Lackface: Blackface Masking in Contemporary US Theatre

Abstract

This chapter examines contemporary US theatre works which incorporate the centuries-old racist tropes of the minstrel show and the blackface mask. Through the close examination of a collection of scripted plays and performance art pieces, including Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Neighbors and Young Jean Lee’s The Shipment along with the musicals The Scottsboro Boys and Shuffle Along, I analyse the appropriation of this truly American form of racist caricature and how it is used in the current moment—not to denounce racism against blacks but rather to lambast any essentialist ideology of race formation. The playwrights discussed (both black and non-black) engage in an interesting challenge; while minstrelsy cannot be extracted from the story of US popular entertainment and, in response, playwrights and performers shock and confuse by dragging this complex history back onto the stage.