Theatre Symposium: Constructions of Race in Southern Theatre: From Federalism to the Federal Theatre Project (review)

The essays and one-act drama gathered in this useful volume concentrate primarily but not exclusively on literary constructions and staged representations of race in Southern theatre from the late nineteenth century through the 1930s. An abiding interest in class, gender, and politics also runs through the collection. Senior and junior scholars discuss how prevailing attitudes toward these subjects reflected and contributed to national identity during this period of American history. Originally presented at the April 2002 Southeast Theatre Conference Symposium, these works address such topics as folk drama, minstrelsy, and public execution.

The collection is divided into three thematic units. The first and longest, "Playing with Stereotypes," explores tensions in representations of women and persons of color in popular performance. Dorothy Chansky considers the Dallas Little Theatre's 1925 production of Paul Green's The No 'Count Boys. She articulates the problematic nature of white Northern response to the piece, which essentially took Southern white males in blackface as authentic representations of Southern blacks. Chansky notes that as folk drama, the play allowed New Yorkers to recognize "otherness" onstage as well as a "sense of self" (9). Jessica Hester discusses the Carolina Playmakers, founded in 1919 by Frederick Koch at the University of North Carolina. Hester outlines how the Playmakers expanded notions of national identity by focusing on rural areas as subjects. She points to Erma and Paul Green's Fixin's (1924) and Harold Williamson's Peggy (1922) as examples of plays in which poor white female Southern characters "challenge both class and gender assumptions" (19). James D. McCabe's The Guerillas, produced in 1862, is the subject of Heather McMahon's analysis. McMahon convincingly argues that while the slave character and "hero," Jerry, appears to challenge racist ideology, such as in his ability to outsmart white authority and rescue the play's heroine six times, he actually reinforces Confederate values and the view of slavery as a "benevolent institution" (26). Heather May examines Uncle Eph's Dream, presented in 1871 by Bryant's Minstrels in New York. May demonstrates how the presence of white performers in blackface complicated the play's representation of a slave character who, having been displaced from the plantation, feels unsuited to life in the North. May additionally argues that the black female character, Hannah, challenged white audience's understanding of social hierarchy by assuming an authoritative familial role, and that she provided male audience members the opportunity to project interracial sexual fantasies. This section concludes with excerpts from a one-act play, An Evening with Ira Aldridge, by Eddie Bradley, Jr. In one poignant scene, a young Aldridge confronts a white actor as he "blacks up." Aldridge asserts that he himself is more capable than the white actor of representing authentic blackness onstage, a suggestion the white actor neither agrees with nor appreciates. The addition of Bradley's drama provides a refreshing twist to the collection, inviting readers to consider broader issues of race and representation from a creative angle.

In "Politics and Public Spectacle," intersections of politics, race, and gender are mined. Anne Fletcher examines four plays in which African American men are falsely accused of sexually assaulting a white woman. Prolet-Bühne's Scottsboro (1932), Langston Hughes's Scottsboro, Unlimited (1933), and John Wexley's They Shall Not Die (1934) treat the Scottsboro Boys trials from 1931 to 1937 in Alabama, while Paul Peters and George Sklar's Stevedore (1934) explores black dockworkers living in New Orleans. Fletcher notes how the plays employed realistic and nonrealistic qualities as a way of forwarding leftist/communist politics and promoting sociopolitical change (59). In one of the volume's most intriguing essays, Wesley A. Bartlett probes how the nontraditional presence of a female sheriff inspired frenzy in Owensboro, Kentucky over the public execution of Rainey Bethea, a black man found guilty of killing a white woman, Lischia [End Page 765...