Playwright: Maureen Gallagher. At: City Lit Theater at Edgewater Presbyterian Church, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. Tickets: 773-293-3682; www.citylit.org; $28.50. Runs through: May 19
Sarah Emma Edmondsalias Pvt. Franklin Thompson, alias Mrs. S.E. Seelyewasn't the first woman to fight in a war disguised as a man, but she was the first to be granted full government benefits in recognition of her service in the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War. Ironically, this unorthodox Billy Yank was born and raised in Canada, where the mannerisms acquired through her habit of wearing men's clothes for doing farm chores allowed her to find work peddling Bibles, before abolitionist sympathies led her to enlist with the Flint Second Michigan Volunteer Infantry.
The success of her ruse lied partly in the customs of the timemales did not often undress in each other's presence, for example, even in the campsbut her chief ally was the sheer unlikelihood of such a masquerade occurring at all. In an age when the rare women serving in military capacities (e.g., Clara Barton) retained their feminine corsets and petticoats, a recruiter intent on assessing the fitness and skills of potential combatants might not study too closely an eager boy reporting to the induction center clad in a gentleman's suit. Nor did Edmonds' bunkmates see any need to question the resourceful youth's identity when "Franklin" dressed as a woman to spy behind enemy lines. As a character observes in hindsight, "When you're not looking for it, you don't see it."
If Edmonds and her comrades had known they were making history, though, they probably would have kept more accurate records. "Private Thompson" was declared a deserter after disappearing during a bout of malaria. (Edmonds would claim in her autobiography that she feared going to a hospital, where she would certainly undergo physical examination.) Indeed, most of what we know of Edmonds' astonishing career is drawn from her own accounts, which she freely admitted to embellishing in order to increase sales. This absence of reliable facts makes Edmonds' story a difficult one to tell.
Maureen Gallagher opts to focus on her heroine's struggle, not only against the enemy, but the prejudices of her countrymen as well. Justine C. Turner contributes another of her understated cross-dressing turns as the courageous Edmonds, flanked by an ensemble ably invoking their milieu while never exceeding the scope of their narrative. If the conclusionwith the fraternal acceptance of her fellow veterans constituting Edmonds' most cherished reward for the hardships she suffered in combat and afterwardstrikes you as a little too Hollywood biopic, you'll just have to write your own sequel.