Driving past Johnson Park on Fond du Lac Avenue between 17th and 20th Streets, you wouldn’t guess it was the site in 1842 of Deacon Samuel Brown’s farm, a Wisconsin station on the Underground Railroad. In July of that year, 16-year-old Caroline Quarlls, the first documented runaway slave to escape through Wisconsin to freedom in Canada, found shelter there. Deacon Brown and the Milwaukee abolitionists risked imprisonment to protect the desperate travelers of their day. “Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel…,” they would sing to bolster spirits when out of the law’s hearing, “...and why not every man?” It’s heartening to learn from the Johnson Park website that Wisconsin became a leader in the abolition movement and that Wisconsin’s Supreme Court was the only one in the nation to rule the Federal Fugitive Slave Act unconstitutional.
How much courage it must have taken for the people fleeing slavery, hunted by dogs and armed men, traveling immense distances at night on foot without resources! That courage and its complex circumstances are the subject of James DeVita’s compelling play A Midnight Cry , written for and first produced by First Stage in 2003 and now revived for a second run from Jan. 10 through Feb. 9. Based on Quarll’s story with its resounding echoes, that 2003 production inspired an ongoing series of commissions by First Stage of new plays with local themes, collectively titled “The Wisconsin Cycle.” First Stage is, of course, a nationally renowned theater for young audiences but A Midnight Cry will just as surely electrify adults.
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That was evident at the rehearsal I attended, in the material, professionalism and bearing of the superb cast who clearly know this is a special show. First Stage Artistic Director Jeff Frank is directing as he did the 2003 premiere. He calls A Midnight Cry “the most powerful, moving, uplifting play” he’s ever been part of. “I still carry with me that first journey of creation, that discovery, and now I’m also inspired by these new actors and what they bring, their new insights, new questions,” he explains. “Sometimes I hear from people: I can’t go see that thing, I don’t want to suffer through it. But the place Lida [the character based on Quarlls] gets to is such a glorious one! It’s about the triumph of the human spirit, the strength she finds in herself, the strength that’s given to her by her family. That’s a credit to Jimmy’s playwriting. The characterizations are so rich, complex and deep; it’s exciting for actors to grapple with them.
“There are moments in rehearsal that make us uncomfortable,” he continues, referring to images such as Lida’s young sister being sold before the family’s eyes or Lida being whipped. “These scenes have to be real and present, but nothing is gratuitous. The journey is worth it.”
Sheri Williams Pannell is the show’s music director. The songs include some of the most stirring spirituals from the period, such as “Deep River,” “Steal Away,” “Oh Freedom” and the aforementioned “Deliver Daniel ,
