The Philadelphia Harlem Story: Langston Hughes’s Screwy Play Little Ham

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Langston Hughes’s 1935 play Little Ham was a genre-bending moment, influenced by screwball comedies on the 1930s movie screen and by Hughes’s own love of African-American vernacular culture. By using this lens to examine the play, a rich picture of the Harlem Renaissance emerges, highlighting the difficult task of representation and engagement with cultural forms at a time when the spectre of minstrelsy still haunted the African-American stage. Hughes’s project with Little Ham was, at once, ludic and critical, creating a classic comedy that deserves a closer look.