“Mr. President, I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition. It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear. It is a condition that comes from the lack of effective leadership either in the legislative branch or the executive branch of our government.”

Those words began the most famous speech of U.S. Sen. Margaret Chase Smith’s career. The Maine Republican stepped onto the Senate floor on June 1, 1950, to condemn the tactics of her colleague Sen. Joseph McCarthy in his fearmongering campaign against communism.

She did not mention him by name but took a significant risk by speaking against him. That moment made her a household name, and now, it has inspired a play.

Portland Stage will present “Conscience” by Joe DiPietro this fall in the runup to the presidential election.

Anita Stewart, artistic director of Portland Stage, said the company decided to present the play before anyone knew for sure that a woman would be on the ballot in November. Smith was the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress.

In 1964, she became the first woman to have her name placed in nomination for president by a major political party; she lost the Republican nomination that year to Sen. Barry Goldwater.

Stewart said “Conscience” is less about the upcoming election and more a chance to highlight the women who have long been active in politics in Maine.

“This has always been in our political DNA,” she said.

“Mr. President, I speak as a Republican. I speak as a woman. I speak as a United States senator. I speak as an American.” – Margaret Chase Smith, “Declaration of Conscience,” 1950

Joe DiPietro isn’t from Maine and had never heard of Smith. The playwright, who is based in New York City, was reading an article about communism in the 1950s when he encountered her name for the first time. He had previously written a play called “The Second Mrs. Wilson” about Woodrow Wilson’s wife, Edith, whom he felt more people should know.

“I’m always interested in footnotes in history,” he said.

So he dove into research, reading Smith’s memoir and ordering any other books he could find. He searched for her in movies and found mostly passing references. (“A Netflix mini series on her would be very apt,” he said.) Helpful resources he cited included “Margaret Chase Smith: Beyond Convention” by Patricia L. Schmidt and “No Place for a Woman” by Janann Sherman. He was fascinated by her decision to stand up to McCarthy, a decision he described as “heroic.” He didn’t agree with all of her political positions during her career, he said, but he still thought her story was worth telling in greater detail.

“What she did was really brave and moved the needle,” he said.

The play centers on Smith immediately before and after her famous speech.

McCarthy is an important figure in the script, but DiPietro decided to add two additional voices. One is Bill Lewis, Smith’s longtime assistant and close friend. The other is Jean Kerr, who was McCarthy’s assistant and later became his wife. DiPietro built “Conscience” on the structure of those parallel relationships.

“Those are four juicy characters,” he said.

There are no audio or video recordings of that day; C-SPAN wasn’t broadcasting yet. DiPietro said he wishes he could ask Smith how she was feeling that day, but he imagined her as nervous, fortified and even a little excited. He has written a number of works of historical fiction – including Tony Award-winning musical “Memphis,” set in the underground dance clubs of the 1950s – and said the research can only take a playwright so far.

“I try to go for the emotional truth of the person and the events in history that are so important,” DiPietro said. “Historians that have read my things have told me, this is really accurate. But the dialogue is almost all conjecture, the scenes you create are often conjecture, especially when you’re talking about history prior to the 1980s. There’s not a lot of videotape or audiotape.”

“Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism. The right to criticize. The right to hold unpopular beliefs. The right to protest. The right of independent thought.” – Margaret Chase Smith, “Declaration of Conscience,” 1950

Before her first step into politics, Smith lived in Skowhegan with her husband, Clyde. Nicole Potter, curator of collections at the Margaret Chase Smith Library in Skowhegan, said the couple liked to attend Lakewood Theatre in Madison, and the future senator would sneak her tiny dog into the performance in her purse.

Potter said she thinks Smith would have been pleased to see herself represented on stage years later. The curator hasn’t read or seen the play, but she feels this moment in Smith’s life is ripe for creative interpretation.

She wasn’t aware of any other professional production that examines the senator’s life.

“It’s when she’s thrust onto a national stage, and a lot of people learned about Margaret at that time,” Potter said. “I’m excited to get a closer look.”

The library, which opened in 1982 and is located at Smith’s former home in Skowhegan, has followed the play since it premiered and is partnering with Portland Stage to share information about Smith with the audiences. A staffer will be participating in a discussion at Portland Stage on Sept. 29 after the matinee performance.

