But first, the children act out the story of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry.
In “Lies my Teacher Told Me,” historian James Loewen says you can tell a lot about an American History textbook by how it depicts Brown — either as a righteous freedom fighter liberating the enslaved or, more often, a deranged zealot hell-bent on treason. The litmus test works for elementary school productions, too, but because we’re watching 11 and 12-year-olds and not professional actors, it’s hard to tell which direction this show is taking.
At least until Brown’s captor shows up — an American colonel and soon-to-be Confederate hero named Robert E. Lee.
A short kid in a long coat and a Santa Claus beard enters from stage left. A tuft of red hair sticks out from beneath a borrowed Stetson hat. He walks up behind the original outside agitator, points a cap pistol from the Pirates of the Caribbean gift shop at the center of his back and then shoots the bastard race traitor dead, center stage. As the lights dim for the scene change, the chorus sings “John Brown’s Body lies a moldering in the grave …”