Thursday, March 28, 2024

Inside Broadway Theater Review: ‘Harriet’s Return’ Recounts the Transformation of an African American Icon

Karen Jones Meadows as Harriet Tubman. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.

*It requires genuine compassion to walk in another person’s shoes and profound empathy to act on these emotions and help carry another’s load. In “Harriet’s Return: Based Upon the Legendary Life of Harriet Tubman,” writer and performer Karen Jones Meadows demonstrates these qualities in a story based on the journey of the cultural and historical icon who paid a heavy price to restore the humanity of a “people who were forced to act as slaves, that were not born that way.” The play, presented by Woodie King, Jr.’s New Federal Theatre in association with Castillo Theatre in New York City, will conclude its run on March 4.

Meadows is an actress of distinction and depth, whose performance breathes life into the character of Araminta “Minty” Ross, a young girl born into slavery who grows up to become Harriet Tubman. As both playwright and performer, Meadows uses her gifts as a dynamic storyteller to inspire her audiences into believing that they can achieve the same acts of compassion and bravery.

The play begins as Minty, a vivacious girl, remembers her father teaching her life lessons in the woods behind the plantation where they live, like what to eat, where to go, and when to retreat when there is trouble. She recalls talking to him and listening to his opinion of the world although neither could read.

Karen Jones Meadows as Harriet Tubman. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.

Minty also shares how she still feels her mother’s nurturing and loving embrace after Minty’s skull was crushed by an iron weight that was meant for her brother, who the master thought was trying to escape. She notes that her owners “helped me because I was property,” but it was her mother who brought her back to life because she was loved.

As a result of her injury, Minty starts having fainting spells and hearing voices, an awakening of a sixth sense that she began to trust. The voices guide Minty to make superior decisions and protect her as she grows from being a tortured young slave girl, who is fitted with a harness to carry heavy loads, to a confident teen who is sought out by her friends for advice because of her wisdom and insight.

Meadows is masterful in changing her dialect, tone, and posture when Minty changes her name to Harriet, claiming her independence as a woman, and wrapping her head in fabric like the African women she admires on the plantation as a rite of passage.

Harriet takes a fancy to John Tubman, a free man, and upon the advice of the circle of women she admires, she schemes to steal a piece of her beloved’s clothing hanging on the clothesline and starts a quilt with it to draw him to her. In time John Tubman marries Harriet, but soon Harriet feels the need to heed hers calling for freedom and decides it’s time for her to escape slavery and go north. John’s mindset is: “We are the trash of the community. God threw us out of the kingdom.” He decides to stay.

Harriet is willing to brave wildcats, snakes and freezing water, not to mention risking recapture by white patrollers, corporal punishment, and even death to reach the North and achieve her freedom. She then returns to the South thirteen times to liberate other enslaved people, undetected. The play shows that for Harriet, this was a faith walk, a devotion run, a mountain climb, and at times Harriet is just hanging on physically and spiritually.

Meadows introduces us to a bruised little slave girl, who is transformed into a free woman due to her courage. Harriet Tubman was a tested fighter, an abolitionist, humble servant and a trailblazer who disguised herself as a man carrying a gun to spirit other enslaved people to freedom successfully.

Set designer Chris Cumberbatch created a haunting yet beautiful stage design for “Harriet’s Return,” featuring magnificent colors and textures to create dense woods, broken branches, fallen trees, and sturdy tree stumps. Vibrant shades of midnight blue, forest green, and dark brown appeared to be magnified to match the tracks of an underground railroad followed by the Moses of her time.

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