Authentic Possibilities: Plantation Performance of the 1890s

African American theatre history has traditionally been a story of progress in which real and authentic representations of black culture displace false and coerced ones. Often, this story finds only a lack of agency or cultural betrayal in black participation in, and attendance at nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century popular entertainments. This case study of two plantation-themed shows from the late 1890s, South Before the War and Black America, argues for an alternative approach. Defining black culture as that which emerges fromÑrather than exists behindÑcommercial and social constraints expands the options for interpreting black participation in American theatre and the complex dynamics that link performance to racial identification.