Sure, Greg Artzner and Terry Leonino were familiar with the story of John Brown. The abolitionist fought slavery across the country, helping to kill seven pro-slavery settlers in Kansas. After an unsuccessful attempt to start a slave revolt at Harpers Ferry, Va., Brown was tried for treason and hanged.
But Artzner and Leonino, a married couple who performs as the folk duo Magpie, couldn’t help but think there was more to Brown’s story. The couple performed regularly at Harpers Ferry National Historic Park, which piqued their interest in Brown. They asked a ranger for reading recommendations to learn more about Brown and immersed themselves in a thick stack of books.
What they found so fascinated them that they were soon devoting the same kind of time researching Mary Brown. Eventually, the Middleburgh couple took the information they compiled and turned it into a two-person play, Sword of the Spirit, which they will perform at Old Songs in Voorheesville on Saturday, Oct. 9, at 8 p.m.
Artzner was an actor through high school and college, but his wife had never been on stage before `Sword of the Spirit` debuted some 10 years ago. It was a leap of faith she felt comfortable making because she believed people needed to hear more about the Browns.
`It’s such an important story in history that’s never been told,` she said. `We’re trying to make them both human beings.`
It’s an angle that Artzner and Leonino believe has been lost through the ages. Brown, Artzner said, has been `reviled` in the south, and even many who shared his disdain for slavery were wary of him.
`They say he was a crazy man ` ‘He was fighting for freedom, but I can’t endorse his methods,’` Artzner said.
Artzner said with a laugh that Brown probably was crazy, but there was so much more to him than that.
`Beneath that veneer is a very interesting, complex human being,` Artzner said. `He had a very defined mission. He was a loving husband and father and an excellent shepherd.`
The loving husband part was chiefly captured in letters between Brown and his wife, which form the basis of the play. Artzner and Leonino are both proud to have compiled the largest collection of letters written by Mary Brown, who was just 16 when she married John Brown. Together, the couple had 13 children.
Mary Brown was very sick, Leonino said, so as her children grew, they often traveled with their father. He and Mary exchanged frequent letters, where he would recount tales like the time he was trying to make some money selling wool in England and people were constantly looking to take advantage of him. One presented him a bag and asked him what kind of wool was in it, and John Brown correctly told him that it wasn’t wool ` it was dog hair.
Beyond those stories was a strong bond that Leonino could relate to as she took the stage for the first time.
`What was easy was the tremendous amount of love between John and Mary Brown,` Leonino said.
The love spurred Mary Brown to decide to join John on his trip to Harpers Ferry despite her ill health. On her way to Virginia, she stopped at a friend’s house in Philadelphia. John had anticipated she would go there and had sent letters there warning her not to continue the journey, that it was too dangerous.
`She was just shattered,` Artzner said. `She had no idea that that was going to be the last time she saw him.`
In many cases, Artzner and Leonino were able to synch John’s letters with Mary’s replies and vice versa. The play features each one on one side of the stage reciting parts of the letters. They also sometimes address the crowd, such as when the scene is John Brown talking to the press in prison and the audience stands in as reporters asking implied questions.
`There’s no fictionalizing of the story at all,` Artzner said.
The couple hoped when they put `Sword of the Spirit` together that it would find a receptive audience, but it was hard to imagine it would still be going strong a decade later. In fact, last year was one of the couple’s busiest as it was the 150th anniversary of John Brown’s death. This year has also seen them perform several times, and they hope to soon take the show to Kansas along with other stops on the `John Brown trail` that they have yet to hit.
`We’re still trying to bring them back to life,` Artzner said.
Tickets for the Old Songs show are $20. For more information, visit www.oldsongs.org/concerts.html.“