Former slave befriended by the Liberator
Presented by Benbo Productions, in association with UCC’s College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences, the play tells the story of Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave on board The Cambria.
The Cambria was a transatlantic paddle steamer which brought Douglass to Ireland in 1845 just before the Famine. Douglass spoke publicly in Cork city twice and will be the subject of a memorial lecture series to be inaugurated at UCC in the next academic year. A bronze statue of Douglass, by Andrew Edwards, will be unveiled on UCC’s campus next year, the first statue to an African-American in Irish history.
Douglass, a source of inspiration for Barack Obama, had just published his bestselling autobiography when he travelled to Ireland. He was forced to leave the US with a price on his head and sought asylum here. On board The Cambria, Douglass travelled under an assumed name. But once his identity was revealed he was thrown out of the first class deck and a mob tried to throw him overboard.
O’Kelly, who plays Douglass and several other roles in the play alongside Sorcha Fox, says the show is very much based on fact. “During his time in Ireland, Douglass gave several accounts of what happened to him on board the ship which, in the play, arrived from Boston to Cobh. The attempt to throw him overboard became quite a controversy in the newspapers and was reported in The Times.”
For O’Kelly, Douglass’s life still has resonance. The play starts with a contemporary teacher in Dublin Airport looking for a Nigerian pupil who is about to be deported. The asylum seeker meets a painter/decorator working in the airport. They get into conversation. This is the cue for the story to go back in time to Douglass’s voyage and life, with the painter/decorator becoming the hero.
Commenting on Ireland’s attitude to asylum seekers and refugees, O’Kelly says that “things have maybe changed for the worse. At the moment, there are deportation flights from Ireland to Nigeria. The play suggests that Douglass was greeted in Ireland as a hero. He was given a reception in the Mansion House and spoke on platforms with Daniel O’Connell, the most prominent politician of the time. It all compares very unfavourably with the way refugees and asylum seekers are treated today.”
The Cambria uses what O’Kelly describes as “a kind of theatrical magic. Pictures of the various passengers on the ship are presented to the imagination of the audience. The theory is that our performance skills usher the audience into seeing Douglass and the captain of the ship and various other characters, quite clearly. I own up to having been a little worried when we brought the play to New York. But lots of African-Americans came from Harlem to see the show. We were delighted. They were amazed and very appreciative of the play. That reaction gave us a sense of validation.”
O’Kelly says he likes dramatising stories that have a resonance for our times.
Douglass is an interesting subject. “He had escaped from a plantation in the southern states and survived, mainly in New Bedford in Massachusetts working on the docks. He became quite an advocate against the whole slave system. The next step for him was to publish an account of his life. It became an immediate bestseller and made him quite famous. When he came to Ireland he spoke to very big audiences.”
The story of Frederick Douglass was crying out to be done, says O’Kelly. “I was amazed that he had such a strong friendship with Daniel O’Connell. I hadn’t known about it until someone told me.”
O’Kelly says he loves stories about voyages. His play, Catalpa, retold the story of the 1875 voyage from New Bedford to Freemantle to rescue Fenians. His play, The Adventures of a Wet Senor, is about the shipwreck of the Spanish Armada and the fate of the survivor who washes ashore in Ireland in 1588.
“Voyages are very suitable for plays. They supply a convenient beginning, middle and end and also provide a feeling of movement the whole way through,” says O’Kelly, who has clearly found a story full of drama, on the high seas and land.
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