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The Escape; Or, A Leap For Freedom: A Drama, in Five Acts

Chapter 26: OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
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About This Book

A five-act drama portrays the daily realities and moral contradictions of chattel slavery by juxtaposing the selfish pretensions and commercial calculations of slaveholders and speculators with the resilience and suffering of enslaved people. Through household and plantation scenes it dramatizes forced labor, overseer brutality, a formalized marriage ritual within the slave system, and sexual tensions surrounding enslaved women, while following an enslaved couple’s determined bid for freedom. The work combines melodramatic incidents and moral argument rooted in lived experience, culminating in an escape attempt that exposes divided loyalties and systemic violence.

OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

☞ The following are but few of the favorable notices given of “The Escape,” where it has been publicly read:

A novel Dramatic Reading took place last evening at Sansom Street Hall, by Wm. Wells Brown, the colored dramatic writer, which was highly entertaining, and gave the greatest satisfaction to an intelligent and appreciative audience. The Drama is instructive, as well as very laughable.—Philadelphia Evening Bulletin.

All who heard Mr. Brown’s Drama were highly gratified. It is well executed, and was finely delivered.—Philadelphia Morning Times.

The Dramatic Reading of Mr. Wm. Wells Brown, last evening, was well attended, and gave the most unbounded satisfaction. Mr. Brown’s Drama is, in itself, a masterly refutation of all apologies for slavery, and abounds in wit, satire, philosophy, argument and facts, all ingeniously interwoven into one of the most interesting dramatic compositions of modern times.—Auburn (N. Y.) Daily Advertiser.

Mr. Brown exhibits a dramatic talent possessed by few who have, under the best instructions, made themselves famous on the stage. He evinces a talent for tragic and comic representation rarely combined. If you want a good laugh, go and hear him. If you want instruction or information upon the most interesting question of the day, go and hear him. You cannot fail to be pleased. So highly pleased were those who heard it in Auburn, that twenty-eight of the leading men of the city, over their own signatures, extended an invitation to him, through the Daily Advertiser, to return and repeat the Drama. Among them we recognize the names of Hon. B. F. Hall, of the State Senate, and the Rev. Wm. Hosmer, editor of the Northern Independent. Such a compliment entitles Mr. Brown to crowded houses wherever he goes.—Seneca Falls Courier.