Tuesday, April 13, 1999
'Daddy Don't' takes tough look at sex abuse
BY SUE MacDONALD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Holly Sowels of Clifton and Glenda Davis of Bond Hill have been friends for 11 years. They attend church together. They've watched their respective sets of twins — Holly's girls, Glenda's boys — grow up together. But their latest endeavor is something entirely different.
Ms. Davis is the actress who portrays a Holly she never knew — the little girl who was sexually assaulted and abused by her father from ages 5-12, the young woman who struggled for years with the painful scars of that abuse and the woman who finally managed to tell her story to others so that she — and they — could begin healing.
During counseling in her 30s to come to grips with the sexual abuse, Ms. Sowels wrote a series of letters to her now-deceased father. In 1993, she self-published the letters as a book, Daddy Don't (Kehori Publishers; $7).
It's a simple, poignant, powerful and touching look at abuse through the eyes of a fearful child — and the woman who emerges from the experience.
April 21-23, the book will be transformed to a one-woman theatrical monologue on the stage of Memorial Hall, a collaboration among friends who have been touched by the powerful story. The play debuts during National Child Abuse Awareness Month, and its opening night performance is a fund-raiser for the non-profit youth organization Ms. Sowels now heads, Youth Opportunities United.
While the book was a series of letters to an abusive father, the play is a monologue in a therapist's office, with the audience sitting in as universal therapist.
“I didn't think it would be much different, but hearing this is different from writing it or talking about it,” says Ms. Sowels, who has spoken to numerous local and national groups, including Ohio's women prison inmates, about the long-reaching effects of sexual abuse and incest.
She can't quite put a finger on why the stage play feels different. Maybe it's because her words are being spoken by someone else, a close friend. Maybe the words still carry too much power and hurt. Even now, during rehearsals, Ms. Sowels cannot look Ms. Davis in the eyes.
“Sometimes it's very hard for us to get through particular scenes because it's so draining,” says Dale Kelly, executive director of Second Chance Productions, a local theatrical company, and director of Daddy Don't. He, too, has been a friend of Ms. Sowel's more than 10 years.
The first time he read Daddy Don't, he knew it someday had to be performed.
“I had no idea how much of an emotional roller coaster this story is,” Mr. Kelly says. “I've never seen one story go the full gamut of pain.”
IF YOU GO
• What: Daddy Don't, a one-woman play about the emotional scars of childhood sexual abuse.
• When: 7:30 p.m. April 21-23
• Where: Memorial Hall, 1225 Elm St., downtown.
• Cost: Tickets are $15 through Ticketmaster (562-4949). Opening-night cocktail party and dinner is a fund-raiser ($75; $100 patron) for Youth Opportunities United Fund-raiser reservations by April 12 at 793-7462.
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