Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun

Hi all- A Raisin in the Sun as a watershed play in American Theater history because of its representation of African American life. How do the roles, plots and themes resonate today? Does the play resonate as "modern" today? Why or why not?

Langston Hughes' Mulatto

Hi All- I apologize for the late post--I had trouble with blogger last night.
Yesterday in class, we discussed Langston Hughes' 1930s play Mulatto. In the play, Hughes troubles the tragic mulatto stereotype. He also makes particular commentary about the Jim Crow south that stress the tensions and contradictions in relationships we have studied between Blacks and Whites in the United States. This week, take into consideration the ways in which which the Federal Theater Project attempted to change the way "Americans" were presented in the American Theater by creating opportunities for diverse racial and ethnic groups to create and perform in their own stories. How does Hughes' play fit into the goals of the Negro Units and the larger FTP project? Even though most of Hughes' plays were not not funded by the FTP --it was on Broadway at beginning of the Federal Theater Project and stars one of the key players in the Negro Units, Rose McClendon.

Angeleina Weld Grimke's Rachel

This week's discussion addressed Grimke's Rachel as a propaganda play about the emotional violence of lynching written in response to the D.W. Griffith film Birth of a Nation. We also discussed how the play embodies the similarities and contradictions between Alain Locke and W.E.B. Dubois' views of Black Theater. Thinking of Dubois' call for propaganda theater and Lockes call for art theater, what links can you make to Black cultural production today that address social, cultural and poltical issues in the African American community? Do these productions operate as propaganda and/or art?

In Dahomey, Minstresly and "Double Inversion"

It appears that this week's critical readings have most students confused versus enlightened. This is where our interpretation of theory, even my explanation of theory, can fail if we do not have a context to apply it to our everyday lives. I want you to think about Annemarie Bean's concept of "double inversion" as an act of "recycling". Think of In Dahomey as a play where Black actors "recycle" and then "reuse" images of Blacks as conceived by Whites. Actors such as Bert Williams an Aida Overton Walker refashioned, or "inverted" these images into attempts to subvert the negative images presented by White minstrels. In terms of gender, and the concept of "double inversion", Bean refers to the performance of "color" vs race--White minstrels taking on the gender and "color" identities of black women and men. Black women minstrels would take on the role of "double inversion" --through their performance of "male" characters. Their performances were an attempt was to invert ( thus inversion) the previous representations of Black men and women.

Keeping these ideas in mind--how might you relate these concepts to contemporary popular "race and gender" performances ? Examples includeMarlon and Shawn Wayans playing White women, Eddie Murphy's performanc eof African American women in Norbit and White men in Nutty Professor , Martin Lawrence's performance of Black Women in Big Mama's House, C Thomas Howel's performance of a Black man in Soul Man, Theyk White Rapper showetc? How theater come to influence these types of performances? Do you see traces of minstrelsy in these works at all? How do they differ from both White and Black minstrelsy? Are their any "inversions"?