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Contemporary African American Theater: Afrocentricity in the Works of Larry Neal, Amiri Baraka, and Charles Fuller / Nilgun Anadolu-Okur

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Contemporary African American Theater: Afrocentricity in the Works of Larry Neal, Amiri Baraka, and Charles Fuller / Nilgun Anadolu-Okur STUDIES IN AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE edited by GRAHAM RUSSELL HODGES COLGATE UNIVERSITY A ROUTLEDGE SERIES 216x138 hardback CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN AMERICAN THEATER AFROCENTRICITY IN THE WORKS OF LARRY NEAL, AMIRI BARAKA, AND CHARLES FULLER NILGUN ANADOLU-OKUR ~l Routledge ~ ~ Taylor & Francis Group NEW YORK AND LONDON Published by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Transferred to Digital Printing 2010 Copyright © 1997 Nilgun Anadolu-Okur All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Anadolu-Okur, Nilgun, 1956- Contemporary African American theater: Afrocentricity in the works of Larry Neal, Amiri Baraka, and Charles Fuller / Nilgun Anadolu-Okur. p. cm. - (Studies in African American history and culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8153-2872-9 (alk. paper) 1. American drama-Afro-American authors-History and criticism. 2. American drama-20th century-History and criti­ cism. 3. Neal, Larry, 1937- -Criticism and interpretation. 4. Baraka, Imamu Amiri, 1934- -Criticism and interpretation. 5. Fuller, Charles-Criticism and interpretation. 6. American drama-African influences. 7. Afro-Americans in literature. I. Title. II. Series. PS338.N4A45 1997 812' .5409896073-dc21 97-16545 Publisher's Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent. Dedicated to the loving memory of my father, Sahap Anadolu, and to my son, Ali Murat, who believed in Mom Contents Preface ... ix Introduction. Xl Acknowledgments. ................. XXXV Chapter 1 The Critical Tradition in Drama 3 The Black Artist and Black ArtslBlack Theater Movements. 7 Nommo: Transformative Power of the Word .................... 13 Chapter 2 Larry Neal. .. ...................... 23 The Winter of Despair/The Spring of Hope .. ............ 23 The Man in the Leather Cap. 25 The Resistant Spirit.. 48 Black Writer's Mission ................. 52 The Glorious Monster in the Bell of the Horn ..... ..... 58 Towards an Afrocentric Methodology. 66 Chapter 3 Amiri Baraka ........... 77 Transformation .. 89 Amiri Baraka and the African American Theater ............ 94 A Black Mass ... 100 Dutchman .. 106 The Slave ... 114 Chapter 4 Charles Fuller.. 127 Zooman and the Sign. 142 A Soldier's Play .................. 154 Conclusion 173 Selected Bibliography. 179 Index... ............ 187 vii Preface ''They rarely study African American dramatists," an African American playwright once said to me in response to my observation that the emphatic themes of African American drama are much different from the themes of European American drama. Indeed, this playwright's comment has since been confirmed in that I have found little critical analysis of African American theater based on theoretical aspects of drama. My research in this area was furthered during the years I taught American drama, with the help of some exceptional students. Subsequently, in 1988 a Fulbright post-doctoral research award at Temple University's African American Studies Department provided me with the opportunity to consolidate my concepts of African American drama. In this environment I was able to explore and discover the roots of African American theater. This undertaking has been both challenging and empowering. Perusal of the texts of the Black Arts movement alongside those of the Black Theater movement provided a backdrop for my understanding of an African-centered world view. This inquiry soon evolved into the development of a framework for the critique of contemporary African American drama. Through reading tex1s by Larry Neal, Amiri Baraka. and Charles Fuller. I have been able to delineate the characteristics of this particular drama with a concomitant heightened appreciation of its value. More specifically, I have devised nine steps for the analysis of African American drama. The research has been rooted in and made possible by numerous factors: the study of Molefi K. Asante's works: the attainment of a position in the Department of African American Studies at Temple University, with its research environment devoted to Africalogical paradigms: and the full-time teaching of a diverse student body who have impressed upon me daily the power of their self-expression, both written and oral. Furthermore, immersion in this environment has strengthened my faith in the merits of multiculturalism. ix x Preface Initially, the writings of Baraka seemed to provide the bulk of the material necessary to my book. Further research revealed, however, that Baraka's dramatic works allow for neither