Suffragist Julia Ward Howe implores 'do something' in new play presented by 4th Wall Stage

Richard Duckett

Worcester Magazine

Activist, abolitionist, suffragist, author and charismatic speaker Julia Ward Howe has a message for the audience that can ring with urgency across over 150 years in Joyce Van Dyke's,"Representation and How to Get It."

A production of the new play will be presented by the 4th Wall Stage Company for a total of three performances for Mother's Day Weekend, and set for May 10 and 11 at the Worcester Historical Museum.

"I hope they'll do what Julia asks them to do," Van Dyke said of the audience. "Get up, vote, do something. That's what Julia wanted — people to do something. Our play is really trying to echo and re-echo Julia's call for action. Voting is part of that, and there's working on whatever causes you want to work on. She (Howe) had this strong belief in the necessity for women to have a role in the public sphere. She was always striving for women to find their rightful place in the whole world."

May 12, the day after the final two performances, is Mother's Day, which Howe, who died in 1910, had a hand in inventing. She is perhaps most famous for writing the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."

"Although she's not so well known now, in her day she was a celebrated and well-known woman," Van Dyke said. Some 4,000 mourners filled Boston’s Symphony Hall at her memorial service in 1910, and sang the hymn.

'A subtle and inspiring look'

Van Dyke, a Boston-area playwright, has been collaborating with actor Elaine Vaan Hogue, who portrays Howe in the one-woman performance, and Juda Braha, who directs, in developing "Representation and How to Get It" and getting it out there so that audiences can get its immensely timely message, especially in this election year. Vaan Hogue is an actor, director, teacher and producer. Braha has been a director, actor, teacher and artist for social justice for over four decades.

''We've actually been producing it the last couple of years in a touring capacity," Van Dyke said. "We hope do some more before the election."

Performance venues so far have included Revolutionary spaces (Old South Meeting House, Boston), United First Parish Church (The Church of the Presidents) in Quincy, United Solo Festival in New York City, Edith Wharton’s home The Mount in Lenox and the First Religious Society in Newburyport.

The play has been getting great responses, Van Dyke said.

"'Representation' … is a wonderfully subtle and inspiring look into the life of Julia Ward Howe that melds history with our humanity. As a moving call to arms, it’s a stunning piece of writing and execution! Brava!” wrote Kate Snodgrass, former artistic director of the Boston Playwrights' Theatre.

"Knowing that 4th Wall is committed to historical and impactful plays, Joyce reached out during the development of this piece," said Barbara Guertin, managing director of 4th Wall Stage Company. "It had a very successful run at The Mount last August and I knew it was just perfect for us to bring to Worcester audiences."

Van Dyke's play "The Women Who Mapped the Stars" was produced by 4th Wall at the Worcester Historical Museum in 2019, and drew an enthusiastic reaction. The play focuses on five female astronomers at the Harvard College Observatory beginning in the late 1800,s who pioneered modern astrophysics and created the celestial road map we use today but were largely ignored by history until quite recently. "Perfect fare for Women’s History Month, 'The Women Who Mapped the Stars' is a must-see," wrote Nydia Calón in her review for the Telegram & Gazette.

'She was expecting to be laughed at'

Howe was born as Julia Ward in New York City, the fourth of seven children, to a stockbroker and strict Calvinistic Episcopalian father and a poet mother. Well educated, Howe quickly developed a mind of her own, including becoming a Unitarian. She was also a trained singer. In 1843 she married Samuel Gridley Howe, a Boston physician and reformer 18 years her senior who had founded the Perkins School for the Blind and had previously been a hero of the Greek Revolution. The couple had six children and lived in Boston.

"Representation and How to Get it" is set after Howe wakes up at 4 a.m. and contemplates and rehearses a speech she is to give later that day at the Boston Radical Club on representation for women. Vaan Hogue plays Howe in period costume.

Howe did speak several times at the Boston Radical Club, including a speech that Van Dyke found in the records notated as "Representation and How to Secure It" circa 1870.

"She was expecting to be laughed at," Van Dyke said, because even among progressives a woman speaking about the right to vote could be subjected to ridicule and worse. Lucy Stone, Howe's friend and fellow suffragist who was born in West Brookfield, had things thrown at her when speaking, Van Dyke said.

"The play is not Julia's talk, although I did lift some things from it, some astonishing things, and some other things she wrote and said in life," Van Dyke said.

"Waking at 4 and realizing she has a talk that day, the play is about her struggles to speak, her fight to speak, starting with her husband who abhorred the idea that she wanted to speak in public and write, and constantly undermined her and fought against her.

"It's her struggle, but it's all women's struggle who lack representation and still struggle today. It's Julia talking to the audience and we become in a way her own audience and a modern audience," Van Dyke said.

