The official blog of the Dramaturgy Department at Baltimore's CENTERSTAGE. For posts related to our current and upcoming shows, click the links to the right. Alternatively, you could begin at the beginning, and explore our posts in chronological order.
Transcript from episode 1 (of 3) in a brilliant series of conversations & videos from California Newsreel. Well worth the perusal. Here, they’re informing the conversation around upcoming Raisin Cycle.
“Then you must tell ‘em dat love ain’t somethin’ lak ah grindstone dat’s de same thing everywhere and dod de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak the de sea. It’s movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.”
This quotation should be enough to convince anyone to read this beautiful book.
Janie turns into a strong, self-assured woman through the course of the book’s extended flashback (who’s got two thumbs and is a fan of frame tale/flashbacks? this gal), but what she undergoes to get to that point is, to put it mildly, a hell of a lot. She has three husbands, only one of whom she ends up really loving, and that is the marriage that ends tragically. I won’t say what happens, what had to happen. You can read it and feel the weight of it yourself.
Zora Neale Hurston is an interesting case. Her work had become neglected after her death, only to be resurrected years later during Second Wave Feminism. It’s not hard to see why. Janie performs many roles through the course of the book, most of them related to stereotypical ideas of femininity and a woman’s place. Her first husband seems to be interested in Janie as a helping (farm)hand and someone to cook his meals. Her second husband values Janie as a trophy wife, someone to help him maintain dignity and appearances. As mayor of a new town, he has the freedom to wander while she remains stuck in his general store, doing work she detests. Her third husband is younger than her, but he doesn’t care. He loves Janie, wants what’s best for her, discusses things with her, works alongside her in the bean fields. That vision of equality cannot go unnoticed.
Because it’s told in a flashback, the book takes on a hint of a dreamy quality, at least to me. Maybe I kept the flashback too much in mind. But Hurston knows how to describe an oncoming hurricane without a hint of dreaminess. It’s foreboding; you can feel the tension in the air, the hiss-crackle of it.
But to return to the opening quotation. Janie says these words in eloquent defense of her third marriage, as a buffer to the townfolks that judge her for marrying her third husband. They find it unnatural that she and a younger man would marry, would even love one another. Hurston isn’t making a case for cougarism (but if she is, it’s a pretty one), only for tolerance and a relaxing of societal expectations, a call for openmindedness and for knowing the facts before passing judgment.
life:
Fifty-five years after nine courageous teens integrated Little Rock Central High School, LIFE.com presents pictures—many of which never ran in LIFE—from those heady, ugly, ultimately inspiring days.
See the photos here on LIFE.com
Pictured: Members of the Little Rock Nine during legal hearings on their attempts to enter Little Rock Central High School, September 1957.
Truly a giant gone:
Roy S. Bryce-Laporte, Who Led Black Studies at Yale, Dies at 78
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
New York Times August 8, 2012
Roy S. Bryce-Laporte, a sociologist who led one of the nation’s first African-American studies departments, at Yale University, and did research that advanced understanding of blacks who came to the United States voluntarily rather than as slaves, died on July 31 in Sykesville, Md. He was 78.
With a very first draft of Kwame Kwei-Armah’s world premiere play Beneatha’s Place just landing in our inboxes, this news resonated powerfully; the path forged by Bryce-Laporte echoes loudly in the life and work of titular Beneatha (yes, the character originally brought to life in Hansberry’s Raisin in the Sun) and many elements of this new work. So, with us all, stay tuned.
Massive and extensively cross-linked online encyclopedia of all things MLK, civil rights, and historical.
I’ve been thinking of a way to explain to straight white men how life works for them, without invoking the dreaded word “privilege,” to which they react like vampires being fed a garlic tart at high noon. It’s not that the word “privilege” is incorrect, it’s that it’s not their word. When confronted with “privilege,” they fiddle with the word itself, and haul out the dictionaries and find every possible way to talk about the word but not any of the things the word signifies. So, the challenge: how to get across the ideas bound up in the word “privilege,” in a way that your average straight white man will get, without freaking out about it? Being a white guy who likes women, here’s how I would do it: Dudes. Imagine life here in the US - or indeed, pretty much anywhere in the Western world - is a massive role playing game, like World of Warcraft except appallingly mundane, where most quests involve the acquisition of money, cell phones and donuts, although not always at the same time. Let’s call it The Real World. You have installed The Real World on your computer and are about to start playing, but first you go to the settings tab to bind your keys, fiddle with your defaults, and choose the difficulty setting for the game. Got it? Okay:
In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is.
follow link to read more….
Michael Lind takes stock, 14 years after his original piece on “The Beige and the Black,” of the complex demographics and even more complex framing that continues to stir up the conversation in the US.
1998 piece by Michael Lind on the changing racial demography of America, and how we envision it.
Book Review - A World on Fire - By Amanda Foreman - NYTimes.com
By GEOFFREY WHEATCROFT
The Freedmen and Southern Society Project was established in 1976 to capture the essence of that revolution by depicting the drama of emancipation in the words of the participants: liberated slaves and defeated slaveholders, soldiers and civilians, common folk and the elite, Northerners and Southerners.
In response to our current production of The Whipping Man, we got this lovely, unsolicited email from a patron. Couldn’t ask for more:
Dear Everyone!
The play, the actors, the direction, the set, lighting were ever so much better than the review led me to expect. …the subplots and subsidiary detail enhanced our experience of the intricacies of relationships under the slave system.
The follow-up discussion engaged all of us in opening up the characters and plot lines as we talked about religion, politics, and race. I was so impressed that [the actor] stayed to hear and interact with the audience - and describe some of the directorial process. …I have to disagree on one point: We do talk about race in America - not frequently, not enough, but at Center Stage on a spring Sunday following a shared experience of artistic genius.
After the general discussion, three of us , a middle-aged black woman, an older white woman, and a Jewish man, continued to talk about our experience of race, shared history and the handing down of tradition. Where else in this wonderfully diverse city do such conversations occur? Thanks to all at Center Stage for a most memorable evening!
Sunday, April 15, following the 7:30 pm performance of The Whipping Man at CENTERSTAGE:
Post-Show Discussion, The Head Theater.
Dr. Raymond A. Winbush, celebrated author and historian, will host a discussion focusing on the legacy of slavery in American: What are the historic and modern implications of slavery in our country? How does it continue to influence race relations and public policy?
In honor of tomorrow’s opening night of Mathew Lopez’ The Whipping Man, here’s a link to a digital copy of the show program.
Throughout the production of The Whipping Man, CENTERSTAGE will be providing numerous opportunities for audiences to engage in discussion inspired by the themes of the show. Conversations will focus on the notion of inheritance— inherited faiths, political systems, racial struggles, and all of the inherited gifts and issues associated with our multifaceted identities. Prominent leaders of Baltimore’s African American and Jewish communities will participate, to encourage exploration of these two communities’ relationships over time. Theater scholars and artists will also contribute, offering historical and cultural expertise as well as behind-the-scenes insights to enhance audiences’ experiences of The Whipping Man and its rich subject matter. Click here for events, dates, times, locations, and guests.
This project was made possible by a grant from the Maryland Humanities Council, through support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or the Maryland Humanities Council.
