Beatrice Clancy.

Beatrice Clancy

by George Elliott Clarke Polestar Book Publishers, September 1999 $14.95, ISBN-1-896095-94-1

Clarke's play, written entirely in verse, is set on a plantation in the Anapolis Valley of Nova Scotia in 1801. A play in five acts, "Ambivalences," "Violators," "Victims," "Revolt," and finally "Responsibility," the writing follows a clear line of action.

Clarke calls the script a libretto intended to be sung and performed on stage. The dialogue is spoken poetry and the story sheds light on the institution of slavery in the British North American colonies after the American war for independence. Though apparently not as brutal as in the U.S., it was still slavery.

Beatrice Clancy gives readers and audiences alike an example of the stunning imagery of which Clarke is capable. Even the stage directions provide significant emotional subtext. The characters are not described in a traditional or conventional fashion. For example, 19-year-old Deal, a female slave, "beautifies a single piece shift; a red bandana shrouds her corn-rowed hair. Her blackness, big-boned, colours liberty." In Clarke's words we learn about the essence of the woman, not just her appearance. Of Dice, the young black overseer, the reader gets the sense of how dangerous this young man can be and what motivates him when Clarke states, "fear is in his soul like a leeching thing. His face is a shipwreck. He's 21, with a bullwhip."

Describing his title character, the author writes, "Enter Beatrice ... Her pride is steel, unflinching, a material hostile to slavery." It is a foreshadowing of her power as a woman. Of Beatrice Clancy, Clarke says it "is not a work of history but of imagination. It is not a polemic, but neither is it passionless. For, being a Nova Scotian of African American origins, I will never know the furthest origins of my African heritage. I do know that it was disrupted by a ship and ruptured by chains."

Beatrice Clancy has had a diligent journey that started with a presentation of four scenes in 1995 to the premiere of the full opera in 1998. It is a unique take on a powerful subject. I would particularly recommend it for play-reading groups or book clubs, who may choose to read the play out loud at a meeting.

Sharita Hunt is a writer and actor whose credits include the original Broadway production of For Colored Girls ... and her one-woman show A House is Built.