The Testament of Ann Lee ★★★

If you’ve studied American history, you probably came across the Shakers. Likely there wasn’t much information you recall about them apart from their distinctive dancing and shaking during worship. Your impression of them is probably that they were an odd and maybe quirky footnote of history. Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee challenges this perspective through the telling of Shaker founder Ann Lee’s life. Fastvold, along with Amanda Seyfried who plays the role of Ann Lee, bring to life Ann and the Shakers along with their beliefs and traditions in a compelling musical.

Ann would find her religious calling in visiting the home of Jane (Stacy Martin) and James Wardley (Scott Handy), observing the cathartic experience a fellow visitor had in confessing their sins. Jane and James led a shout and dance that made the confession a full-body sensation, translating a personal emotional experience into a shared expression. Ann is moved by this, and even meets her husband Abraham (Christopher Abbott) within the group of “Shaking Quakers”. She becomes empowered within this community and leads direct challenges to the Church of England for differences in belief. This period of confidence and self-discovery culminates in attempting to start a family with Abraham. It results in tragedy however, with all four of her children dying in infancy. Ann becomes traumatized and her hesitations regarding sex having observed her parents in the act as a child are affirmed. She comes to believe that the loss of her children could be attributed to the possibility that sex is a sin.

Ann’s religious persecution and imprisonment for protesting the Church of England along with her notion of sex as a sin influenced the set of beliefs that would become the Shakers’. After experiencing a religious vision, Ann becomes determined to build a new utopian church in the New World. There, the Shakers would be able to worship freely outside of the shadow of the Church of England. They could practice their beliefs – celibacy, equality of all humans under God, nonviolence, worship in the form of song and dance – in a new land and establish themselves as a community. In the 1700s, the notion of equality of all humans was a fiercely progressive notion with industries and regional economies relying on slavery. Contrastingly, Black worshippers were regarded as equals within the Shakers. Likewise, homosexuals who could not take part in the traditional family structure or courtship were drawn to the Shakers. With equality and celibacy as key tenets to the Shakers, sexual orientation is hardly relevant.

With the opportunities afforded to them by their beliefs and optimism for their lives in the New World, Ann and the Shakers persevered through a three month treacherous journey to America. Their song and dance to ‘All is Summer’ on the ship showcases a large set piece while illustrating their optimism and exuberance during this journey. Still, however, their worship has to drown out yells and jeers from the other passengers, foreshadowing that anti-Shakerism would continue to persist. Once they arrived in the New World in 1774, Ann Lee and the Shakers would dedicate their lives to building their community while resisting external forces. Their beliefs would continue to stir detractors, including their insistence on remaining neutral during the American Revolution. Nonetheless, the Shakers remained steadfast and the work of Ann Lee and the early Shakers contributed to their rise in practitioners over the following decades and influenced the development of religion and utopianism in America.

While a biopic of a religious leader’s life at first seems an unlikely choice for a musical, it couldn’t be more fitting for The Testament of Ann Lee. The film incorporates actual Shaker hymns into the music of the film and acts as a homage to Shaker belief and culture. Like the Shakers, The Testament of Ann Lee draws a connection between the shared experience of religion and that of music and dance that is immediately logical and dispels the notion of the Shakers as one of the more bizarre footnotes of history. Along with effective period design and musical numbers, an empathic, convincing performance from Amanda Seyfried makes The Testament of Ann Lee an immersive experience. Fastvold’s decision to tell Ann’s story through the use of a narrator also lends significance to the life of Ann Lee – it is a story worth retelling and one that Fastvold does so expertly.