George Wolfe's The Colored Museum Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls

Both Wolfe and Shange challenged the existing representations of African American life at the time of their productions. How does their work suggest new possibilties for agency in African American Theater? What limitations do you see in their critiques? How do the reify or subvert exisiting stereotypes? What examples can you give of contemporary critiques presented by artists ( various media--art, film, television, theater, etc) that mirror the issues explored by Wolfe and Shange?

Adrienne Kennedy's Funnyhouse of a Negro and Jean Genet's The Blacks

My apologies for the late post.

This week, we discussed how both Genet and Kennedy challenge the social, cultural and political limitations of what it means to "be" Black in an international context. Both playwrights explode racial stereotypes in order to reveal the psychological and material injuries that Blacks of all nationalities have suffered in relationship to Whiteness over time. By using mirror images of stereotypes that both Whites and Blacks have of one another, Genet attempts to use the stage as a place for Whites to reflect on their personal and collective relationship to the oppression of Blacks. Kennedy challenges how Blackness is determined when one's skin color and world-view are indeed "White." Hopefully both playwrights help us understand the complex social relationships that must be considered when we think about race as a lived identity.

With these ideas and our class discussion in mind, how do you feel one lives a racial identity? What is it that determines "Blackness," "Whiteness" or "otherness"? How are we socialized to know when we are in the presence of something that is effectively "Black" or "White" and how does nationality shape this discussion. As usual, you can refer to your everyday lives and popular culture.

Leroi Jones' Dutchman

This week we discussed the significance of Jones' Dutchman as an exploration of many of the themes of the Black Arts Movement. Lee's Obie winning play presents a series of counter arguments to many passive and non-violent approaches to social change presented in art in the mid 1960s. The Black Arts Movement was often defined as a "sister" movement to the Black Power movement because of the ways that it stressed the political, cultural and economic components that consituted a"Black" identity as well as the "by any means necessary" approach preached by Malcolm X. Considering Jones' "militant" presentation of "blackness" in this play, in what ways do you feel the play resonates today if at all? In what way is the play "dated"? In what way do the characters of Clay and Lula operate as "composites" of race realtions between Blacks and Whites in the 1960s?

James Baldwin's The Amen Corner and Ossie Davis' Purlie Victorious

This week, we discussed how both The Amen Corner and Purlie Victorious as "civil rights" plays of the give us important information about the significance of the Black Church and the performance of a Black subjectivity. We also discussed various themes and ideas that reference theBlack Church which can help us understand how the relationship between the religious and the secular becomes a recurring theme in African American Theater. Keeping this in mind, how can you see alternative performances of Blackness, in our current moment, that disrupt the heteronormative behaviors of Blacks and Whites that we have read? Can you think of ways that you can challenge how Black men and women are written for the stage? Can you make any links to television, film or music that perpetuate a heteronormative performance of Blackness? What suggestions would you make to playwrights, actors and/or directors when creating seemingly "authentic" representations of Black Americans that exclusively address heterosexuality? You can answer any variation of these questions or respond to one another.