Tituba

Winsome Pinnock

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781788500623
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Tituba by Winsome Pinnock is a one-woman show about Tituba Indian, the enslaved woman who played a central role in the seventeenth-century Salem Witch Trials.

It was first performed at Hampstead Theatre, London, in November 2016, as part of the Women Centre Stage Festival produced by Sphinx Theatre, demonstrating the range, depth and richness of women's writing for the stage.

Character

TITUBA

This is a one-woman show about Tituba Indian, an enslaved woman who played a central role in the Salem Village Witch Trials of 1692.

We discover TITUBA sitting on stage, a rather demure character, a shawl about her wearing a mob cap.

(1)

There was no dancing. No dancing, no drinking of blood. No black devil demanded our naked bodies for him to suckle on. There was no flying. I wish there had been flying. I would have taken flight long before the madness started. See Tituba skim the dark sky, Salem Village a speck of dirt in the wilderness; see her leap across stars, aflame with the power of the moon; but no, all there was on that winter night in Boston was a ragtag gathering of little girls – Betty the Reverend’s daughter, Anne, the Putnams’ girl, Mercy Lewis and Abigail Williams. The Reverend Parris was gone to fight another war with his church committee who tell him they will not deed him the church house.

(Somerset accent.) Prepostorous! The covenant not yet sealed, and you ask us to sign away the parsonage? If we deed you that house where will the next Reverend reside? And the next? Salem Village will have sold its soul to the lowest bid for the sake of one man’s pecuniary gluttony. No, we’ll not comply with yer. The church represents the body of this community, this parsonage its soul. And what is a body that has no soul?

Parris won’t listen. I know him – he will fight until that house is given over to him, given over in perpetuity for him to pass to his children, his grandchildren and so on and so forth, forever and ever Amen. (Slight pause.) With Parris at the meeting house the parsonage is at rest, so his wife Elizabeth takes herself early to bed, while Betty and I are alone and free. But not for long. For when the Reverend is away the other girls hot-foot over to see us, begging me for stories and Indian cakes.

‘What stories do I have for you?’

Tell us about the hairy Kenaima spirits that hide their evil intentions by taking the shape of birds or horses. Tell us how they get inside people and rip them apart from inside. Tell us how you swung naked through the trees. Show us how to shoot a bow and arrow.

‘Bow and arrow? Abigail Williams. What do I know about such things?’

If you’ll not tell us then we shall be the Indians ourselves. Look at me, I am an Indian! Watch me shoot my arrow, kerchow! (Feigns an exploding head.) Blood everywhere. Did you see her head explode?’ (Hollers and runs about like an ‘Indian’.)

‘There will be no blood or exploding heads. You will play like good children.’

(Abigail hollers like an Indian.)

‘You will get me into trouble, Abigail Williams.’

(Abigail hollers.)

Who’s to stop us? We’ll play if we want to. Why should we take orders from a slave woman?

She is not a slave. Betty is almost in tears. As usual, Abigail wants a fight, but I am exhausted from the day’s work and have no strength for it.

‘Be good, girls. Or I will tell the Reverend when he returns.’

The mention of his name is enough to bring them to order. The war gives way to demure Bible lessons and darning. And that is how we pass the time, until someone – I don’t remember who – it could have been any one of those children – Abigail, Betty, Mercy or Ann – says Let’s tell each other’s fortunes. The Reverend would forbid it, but it is an innocent game, and they have been so good.

‘All right. Betty, fetch the eggs. And a glass.’

This is how the story begins: with the cracking of an egg to read the future from the shape of its yolk. Mercy goes first, pours the egg into the glass. We wait to see what shape it will take.’

It’s a heart, says Abigail.

You will have a husband, Mercy.

The promise of a husband comforts an eleven-year-old servant girl whose backside is raw with whipping for a thousand misdemeanours. Because I already have a man in John the Indian, Betty takes my turn. She holds the egg in her hand, feeling its coolness...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Original Production Details
• Tituba
• The Sphinx Test
• Biography
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information