Storehouse” by Perisphere Theater at the Silver Spring Black Box Theatre in Silver Spring, Maryland, running now through March 25.
“These two women had a series of interactions together that few people know about,” Playwright Joanna Castle Miller told WTOP. “Essentially, Jacobs came to Harriet Beecher Stowe and asked for her help and support as a writer. The response was not exactly what she was looking for. … Their relationship happened mostly by letters. I’ve taken some dramatic liberties in putting them in the same room.”
Directed by Amberrain Andrews, the play exposes societal forces that control who gets to tell their stories.
“There’s a very familiar attitude from Stowe that I’ve seen amongst progressives, then and now,” Castle Miller said. “There’s a sense that progress is acceptable when we are the ones who make it happen and a reluctance to cede power to someone else … even if the other person could make that change better.”
Born in Connecticut in 1811, Stowe became one of the world’s wealthiest authors.
“Harriet Beecher Stowe grew up in New England to a relatively wealthy family, a hyper religious Calvinist family,” Castle Miller said. “She had a huge success in ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ it outsold the Bible, she was extremely wealthy from that experience and she toured the world because of it. … She was credited with changing the attitude of white people enough to make abolition a possibility.”
On the other hand, she created a monster that even she couldn’t control. In the book, she attempted to portray Uncle Tom as a hero or martyr, but there’s a pitiful tone between Eliza and Tom that Castle Miller finds “difficult.” It’s only grown more problematic over the years due to offensive and stereotypical performances in blackface.
“Stowe was not able to control what happened to that story,” Castle Miller said. “To this day, you will see #UncleTom trending on Twitter on a regular basis, part of common parlance, but they’ve never read the book. … Our understanding of it today has been shaped by minstrel performances … that Stowe not only never approved but actively fought her entire life and begged people to stop performing. She abhorred blackface.”
It’s a truly incomparable experience to Jacobs, who was born into slavery in North Carolina around 1813.
“She experienced an enormous amount of harassment under the hands of her master and then eventually fled successfully,” Castle Miller said. “She hid out in a small crawl space that’s about the size of a coffin for seven years. By the time she made it up to the north, she desperately wanted to tell her story, not just about her escape … but to use that as a launching point to have a larger conversation about what life was actually about down south.”
Jacobs is portrayed by Howard University’s Ahdis Beruk, who brings “sensitivity and grace” to an “incredible writer and activist,” Castle Miller said. “She also worked with Union soldiers during the Civil War, she built a school during Reconstruction and ran it with her daughter. She was a very kind, sensitive, nurturing presence.”
D.C.-based actor Allison McAlister portrays Stowe. “You wouldn’t imagine this would be necessary for the role, but she is just so funny,” Castle Miller said. “She is bringing such a great sense of humor, which is critical.”
The show only runs for 10 performances, so get tickets while you can.
Listen to our full conversation here.
