What Is a Black Play? Tales from My Theoretical Corner

There is no such thing as THE Black Experience.

—Suzan-Lori Parks, "An Equation for Black People Onstage," 1995

I believe that race matters—that is the largest, most identifiable and most important part of our personality.

—August Wilson, "The Ground On Which I Stand," 1996

Without fail, I begin each African American Drama class by tackling head-on the slippery, paradoxical identity of what is often loosely referred to as a "black play." This unavoidable preliminary exercise in defining terms and establishing parameters, I have found, sets up a particularly appropriate segue into discussing the history of African American performance—especially the circumstances that kept black performers from the stage and from writing their own experiences. While leading this exercise proves useful on several levels, I also, without fail, paint myself into a theoretical corner. Inevitable questions such as, "Does the black playwright determine a black play?" "Does the focus upon black experience define a black play?" "Must a black play feature a black cast?" and "Can a playwright of another race or culture write a black play?" fuel complex philosophical debates that do more to raise consciousness than to provide answers. Pursuing answers to these queries becomes an exercise that allows students to flex their critical thinking muscles; however, the reality is that none of them can be answered definitively.

Clearly, the twenty-first century has brought with it a multiplicity of variables that must be considered when trying to come to grips with what exactly determines a black play. From the color blind casting phenomenon to increasing cross cultural influences and the blurring of racial boundaries, the phrase "black play" seems tenuous at best. Also, now more so than ever, a surprising number of playwrights who happen to be African Americans have taken to defamiliarizing, deconstructing, and even outright rejecting traditional notions of blackness in their work. Critically acclaimed and outspoken African American playwright Suzan-Lori Parks does not mince words about the matter, arguing, "As there is no single 'Black Experience,' there is no one way to write or think or feel or dream or interpret or be interpreted."³¹ In plays such as The America Play (1995) and Top Dog Underdog (2001), she features characters whom she strategically casts as African Americans but whose racial identities become dramatic devices—not racial or cultural signifiers. As one interviewer notes, "Parks' drama is both about and NOT about the 'black experience.'"³² Suzan-Lori Parks has become a forerunner among contemporary black writers as she uses her plays to define blackness outside the white gaze.

Perhaps the greatest advocate for keeping the "black" in the "black play" is another outspoken and major influential force in contemporary theater, African American playwright August Wilson. A disciple of the cultural nationalist Black Arts, Black Power, and Civil Rights movements of the 1960s, Wilson has adopted an aesthetic position that foregrounds blackness and seeks to make the black play ever-relevant, especially to today's black audiences. His campaign on behalf of the Black Experience, the black play, and the black aesthetic is based upon his belief that African Americans have distinct cultural differences that ultimately manifest in their actions and their belief systems. These cultural differences, he argues, must be celebrated and defended rather than subordinated, ignored, or dismissed as essentialist.

In addition to a string of provocative plays, August Wilson is widely known for his celebrated causes—first, in 1990, for his highly publicized demand for a black director for the proposed screenplay of Fences. Six years later in 1996, he staged a public attack against unfair funding practices employed by mainstream agencies that essentially led to the demise of many black theatres. Through it all Wilson maintained that the temporary guardians or directors of his plays—in particular, those works to be captured on film—must be African Americans. Though he conceded that there are a number of highly capable white...