SOJOURNER'S STORY: SOUTHEAST CAMPUS SETTING OF POWERFUL DRAMA ON MONDAY

Brad Shaw can count on one hand the number of plays that expanded the length and breadth of his directorial soul with the same force as "A Woman Called Truth."

"This is easily one of the most challenging and rewarding projects I've ever worked on," said Shaw, a veteran of his craft who will share the fruit of his labor at 8 p.m., Feb. 7 at Southeast Missouri State's Academic Auditorium.

In Shaw's biased opinion, Southeast's Cultural Programs Committee picked a compelling story that has the potential to entertain audiences on several different levels.

"It's the kind of show that moves quickly enough and has so much powerful dialogue that children and adults will be thoroughly entertained," said Shaw, who has also directed such wide-ranging projects as "Winnie-the-Pooh, "The Meeting", "My Children! My Africa!" and "Charlotte's Web."

"I guess the thing I like most about this show is that it gives us a history lesson and tells us something about ourselves in one hour," said Shaw.

Southeast chose the Coterie Theater's unique production of "A Woman Called Truth" as part of its celebration of the 1994 National Black History Month.

The play, a chronicle and celebration of the life of Sojourner Truth, combines slave spirituals and folk songs and Truth's own words to achieve a moving portrait of a powerful woman often forgotten in history books.

"A Woman Called Truth" is a gripping 50-minute play which deftly weaves Sojourner Truth's own words from her biography into dramatic form.

It begins and ends with the Akron Women's Rights Convention of 1852.

Through the use of flashbacks as a method of telling the story, Sojourner is depicted as hard-headed and poetic, as she tries to convince the convention delegates of her cause.

"Sojourner Truth was not a particularly attractive woman," said Shaw, who is an avid student of black history. "She was unusually tall for her era and had rough features," he added. "There were times when crowds shouted insults at her as she was trying to speak. Some questioned whether or not she was a woman, so she just bared her breasts."

Perhaps her best known appearance was at the women's rights convention in Akron.

Confronting male ministers who argued that women needed the protection of men and that God had not intended for women to have equal rights because Christ was not a man, she rose and made an impassioned speech defending the value of all women.

Truth's proud, pragmatic and humorous spirit is etched, through a skillful blend of all the performing arts : chorus, song, movement, dialogue, rhythm, narration, dance and artistic experience.

Playwright Sandra Fenichel Asher, a resident of Springfield,Mo., wrote the play after running across a copy of Truth's "Ain't I a woman" speech.

The play received its first full Equity production as part of The Open Eye : New Stagings for Youth in the winter of 1990 in New York.

Since then the play has been produced by the Discovery Theater at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and The Soul People Repertory Company in Indianapolis.

"It's a very well-written play," said Shaw. "It's a challenge for me because I have to find a way to convince the audience of time and distance traveled without losing any of the story's strong content and intensity."

Shaw uses various articles of clothing and carefully selected music to achieve his objective.

"This is a story about identity and how we've come as far as we have as a human race," said Shaw. "Sojourner Truth was a very hard worker who only asked for what was rightfully hers : her freedom and human dignity.

"Were it not for both white and black people standing up for what was right, she never would have achieved what she did."

When the Civil War began, Truth walked across Michigan soliciting food and clothing for black volunteers.

She also spoke throughout the Midwest in support of the Union cause and was revered by novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Stowe published an article in the Atlantic Monthly describing a meeting the two had in 1853.

Stowe called Truth a "sibyl"-- a prophetess of antcient times -- and marveled at her profound wit and intellectual abilities.

What could this illiterate former slave have accomplished, Stowe mused, if she had learned how to read and write?

The cast includes Karen Cline-Wright as Sojourner Truth; Connie Jones, making her debut with The Coterie, and Carol B. Burton, who last appeared at the Coterie in Kansas City in "Dragons."

R.D. Mangels, a Coterie veteran, David Vincent McBee, who was last seen in the company's final production of "Winnie-the-Pooh", is also a member of the cast.

"There are some very talented people working on this project, and that just makes it more exciting," said Shaw. "I don't think you can experience this play without thinking a little about yourself and how you relate to the people around you."

General admission to the performance is $4. Senior citizens and non-university students will be admitted for $2. University faculty, staff and students with IDs will be admitted free of charge.

Two acting workshops will also be conducted the same day as the production. Those will take place at 10 a.m. and noon.

The 10 a.m. workshop will be a demonstration-type endeavor. The noon workshop will likely require some student involvement.