NORWAY — Everyone seems to have a story about former U.S. Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, R-Maine, said the woman playing her at shows statewide.

“She was one remarkable woman,” said Sally Jones of Norway.

Jones portrays Maine’s first woman senator in the one-woman play “Mrs. Smith Goes to Washington.” The play has toured the state since its first sold-out performances in Lewiston last February.

“No one anticipated the response. We were overwhelmed and thrilled and excited and shocked by the response,” said Jones of the play written by Linda Britt, a Spanish professor at the University of Maine at Farmington and great admirer of Smith.

Jones, who has acted directed and taught theater since a youngster, said the two Lewiston shows were such a success that she has been asked by Amanda Huotari, executive director of the Celebration Barn in Paris, to perform it Sept. 17, 18 and 19 as an off-season performance. She has also been asked to perform at Johnson Hall in Gardiner and the Maine Women’s Hall of Fame in Augusta. A portion of the play was performed in a program in Portland featuring Maine women in the arts.

The success of the play is attributed in part to the a decision Jones and Britt made to include the audience in the performance, after hearing personal stories from people about the senator before the play first opened.

“After the performances (in Lewiston) I returned and talked to the audience, still in the character as the senator. I invited anyone to tell me about a time “we” had met,” explained Jones, who said people came with photos and letters. “Those stories blew me away. They were from the heart.”

Lewiston Mayor Larry Gilbert stood up at one performance and said he attended “my” funeral,” Jones said. “I chatted with him about that.”

Another man stood up and spoke about meeting with the senator when he was 5 or 6 years old. The story became family legend because his pants were unzipped. Another spoke of telling friends he kissed a senator on the cheek. Although Smith was the only female senator at that time, it took a while for his friends to figure out who the senator was.

Another person told Jones that his family was strictly Democratic. Jones, portraying Smith, said she was told that when the man was about 12 years old, he realized Margaret Chase Smith was Republican and he questioned his father about how could he vote for a Republican. His father said,”‘There are Democrats and there are Republicans and then there is Margaret Chase Smith,'” Jones said.

Other stories were more somber, such as the woman who said the senator helped her get benefits from the GI bill while her husband was in the service.

“This is not a political play,” Jones said. Instead, it is an intimate look at the life and times of Smith from her early years in Skowhegan to her rise to power in the United States Senate.

“She was a woman of firsts,” said Jones of Smith, who served in the House of Representatives from 1940 to her election to the United States Senate in 1948 where she served until 1972. The senator was the first woman elected to both houses; the first senator to speak out publicly against Senator Joseph McCarthy; the first woman to appear on Face The Nation and the first woman to have her name placed in nomination for the president of the United States at either a Democratic or Republican convention.

During the performance, Jones recites personal anecdotes and part of Smith’s famous “Declaration of Conscience,” which denounced the excesses of Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communist crusade 60 years ago.

The declaration was noted by the United States Congress through the reading of the Declaration to mark the anniversary which was sponsored by current Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, who was mentored by Smith.

Jones said the play turns out to be a surprise for many people.

“They come for a variety of reasons and are surprised at how much they like the play,” she said.

Taking the play on tour has had its challenges, Jones said.

“We had to create mechanisms and contacts for all the things to take it on tour,” she said of the issues such as having her straight hair styled into the curly 1950s look of Smith.

“I think she and I have a close relationship. I probably should say the Senator and I . . .,” Jones said with a smile.

“Mrs. Smith Goes to Washington” will be staged Sept. 17 and 18 at 8 p.m. and Sept. 19 at 2 p.m. at the Celebration Barn, 190 Stock Farm Road, off Route 117 in Paris. This will be the Celebration Barn’s first show to be held after the traditional performance season ends.

Jones recently retired as an English and drama teacher at the Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in Paris. Besides playing Sen. Smith, she sings with Act V, a trio that performs 50s, 60s, and 70s, rock and pop music, and performs and directs for the Oxford Hills Music and Performing Arts Association.

[email protected]