"It's Julia talking to the audience. It's not a documentary. It's about all the forces that struggle against you."

Taking part in history

Howe's maternal grandfather had helped develop the Declaration of Independence, but died before he could sign it. Howe was proud of that family involvement and history but felt very distraught that she, as a woman, could not take part in the policies/politics of her country, Van Dyke said.

Howe's husband was considered a progressive and in Greece, where he had offered his physician's services for the cause, was known as the "Lafayette of the Greek Revolution."1

"He was famous as a philanthropist, but not at home. He encouraged Florence Nightingale's career but he did not want her (Howe) doing anything outside the home and family," Van Dyke said

"He had a miserable life because he couldn't stop her. But he made her life miserable, too. I don't know what she would have done if he didn't obstruct her all the way."

Always active regardless, Howe became even more so after her husband died in 1876.

"It's so hard to summarize Julia Ward Howe because she had so many interests," Van Dyke said.

'A charismatic speaker'

With Lucy Stone she founded the American Woman Suffrage Association, breaking away from the national suffrage organization because it opposed the 15th Amendment. On the 100th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, it organized a Woman’s Tea Party at Faneuil Hall in Boston where 3,000 people gathered to protest that American women had had 100 years of taxation without representation.  

"She (Howe) was the president of more organizations than I can name or possibly remember," Van Dyke said.

"She was a charismatic speaker, apparently. I'm sure she would be a political leader today." She also was a preacher at a time when women preachers were extremely rare and looked at askance. "She had become a Unitarian and sought out her own opportunities to do that," Van Dyke said.

"I wish I could have heard her speak. She was a trained singer. There must have been something about her voice."

Also, she wrote all the time and was a distinguished author and poet. She was the editor of Woman's Journal, a widely read suffragist magazine founded in 1870 by Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell, and wrote "Appeal to womanhood throughout the world," later known as the Mother's Day Proclamation.

'An international call to peace'

Howe advocated for Mother's Day "not as a domestic Mother's Day as we now know it but as an international call to peace. She had a very different view of what Mother's Day could be," Van Dyke said.

Howe may not be so well known now because the big positions of influence in society and politics were cut off for her as a woman. "There were places she couldn't go as a woman," Van Dyke said.

There will be opportunities for a talk back with the audience after the May 10 performance, most likely with director Braha and a member of the Worcester Women's History Project, and May 11 following the 2 p.m. performance with Van Dyke and Vaan Hogue, Guertin said.

Van Dyke writes about women in numerous settings and dramas of struggle and discovery. She also teaches Shakespeare and writing at the Harvard Extension.

"The Women Who Mapped the Stars" seemed on the brink of stardom when it was performed here in 2019, "but we were right on the front end of COVID," she said. "It has been done a little bit, but not nearly as much (as might have been expected). In Worcester I thought, 'Wow, we're on a roll.'"

Still, "I am inspired by my subjects and I hope to make some headway on that."

With "Representation and How to Get it," Van Dyke said that she and Vaan Hogue and Braha "do think of it as a play but we do think of it as something more — a call for action, a cry. And that's what we hope people will take from it."

'Representation and How to Get it' by Joyce Van Dyke — Presented by 4th Wall Stage Company

When: 7 p.m. May 10; 2 and 7 p.m. May 11

Where: Worcester Historical Museum, 30 Elm St., Worcester

How much: $20; $17 museum members; $10 students, 4thwallstagecompany.org

Elaine Vann Hogue portrays activist, abolitionist, sufffagist, author and charismatic speaker Julia Ward Hoee in Joyce Van Dukes play, “Representation and How to Get It,” on stage May 10 and 11 at the Worcester Historical Museum, and presented by 4th Wall Stage Company. Provided By Joyce Van Dyke

Joyce Van Dyke is the author of “Representation and How to Get It,” which will star Elaine Vaan Hogue, with performances May 10 and 11 at the Worcester Historical Museum, Provided By Joyce Van Dyke

John Elliot painted this portrait of Julia Ward Howe, subject of the play, “Representation and How to Get It,”on stage May 10 and 11 at the Worcester Historical Museum, and presented by 4th Wall Stage Company. (Credit: Provided By Joyce Van Dyke) National Gallery Of Art

Judy Braha is director “Representation and How to Get It,” of stage May 10 and 11 at the Worcester Historical Museum, and presented by 4th Wall Stage Company. Provided By Joyce Van Dyke

Elaine Vaan Hoque portrays Julia Ward Howe in “Representation and How to Get It,” at the Old South Meeting House in Boston. Vaan Hoque will also appear in the play in performances set for May 10 and 11 at the Worcester Historical Museum, and presented by 4th Wall Stage Company. Provided By Joyce Van Dyke