The historic Rosewell ruins in Gloucester provided the backdrop for a performance Sunday afternoon of “From Colony to Country: The Revolutionary World of John Page and Lewis Burwell.”
The first-person interpretive program, written by Lee Ann Rose of Shades of Our Past and performed with the ruins towering overhead, featured a cast of a dozen costumed performers who enacted scenes that very well could have occurred in the parlor of Rosewell during the run-up to the Revolutionary War.
In the play, Rosewell Plantation owner John Page (played by Bill Rose), a revolutionary who would go on to serve as a Virginia Congressman and as the 13th governor of Virginia, entertains Fairfield Plantation owner Lewis Burwell (Michael Pfeifer), a justice of the peace, sheriff and member of the House of Burgesses. They discuss the news of the day—Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech and George Washington’s recent ascent to command of the Continental Army, which is “adopting a stance of defense.”
In a second act, two enslaved members of the household, Isaac (Kieryn Burton) and Nanny (Katrina Brown) discuss the conversations they’ve overheard.
Isaac quotes the Liberty or Death speech and talks about slaves running away to join Colonial Governor Lord Dunmore’s forces, while Nanny warns him that neither their masters nor the British have anything to offer him. “We’ve got to be about our business,” she advises. “You better keep those thoughts to yourself.”
The final act is a discussion between Page and Burwell’s wives, played by Kaylan Stevenson and Lori Black, respectively. They’re full of gossip about Thomas Jefferson’s courtship of Rebecca Burwell, the unseemliness of Lady Dunmore taking an infant across the sea after her husband dissolved the legislature, and household finances. In the closing scene, their conversation is eviscerated by Nanny, who decries the sale of her people to pay her master’s debts, the abandonment of slaves by Lord Dunmore, and the fate of enslaved children.
Contextualist Heather Pfeifer bookended the performance with historical notes about the characters and their circumstances, and brief appearances were made by the Page and Burwell children, portrayed by Aden Harpole, Artemis Harpole, Eleanor Rhodes, Josaphine Rhodes and Juliette Rhodes.
Prior to the performance, Dr. David Brown of the Fairfield Foundation ceremonially signed an agreement with Brent Everitt, director of communications and visitor experience specialist with the National Park Service’s Chesapeake Gateways Network, officially making the Rosewell Ruins and Visitor Center part of the network.