Solitude of Self, The: Elizabeth Cady Stanton

There are actors who, though every bit as good as any others, do not want to travel away from their home life and employment. So we see them in regional theaters or on film and television made in their home areas. One of the best in northwestern New York State is Patricia Lewis, who has given first-rate performances in such demanding roles as Amanda in Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, Vivian in Margaret Edson’s Wit, and Queen Elizabeth I in Timothy Findley’s Elizabeth Rex. For the Rochester Fringe Festival, Patricia Lewis and her husband, emeritus theater professor Terry W. Browne, put together a performance of a play that she has written, The Solitude of Self.

Briefly, here is playwright Patricia Lewis’ explanation of the piece’s background. “I first became intensely interested in Elizabeth when I portrayed her in a film, shown at the Women’s Rights Museum in Seneca Falls, NY. I was intrigued to discover this funny, intelligent woman. When I first read her address entitled “The Solitude of Self,” which she wrote in 1892, I found it startlingly modern and was so deeply moved that I knew I had to write a piece that would convey this remarkable woman to others.”

As in the famed one-woman play about Emily Dickinson, The Belle of Amherst, a woman, onstage alone, presents herself as a historical character, quotes from that woman’s writings, and informs us entertainingly about what was remarkable and is still timely and important about her. We leave the theater pleased with the play but determined to find out more about its subject.

Indeed, Patricia Lewis is both charming and compelling -- seated in elegant period dress and hairdo at her desk in what appears to be her home, or walking into a spot lit area to greet someone or address us more directly. But what she reveals about Elizabeth Cady Stanton is astounding.

At 33, Mrs. Stanton led our very first women’s rights convention in 1848, in Seneca Falls, New York, only about 53 miles from Rochester. She spoke insisting that women should have the right to vote – 72 years before they got that right in the 19th Amendment. At that convention she met and became friendly with the African-American leader, Frederick Douglass. She was already writing and speaking for women’s rights and the abolition of slavery, having traveled with her husband just after their marriage to The World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840. [The Emancipation Proclamation came in 1863.] In fact, some of the women’s rights that she argued for would surprise and might amuse us – like the right to ride a bicycle. In 1850 she met Susan B. Anthony, and the two remained friends and crusaders for reform and civil rights for more than five decades.

This play quotes liberally from Elizabeth Stanton’s eloquent and often wry and amusing writings, and Patricia Lewis is especially touching and empathetic conveying Elizabeth’s desperate need to win her father’s approval. (Mr. Cady often repeated to Elizabeth his wish that she had been born a son.)

Reminiscing about the extraordinary details of her life, it also reveals the joy, pain, exaltation, and comfort from her seven children; and even her final rapprochement with her father. Then Patricia Lewis – entirely in character – delivers the potent title-passage of Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s address, “The Solitude of Self.” Written in 1892, just ten years before she died, it serves as testimony and affirmation for a life that fought for the equality of all men and women but proved their equal potential for superiority. I found the overall effect of this unusual play to be exhilarating.