Past: A Retelling of Uncle Tom's Cabin

A nice white lady in her mid forties forges her abolitionist sympathies with the loss of her own child, weaving her grief and politics into a tome that strikes a match that helps ignite the Civil War in 1852. Harriet Beecher Stowe writes the character of Uncle Tom, her most successful literary invention, which is now an epithet for a black person who behaves in a subservient manner to white folks. PAST retells Uncle Tom's Cabin with a wink and a nod to history by examining Mrs Stowe's relationship with Uncle Tom through dance, art and a sound score that both pokes and intensifies the nostalgia for racism in America today.