My ninth great grandmother, at the age of seventy one, was executed in the Salem
Witch Trials. That is where we begin: July 19, 1692 on Gallows Hill. Susanna North-Martin was one of five women hung that day. Each crack of the rope brings us closer to her death, and in the moment before it happens we are pulled to the present where we meet our second main character “Me”. This theatricalized version of Susanna’s descendent acts as a guide or frame for this nonlinear memory play.
Susanna was accused a total of three times throughout her life. Informally through rumors at age nineteen, and then formally through the court system at ages forty seven and seventy one. This piece focuses in on those three moments in her life. The neighbors who resented her for the intelligence she refused to hide, the assault that started the rumors in the first place, and the infamous trial where her wit was not enough to save her.
In framing Susanna’s story, Susanna also provides a frame for “Me”. Interweaved are the connections she makes with her ancestor and the realization that puritan life is all too familiar to her own upbringing within the Mormon church. Coming face to face with the damage religion has done, with special focus on internalized homophobia and the threat of lost family, she must take the lessons learned from Susanna into an uneasy future.
Where we began is where we end. Gallows Hill. Susana, defiant to the end, approaches her death. All three actresses who play Susanna grasp the noose, and with the last crack of the rope it ends. In exploring: religion, community, family, trauma, and what happens to those labeled the other; we have two lives weaved together like the double helix that binds them.