Lover of souls
Marie Noon is moved by a one woman show
The love I bear to the souls of all men makes me willing to undergo whatever can be inflicted on me – Elizabeth Hooton Elizabeth Hooton’s words came to life for me on 21 June in Rugby Meeting House. Lynn Morris’s one woman show, Lover of Souls, opened with her marching into the room to inform us of an injustice that had been committed against her on the way home to Skelby. From that point on the audience was riveted by the passion of this woman. Closely based on Elizabeth’s own writings, and those of her contemporaries, Lynn brought Elizabeth to life brilliantly. Using minimal props, Lynn mixed snippets of every day life, such as kneading bread, with Elizabeth’s views on the church, its power and its preachers.
Lynn transported us to the night when George Fox knocked on her farmhouse door soaking wet, jerkin and trousers dripping on the floor, his hair in rat tails but with fervent, blazing blue eyes. Already a member of the local Baptist church, which allowed women preachers, Elizabeth was changed by this meeting. She held meetings of ‘the children of the light’ at her house. She was appalled at the state of the poor surrounding her. We heard how she began to travel in the ministry and of her trials in jail; first in Derby jail and then in York. Whilst in Lincoln jail she wrote letters complaining of the state the prisoners were kept in.
Moving through her life and journeys, Lynn simply moved the chair and table to the side of the room and either wrapped herself in a shawl or, when she was going to the Americas, drew a black cloak round her.
Later, at about the age of sixty, Elizabeth travelled to the New World where Quakers were being persecuted. She took with her a letter from the king that should have allowed her to purchase land to erect a house. However, locals ignored this. She was whipped, driven from their town and left in the wilderness in the hope that nature would deal with the nuisance. Nature didn’t and she came back time and again. Whilst she did not have land, this treatment could be meted out to her (as a vagrant) and it took persistence and courage to return time and again until she eventually got land and constructed a house that would prove a safe haven for other Quakers beside herself.
On her return, Elizabeth’s daughter got married. Lynn clutched a broom, whilst cleaning up after the ceremony, and shared Elizabeth’s comments that she felt the marriage would be a good one, although her daughter’s new husband does seem a bit ‘a fear’d of her [Elizabeth]’. George Fox asked her to accompany him on his trip to Barbados, which she did despite being approximately eighty years old, nursing George as he was ill during the journey. Sadly, Elizabeth died in Jamaica.
The audience found the play ‘powerful’, ‘challenging’ and ‘engrossing’, with Friends feeling as if they had been ‘transported to a harder time’ and that ‘Elizabeth Hooton should be better known’. Lynn’s presence was so powerful. She breathed life into Elizabeth, making her a warm and lively woman as well as the first female Quaker preacher and one of the valiant sixty. Lynn’s Elizabeth was loud, driven and lit from within. She embodied early Quakerism for me.
The show was originally created to raise funds for the charity ‘Medical Aid for Palestine’. The current tour is raising funds for the ‘Seir Women’s Co-operative in the West Bank of Palestine’.