easy categorization nor straightforward comparison to works by other major African American playwrights. To illustrate: Baraka's ideas are definitely larger than the Black Arts movement itself, yet some of his work is far too indoctrinated to fit into a multicultural spectrum; nor do all his writings yield to a strictly African-centered interpretation. Meanwhile, another leader of the Black Arts movement, Larry Neal, is renowned as the precursor of the proponents of the African-centered world view. Charles Fuller enters the scene as one who continues a long tradition enriched by the developments that took place during the sixties' Black Arts and Black Theater movements. As many critics have observed, particularly in the wake of his 1982 Pulitzer-Prize-winning A Soldier's Play, Fuller excels in his style, mastery of technique, and commitment to truth in his material. Most significantly, his work yields to a new formulation which acknowledges African-centeredness in every aspect of life as it relates to African people worldwide. The lessons inherent in Fuller's faithfulness to the preeminence of Africanness in African matters. without the need to claim universality or superiority, have guided this analysis. Add to this a milieu in which the multicultural characteristics of this nation are increasingly discussed and debated, and the necessary analytical path becomes even clearer. Moreover, pluralism without hierarchy. the main tenet of an Africalogical approach, points ironically to a possible reconciliation between the general construct of European American theater and drama. and African American theater and drama. In view of these premises, I propose, firstly. that it is critical to examine the roots of contemporary African American drama in a different, more illuminating light. Secondly, African American drama needs to be evaluated using its own aesthetic standards and critical judgments, rather than as a supplement or hybrid within the genre of American drama. It is only through these two steps that African American drama can truly be understood in all its richness and complexity. Introduction Good morning, Revolution: You're the very best friend 1 ever had We gonna pal around together from now on. -Langston Hughes, "Good Morning, Revolution" The drama of the African's presence in the United States is the fundamental backdrop for any discussion of the role and function of black theater in the history of American dramatic criticism. Each element in the creation of culture is represented in the larger context of kidnappings, beatings, riots. resistance movements, and deaths during the enslavement of Africans from 1619 to 1865. A concurrent dramatic development in social interactions can be seen in the forms of verbal styles and physical responses created to deal with the peculiarities of this overarching drama of millions of Africans held in bondage by whites in a land foreign to both. The mastery of cunning, verbal resistance, cleverness. deceit, laughter, mystery, joy, suspense, and challenge would become the calling card of the African American theater because behind this theater was always the larger American drama of a racial crisis. Unsurprisingly. critical studies of American drama have almost always focused on the European American theatrical tradition, ignoring, in large part. African American drama. The prevailing attitude towards any genre of African American creative production has been one of condescension and negation As Toni Morrison asserts in Playing in the Dark. Whiteness and the Literary Imagination: "The traditional, canonicaL American literature is free of, uninformed and unshaped by the four-hundred-year-old presence of, first Africans and then African Americans in the United States." She later adds "Black xi xii Introduction people signified little or nothing in the imagination of white American writers.,,1 For generations to come within the mainstream of American literature, African American literature provided a sub-title; far from being recognized as an autonomous entity, it was referred to as a by­ product of American literature until at least the 1960s. These were the conditions out of which black literature grew in this land. Of course, from literary hegemony and negation, we can also trace cultural and social hegemony, as well as negation. Although I do not agree with all that Samuel P. Huntington says in his recent book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. he makes an interesting point when he remarks: "The West may be 'unique' but its values are not universal." He adds: 'The West had better shed the hubristic notion that its civilization is destined to spread its values across the globe .... Universalism is just a leftover from imperialism. ,,2 Such resentment against the claims of universalism often motivated by colonial attitudes has led to more democratic pursuits,
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