Smith served four terms in both the House and the Senate, a total of 32 years in Congress, before she lost her bid for re-election in 1972. She died at her home in 1995 at the age of 97.

More than 1,300 people came to the library last year, and Potter said it is on track to exceed that number in 2024. Visitors include elementary students on class tours, older students studying speechwriting, academics, podcasters, even a novelist working on a book for young readers in which the main character travels back in time and meets Smith. Some are just curious to learn more about Smith.

“Margaret was someone with incredibly strong convictions and strong ethics and morals,” Potter said. “She wasn’t ever scared of speaking her mind. Part of our collection is all of her speeches. Of course, that includes her ‘Declaration of Conscience,’ but looking at her speeches from her long career, you see time and time again that she’s stepping forward and sharing what she believes in this incredibly clear and articulate manner.”

The library’s collection includes Smith’s notecards for her famous speech, with words underlined for emphasis. But the lack of documentation of that time leaves room for imagination – and, Potter said, makes it necessary.

“Whenever I read historical fiction, I want there to be a strong level of fact,” Potter said. “But unless you’re writing about someone in fairly recent memory, you need to do your own interpretation.

You need to build out this character, and for a play, you want them to be dynamic.

We have some information about Margaret at the time, but we don’t know everything.

We know a lot more about Margaret the politician than we do about Margaret the person in the year 1950. So I hope he breathes a lot of life into her. I hope he represents her achievements at that time factually, but I hope he makes her dynamic and inviting to the audience.”

“It is high time that we stopped thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats about elections and started thinking patriotically as Americans about national security based on individual freedom. It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques – techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.” – Margaret Chase Smith, “Declaration of Conscience,” 1950

DiPietro wrote this play in 2019, and it debuted in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic closed theaters around the world. He said he was thrilled when Portland Stage inquired about it for this year – and now, it is more relevant than ever. He sees clear parallels between McCarthy and Donald Trump; they even shared a lawyer at one time. Roy Cohn was McCarthy’s chief counsel in the 1950s as he embraced the aggressive techniques that Smith called “totalitarian” in her speech and that years later led to censure by his Senate colleagues; Cohn later became legal advisor to Trump in the 1970s.

“This is not my doing,” DiPietro said.

“It’s just that McCarthy’s personality and approach to life is just so similar to Trump’s.”

But he also said the play will still transport audiences back 70 years to a different moment in time.

“What I love about this show happening now in Portland is that it’s talking about today, but you’re not going to be overwhelmed,” he said. “It’s not going to feel like you’re watching the news for two more hours.”

Stewart described the play as a “tightly woven, fast-paced political drama” that makes her think about public service more than party. Portland Stage is planning a moment of recognition for women in politics in Maine for opening night.

“It’s political, but it’s not,” she said.

Potter said the Margaret Chase Smith Library received more than 40 requests from researchers in July, an increase that coincided with the announcement that Kamala Harris would run for president.

“Whenever there is national attention on a female candidate, we always see an uptick in research inquiries and interest around Margaret, in articles about her,”

Potter said. “She definitely influenced a lot of women who ran for national office, for state office. Our current governor lists Margaret as a hero. We hear from Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins that Margaret was an influence on them and that they met her and had this personal interaction with her. She had correspondence with Hillary Clinton. So there’s always this increased interest.”

On that theme, the library is currently showing an exhibition titled “Painting an Inclusive History: Maine Woman in Politics,” which includes 25 portraits of female politicians from the state painted by Jerri Whitman. It is the first show in an ongoing project by the artist, who intends to make a portrait of every Maine woman who has served on either a state or national level.

Potter said Smith was well received by some and questioned by others at the time. The collection includes political cartoons and letters, some that might feel similar to the discourse around Harris in 2024. Potter hopes “Conscience” only adds to the interest in Smith and the broader attention on women in politics.

“To have this broader conversation – a historical conversation, a creative conversation – people get exposure in different ways,” she said. “I think it’s a great time to do that.”

Megan Gray — 207-791-6327 mgray@pressherald.com