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Contemporary Francophone African Plays
Bringing together in English translation eleven Francophone African plays dating from 1970 to 2021, this essential collection includes satirical portraits of colonizers and their collaborators (Bernard Dadié's Béatrice du Congo; Sony Labou Tansi's I, Undersigned, Cardiac Case; Sénouvo Agbota Zinsou's We're Just Playing) alongside contemporary works questioning diasporic identity and cultural connections (Koffi Kwahulé's SAMO: A Tribute to Basquiat and Penda Diouf's Tracks, Trails, and Traces…). The anthology memorializes the Rwandan genocide (Yolande Mukagasana's testimony from Rwanda 94), questions the status of women in entrenched patriarchy (Werewere Liking's Singuè Mura: Given That a Woman…), and follows the life of Elizabeth Nietzsche, who perverted her brother's thought to colonize Paraguay (José Pliya's The Sister of Zarathustra). Gustave Akakpo's The True Story of Little Red Riding Hood and Kossi Éfoui's The Conference of the Dogs offer parables about what makes life livable, while Kangni Alem's The Landing shows the dangers of believing in a better life, through migration, outside of Africa.
eBook
Ancient theatre and performance culture around the Black Sea
This is the first study of ancient theatre and performance around the coasts of the Black Sea. It brings together key specialists around the region with well-established international scholars on theatre and the Black Sea, from a wide range of disciplines, especially archaeology, drama and history. In that way the wealth of material found around these great coasts is brought together with the best methodology in all fields of study. This landmark book broadens the whole concept and range of theatre outside Athens. It shows ways in which the colonial world of the Black Sea may be compared importantly with Southern Italy and Sicily in terms of theatre and performance. At the same time, it shows too how the Black Sea world itself can be better understood through a focus on the development of theatre and performance there, both among Greeks and among their local neighbours.
Book
The Forest Must Scream
Under the misguided leadership of Chief Kamona, the people of Mballa village voraciously destroy their forests for fuelwood and money. However, most of the revenue goes to Kamona and his family. When the national government dispatches Functionary, a forestry agent, to caution them against the illegal and wanton destruction of their forests, Kamona and his people chase him away from their community. They won’t also heed the counsel of Kamona’s young nephew, Toubili who tries in vain to convince them that Functionary is right. Chief Kamona and his people focus their defiance against the government by cutting down even more trees, determined that the forest must scream and bleed in their hands. Will Kamona and his people survive the devastating consequences of their destruction of the forest?
eBook
Modern and contemporary Black British drama
\"This indispensable overview of modern black British drama spans seven decades of distinctive playwriting from the 1950s to the present. Interweaving social and cultural context with close critical analysis of key dramatists' plays, leading scholars explore how these dramatists have created an enduring, transformative and diverse cultural presence\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
When, Where, and How We Enter: Early Black Feminist Ruminations on Black Dramaturgies
The panel aimed both to situate the event as a mechanism for adding dimension to the exploration of dramaturgy and cultural practice and to prompt new discussions that might bring depth and light to the national conversation on race.' Despite the proliferation of practicing Black dramaturgs and theories regarding Black theatre and performance, there has yet to be a study dedicated to the practice of Black dramaturgy-that is, a dramaturgical framework that shapes and is shaped by the perspectives drawn from Black theory and Black life and living. For Du Bois, theatre has the capacity to imbue Black communities with social and political power and can serve as a corrective to the harm perpetuated by systems of white supremacy, racism, and anti-Blackness. Ndounou refers to this practice as \"dramaturgical meritocracy,\" which involves valuing the creative labors of \"neglected peoples\" through using theatre and dramaturgy as a way to advocate for social and political rights, equity, and justice.!® Coopers essay \"The Negro' Dialect\" (ca. 1930), for instance, presents dramaturgical analysis for consideration.
Journal Article
August Wilson : a life
\"The first authoritative biography of August Wilson, the most important and successful American playwright of the late 20th century, by a theater critic who knew him\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
'Cake Walks and Culture': The Black Struggle for Sovereignty at the Dawn of Jim Crow
[...]historical analysis of the period requires nuanced thinking that respects the context of the time if we are to move forward today with potency, respect, and mindfulness. [...]to understand the context of the piece and the value of its creators, one must also understand the legacy of minstrelsy, the emergence of ragtime/Coon songs, and the cake walk's performance history as vehicles for the assertion of Black humanity and control of the moment as an example of future possibilities for Black people-when/if given unfettered access to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Minstrelsy and Coon Songs: The Contextual Backdrop With the legacy of blackface minstrelsy still at the forefront of American popular culture at the turn of the twentieth century, the so-called Coon song (ragtime) and its accompanying cake walk captured the public's fervent hunger for all things seemingly \"authentic\" to minstrelsy and white peoples perceptions of Black life and Black people at the turn of the twentieth century. Ragtime as sold, much like Jubilee singing, was designed with white accessibility in mind, to be performed the same way in perpetuity a la Western classical tradition by \"dilettante warblers\" To that end, the markers of excellence that one heard in the traditional setting had to be eroded for the sake of accessibility and potential income. [...]like subsequent Afro-American cultural products, ragtime as lived was for conduits of the culture, while the sold version was for consumers of culture who vastly outnumbered the originators.
Journal Article
Histories of the Counter-Future: Theodore Ward, Alice Childress, and the Manifestos of the People's Theatre
In what follows, I consider Ward's and Childress's manifestos as paradigmatic models of the genre during the Civil Rights-Cold War period, while exploring their significance for Black theatre, and Black theatre manifestos, across the twentieth century. [...]in their suppositions about the future, \"Our Conception of the Theatre and Its Function\" and \"For a Negro Theatre\" challenge any distinction between political and artistic manifestos through speculative means, all while unsettling categories that isolate Black manifestos from high modernist examples of the genre. [...]the first, and last, production of the NPC was Ward's Big White Fog in 1940, which played at a former vaudeville house, the Lincoln Theatre, on 135th Street and Lenox Avenue.9 On the other side of the decade, Alice Childress's 1951 manifesto, \"For a Negro Theatre\" is grounded in but also breaks from the Negro people's theatre that precedes it. Initially insisting that such a theatre \"might be a Jim Crow institution,\" Childress maintains she has come around to Ward's point.10 I suspect that Childress appeals to Ward at the outset of her manifesto, not only because Ward was on the editorial board at Masses & Mainstream, but also, cannily, to position herself as the imminent future of black playwriting, especially since she was currently shifting her focus from performing to writing, with Florence and Just a Little Simple both recently produced.11 While the two playwrights' manifestos share a focus on ordinary people, Childress goes slightly further by mapping out a programmatic, institutional framework and articulating a performance theory that envisions the people not only as audiences but as creators in their own right.
Journal Article
What God Has Put Asunder
What God Has Put Asunder depicts a marriage between Weka and Garba, fraught with infidelity, violence and abuse. Having reluctantly settled for Miche Garba as the lesser evil of two suitors who were foisted on her by the authorities of the orphanage where she grew up, Weka runs off with her children to rehabilitate her family estate. Having failed to forcefully bring them back, Garba sues Weka for abandoning her conjugal home. Will the court sunder the marriage of inconvenience?
eBook