Theater Online - New York Theater Reviews

John Quilty ©2025  Sheldon Best and Emma O'Donnell

There are many stories out there about assimilation through history, and to be honest: reading a mere synopsis for Charles Smith's Freed suggests another earnest tale of overcoming adversity. In 1824, John Newton Templeton (Sheldon Best) became the first African-American to attend university in the Midwest, having been a boy who narrowly escaped death years ago still not aware of his actual age. He is taken in by Rev. Robert Wilson (Christopher McCann) and his embittered wife Jane (Emma O'Donnell), the former seeing John as an exciting new pupil, while the latter views him in much more cynical terms.

Now if this sounds like a history lesson, it undoubtedly is, but Smith's play starts to reveal unexpected layers as it unravels. The reverend's fatherly guidance toward John, with an emphasis on learning Greek and Hebrew, begins genially enough, even suggesting he is the son the reverend has always wanted. This idea does not sit well with Jane, who herself has lost three sons to the turbulent times, and she continually tests John's faith in more ways than one. Does he realize that he is becoming a conduit of ideas rather than a fully-shaped individual thrust into his newfound freedom“ The play was once called Free Man of Color but most likely changed to avoid confusion with John Guare's upcoming play of the same title, but the new one suits even more. Most interestingly, the word “freed” is explored inside and out: what does it mean to not be owned physically but possibly still mentally? Even the word “free” exists within it, a major point of the play in which John insists on being paid for house and garden work even if it will eventually be turned over for room and board.

John Quilty ©2025  Sheldon Best, Christopher McCann and Emma O'Donnell

What develops is a stirring tale of give and take, and rather than become a preachy melodrama, Smith's tale becomes a pulsating morality tale. Much is made of John's color and an incident of vandalism within the play is tinged with hate crime mentality, but the ideas presented truly stretch across a wider canvas. In the riveting scenes between level-headed John and the wounded Jane, she tries to make him understand that he is being groomed for something other than what he believes to be true, and through tough observation, makes him see that her rights as a woman are even less recognized than his as a black man, meaning that someone is always trying to stomp someone else's progress. The sting of the outcomes of these pleasingly dramatic interplays couldn't be more true today, and it is what makes Freed anything but a play stuck in the past.

The cast does right by the material, and allows the contradictions of its characters to flow evenly throughout. McCann, though a tad shaky (literally at times), does convey the conflicted nature of a man of God with believability, and Best gives an understated portrayal that could have easily contained self-editorializing. But whenever O'Donnell enters the fray, director Joe Brancato's strong production really delivers. The sad, acrimonious Jane is definitely the play's most intriguingg character, and O'Donnell turns her into a lifeforce yet without any actressy affect. Still and steady, she makes a seemingly unlikable figure palatable, and as with John, who by play's end truly understands his abilities with some tough-going help from Jane, fully earns our complete respect.