Whiting Up: Whiteface Minstrels and Stage Europeans in African American Performance by Marvin McAllister (review)

The origins, practices, and legacies of blackface minstrelsy have received significant attention from American studies scholars in the last two decades. The converse phenomenon, that of black performers “whiting up” to take on Caucasian roles, has generally been relegated to the margins of such studies. This is due in part to a comparative scarcity of archival records, and in part to the fact that such performances are less readily legible, especially to those for whom “acting white” connotes a politics at odds with the pluralism underlying critical race studies. Marvin McAllister’s ambitious new study attempts to remedy both problems, combining extensive archival research with a persuasive argument that whiting up is not about passing or aspiring to whiteness, but rather demonstrates how “black artists have challenged cultural and racial assumptions by transferring supposed markers of whiteness, like grace and universal humanity, to black bodies” (10).

McAllister’s definition of whiting up includes two performance modes. The first, whiteface minstrelsy, refers not just to literal minstrels but also to theatricalized representations of whiteness by African Americans in a variety of popular entertainments, from plantation cakewalks in the colonial and early national South to the “White people be” humor of stand-up comics like Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle. The second, stage Europeans, refers to the phenomenon of African American actors taking on explicitly white roles in mainstream theatre productions, such as the Ethiopian Art Theatre’s 1923 Broadway production of Oscar Wilde’s Salome or Canada Lee’s 1946 starring role in an otherwise all-white production of John Webster’s The Dutchess of Malfi. In McAllister’s admittedly optimistic reading, both types of whiting up performance offer opportunities for cross-cultural understanding. “As a site of cross-racial play,” he writes, “whiteface minstrels and stage Europeans have succeeded where blackface minstrelsy failed precisely because these acts reject a top-down, exclusionary performance model” (264).

The first chapter of Whiting Up explores the performance of whiteness by slaves and free blacks prior to Emancipation. Parodying, signifying on, and appropriating whiteness in celebrations and promenades provided both opportunities to safely express resistance as well as “rehearsals for freedom” (30). Chapter 2, “Imitation Whiteness,” explores the idea of the stage European through an account of James Hewlett, who gained fame in the first half of the 19^th century by publicly imitating the performances of celebrated white actors such as Edmund Kean. Actual whiteface minstrels are the focus of the third chapter, which details the remarkable 1897 Broadway production A Trip to Coontown, an all-black review featuring Bob Cole in white make-up and red wig as the lovable hobo Willie Wayside. The fourth chapter returns to the legitimate stage, examining the (mostly unsuccessful) attempts by African American actors to gain acceptance in traditionally white roles. The fifth chapter, as if in response, turns to plays of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, where black actors had the chance to portray white characters who had been imagined and written by black playwrights. The sixth and final chapter unites low comedy and serious art, juxtaposing the stand-up of Moms Mabley, Dick Gregory, Richard Pryor, and Dave Chappelle with the theatrical solo performance of Whoopi Goldberg, Anna Deavere Smith, and Sarah Jones.

Throughout, McAllister supports his theoretical readings of each performance with a keen eye for the actual mechanics of whiting up, from the fabrics worn by colonial-era slaves to the skin lightening creams used by some early twentieth-century actresses to the vocal gyrations of stand-up comics. The result is a compelling and highly readable study that makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of racial identity in American popular entertainment.