Writer as Reader Rita Dove's The Darker Face of Earth is a recounting of Oedipus drama, framed in terms of African-American experience of slavery. It is a poet's of Oedipus King, resonating with beauty and richness of ancient images and harrowing dynamics of mythic plot. Like original, Dove's play draws on a transcendent power, a dynamic that is at once erotic, compassionate, and creative. The play as a whole, set on a pre-Civil War plantation near Charleston, South Carolina, is a not only of Oedipus myth but also and in particular of reality of slavery in past. In looking at that history, and at those scars that continue to write circumstances of present, this is endowed with both compassion and clearheaded responsibility to face and recognize horrors as well as richness implicit in past. The play received its premiere production in July 1996 under direction of Ricardo Khan at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. [1] As a play authored by a black woman, its very presentation raises question of what it means to adapt and restage, and thus reread, classics of Western tradition for today's audiences. It remains to be seen how this work will be positioned in great racial dilemma (Cruse 49)--whether to underscore African or American in African-American literary tradition. Clearly Dove's work reflects what Henry Louis Gates, Jr., identifies as a two-toned heritage, one which, while it revise[s] in Western tradition,[ldots] [does] so 'authentically,' with a black difference [ldots] based on black vernacular (Signifying xxii-xxiii). [2] Examples of recur within The Darker Face of Earth, with result that subject of becomes a central thematic concern of drama. From songs and stories of slave community to Yoruba invocations of orisha worship, from Book of Redemption sworn on by slave conspirators to dusty tomes of astronomy and astrology, texts and their readings are liberally woven into fabric of play. In this essay I will explore implications of The Darker Face of Earth as a and as a commentary on act of reading. In doing so I will maintain that Dove's play not only listens to, responds to, and interprets originals, but also is itself an example of essential creativity of act. In a critical scene (1.8) in which Amalia, plantation mistress, first interviews Augustus, her newly purchased slave, as many as seven distinct references are made to and reading. Indeed scene is structured sequentially, moving from one such event to next. First, (1) protagonists listen as slaves in fields sing the sorrow songs, for which, as Augustus explains, they don't need a psalm (2nd ed. 82). [3] In contrast, (2) Augustus confirms his own literacy, listing books of his formative education: Milton. The Bible. / And of Greeks (83). (3) The book Amalia holds and has been reading, one of those Tales of Greeks--in translation, as she emphasizes--becomes focal point of a verbal contest between two. (4) Amalia recounts a recent event, known to her via both newspaper and word of mouth accounts, of an uprising on slave ship Amistad. In her telling Amalia revises history, adapting it to suit her present purposes (86-87). In response, (5) Augustus tells his own story of a slave uprising (89-90). This is not a current events item or an account with any claim to historical accuracy, but rather an almost mythologica l, cautionary sort of tale, clearly constructed to move listener/reader's heart and teach a lesson. Meanwhile, (6) Louis, Amalia's husband, is heard in his room above, reading night sky for portents (87-88). The scene concludes with Amalia and Augustus embracing. …