I
n the era of #metoo, #citeblackwomen,
and #blacklivesmatter—all movements
founded by black women that, collectively,
seek to call attention to pervasive social
injustices and secure acknowledgment
of this group’s contributions to American
society—Charly Evon Simpson has written a
play that centers on the experiences
of antebellum-era enslaved women,
whose sufferings provided a plat-
form for white medical men to pio-
neer surgical techniques.
As I waited for the play to be-
gin, I was moved by the starkness
and simplicity of the stage design.
There was an ever-present haze that
evoked for me the often obscured nature of
slavery in this country’s collective imagina-
tion. Most Americans connect slavery and
the slave’s work to plantations and cotton.
However, it was clear that Simpson and di-
rector Colette Robert wanted to convey that
enslaved people’s labor, especially enslaved
women’s labor, was also reproductive.
James Marion Sims is the historical subject
whose controversial gynecological experi-
ments on enslaved women led to a success-
ful surgical repair for obstetrical fistulaepatients and who inspired Simpson to write
the play. Simpson, however, chooses to tell
the story from the perspective of the women.
Philomena, the main character, played
effectively by Naomi Lorrain, emerges as
the predominant voice. It is she who in-
structs the other enslaved women on the
nature of their illnesses, naming and de-
fining the medical terms that “Dr. George”
has written in his notebook. Most
audiences would have no trouble
inferring the meaning of these
terms from contextual clues in
the dialogue; however, Simpson’s
positioning of Philomena as a
learned slave who is able to code
switch with ease was an effective
way to encourage viewers to think
about enslaved people as human beings
and not as unsophisticated property.
Philomena, who is George’s assistant and
sex slave, is an ever-present voice of compas-
sion and contestation. She insists that his pa-
tients experience pain during the surgeries he
subjects them to, despite prevailing scientific
thought, which held that black women expe-
rienced no pain during childbirth and very
little pain from operations. And she reminds
the audience that the lived experiences of
black women should be heard and believed.
At times, her speeches are heavy-handed, but
alas, slavery itself was heavy-handed.
As the rest of the cast—a core group of en-
slaved women (Betty, Sally, Mary, and Dinah)
and a lone enslaved man (Lewis)—emerge,the audience sees how enslaved people had to
suppress their own challenges, feelings, and
fears in order to mitigate those of the men
and women who owned them. Lewis, for ex-
ample, is played brilliantly by Shawn Randall,
who shows the full range of human frailty
and strength. His portrayal conjured up how
enslaved people toed a thin line where both
sides were fraught: Either they acquiesced to
ever-increasing subjugation from their own-
ers or fought back, risking the repercussions
of the owners’ emotional volatility.
Although their roles were secondary, Ste-
phen James Anthony’s depiction of Samuel,
George’s white male assistant, and Megan
Tusing’s role as George’s wife, Josephine,
brought life to characters who at times
slipped into flattened tropes of whiteness.
Through these characters, the audience sees
how slavery helped to construct ideas about
whiteness and gender during the 19th cen-
tury. They are self-absorbed, to be sure, but
their self-absorption is about their own lack
of agency in the world in which they live, a
world that created and reinforced structures
that upheld advanced age, masculinity, bio-
logical whiteness, and ownership of property
as the hallmarks of citizenship and worthi-
ness. The penultimate scene, in which George
and Josephine discuss his absence from his
family’s life because of his career ambitions
and demands, was acted beautifully, convey-
ing the sincere longing and vulnerability that
Tusing brought to her character.
I wish that the same nuance had been
brought to the enslaved women’s roles.
These characters at times seemed like stock
depictions of the sassy slave (Sally), the
haughty house slave (Betty), the refined
concubine (Philomena), the angry black
woman (Dinah), and the naïve and sensitive
slave (Mary). In the final ensemble scene,
however, the women reveal vulnerabilities
and express love to each other in ways that
showed their lives and bodies matter too.
This ending was one of the more powerfully
acted scenes in the play, and it was in these
moments of emotional vulnerability that
the actors shone.
Watching a play about slavery, rape, rac-
ism, and experimental medicine is difficult.
I’m not sure if one could emerge from the
experience having “enjoyed” it. Although
there were moments when I grew frustrated
at the heavy-handed dialogue, the sometimes
flat character depictions, and the inelegant
data dumps, Simpson brought sensitivity
and honor to enslaved black women’s lives,
revealing how their suffering sparked inno-
vation that has improved the reproductive
health of all women. I look forward to her
continued growth as a playwright and as an
important new voice in American theater. j
10.1126/science.aaw4483700 15 FEBRUARY 2019 • VOL 363 ISSUE 6428 sciencemag.org SCIENCEPHOTO: JEREMY DANIEL PHOTOGRAPHYHISTORY OF MEDICINEOverlooked no longer
A new play honors the enslaved black women who helped
improve our understanding of reproductive health
Cristina Pitter, Naomi Lorrain, and Nia Calloway portray Sally, Philomena, and Betty, respectively.INSIGHTS | BOOKSThe reviewer is at the Department of History, Queens College,
City University of New York, New York, NY, USA, and is the
author of Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins
of American Gynecology (University of Georgia Press, 2017).
Email: [email protected]Behind the Sheet
Charly Evon
Simpson
The Ensemble
Studio Theatre,
New York, NY, USA.By Deirdre Cooper OwensPublished by AAASon February 14, 2019^http://science.sciencemag.org/Downloaded from