Do Black Theatre Institutions Translate into Great Drama?

Abstract

Helen Taylor, in reviewing Classic Plays from Negro Ensemble Company, an anthology of ten NEC plays edited by Paul Carter Harrison and Gus Edwards,(1) observed that African American playwrights have not been so central to American as have black poets, novelists, and essayists. This argues against Harrison and Edwards's afterword, in which they contend that NEC productions over twenty-five years have generated formidable African American theater literature (593). If one accepts revival as one precondition for classic status, then how many NEC revivals--or, for that matter, nonmusical African American plays--have there been on a Broadway or off-Broadway stage?(2) Taylor's reasoning is that history of Broadway (and even much of off-Broadway) is a white one, with blacks taking centre-stage as minstrel figures and minor characters in white (12). In giving keynote address before Theatre Communications Group's 1996 annual conference, August Wilson reinforced this idea by pointing out that, of sixty-six League of Resident Theatres, only one (Ricardo Khan's Crossroads) is black (August 104). Are more institutions like NEC answer to scarcity of revivals and original plays apart from August Wilson's, or is this notion a romantic delusion, as Henry Louis Gates implies (44)? The NEC is one in a line of African American theater institutions and programs that have not fully prospered because of a lack of financial support or support that took institution away from nurturing what August Wilson describes as art that feeds spirit and celebrates life of black America (Ground 16). The lone exception might be first black theater in America, Henry Brown's African Grove, which closed because of hardening racial attitudes shortly after Brown's King Shotaway (1823), a play based on insurrection of Caravs on island of St. Vincent (Stock and Stock 36). Thereafter, serious drama would wait some eighty years, during which time minstrelsy, early musicals, and beginnings of Chitlin Circuit(3) would occupy American and community stages. As Loften Mitchell has pointed out, these forms would use the same weapons--the blackface, low comedy [because] whites would not accept them any other way.... The wrecking of African Company ... reached down through years into 1920's and beyond (84). Charles Johnson's Opportunity (1924) and W. E. B. DuBois's Crisis (1925) magazine playwriting contests, sponsored by Amy Springarn and Casper Hostein, respectively, helped spawn a number of serious albeit melodramatic plays--Ottie Graham's Holiday (1923), G. D. Lipscomb's Francis (1925), and John Matheus's Cruiter (1926). During '30s, a number of Harlem community theaters functioned, such as The Players Guide, The Harlem Players, The Little Theater YMCA, The Aldridge Repertory Players, and Utopian Players. But as Fannin S. Belcher observed in a 1939 Opportunity article lack of funding worked against original material, playwright cannot afford to experiment; hence he must imitate (293). During Depression, Negro Unit of WPA provided employment and a theatrical laboratory, and served as a stimulus for Negro Playwrights' Company and American Negro Theater of '40s. However, an act of Congress, citing communist influence, killed federally funded project in June, 1939. The Negro Playwrights' Company, incorporated as a non-profit organization in May, 1940, by George Norford, was another promising institution that fell to financial pressures. The company's single production, Theodore Ward's Big White Fog, magnified events of Garvey era by singling out a black family's ten-year involvement in movement. But after sixtyfive performances, NPC, although announcing another production for January, 1941, never resumed operations. Ward's idealism to return theater to was compromised by financial considerations, and company's prospectus implied as much: While its plans are designed to achieve and maintain financial independence in future, and thus safeguard public against usual perennial appeals for funds for operation, company is now frankly dependent for support upon these progressive men and women who are conscious of need for developing artists and culture of Negro people (Ward, Why). …