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THE BLACK SPIRIT: A TRILOGY OF ORIGINAL PLAYS AND

A TREATISE ON DRAMATIC THEORY IN

CONTEMPORARY BLACK DRAMA

John S. Scott

A Dissertation

Submitted to the graduate school of 3owling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

March 1972

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© 1972

John Sherman Scott

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii

ABSTRACT

Through recent Black Drama has drawn considerable critical attention, the dramatic theories of contemporary 31ack playwrights have been neglected and misunderstood. This study creatively and theoretically explored the import of Black aesthetics and the intent of Black playwrights’ dramatic language and structure.

The problem was to isolate and define the assumptions, language, and actions operating in Black aesthetics and, further, to identify my dramatic intentions and those of other Black playwrights. This study attempted to define what contemporary Black drama is about, suggested what it ought to be about, and postulated a basis for critical evaluation.

A theoretical discussion and description of the Black Spirit provided a background for the specific notions of aesthetics and dramatic intention, which could be related to, compared with, and drawn from. Beauty, Order, Language and Action were discussed in relationship to the theory of the Black Spirit. Following, a trilogy of original plays is presented. These plays reflect the creative efforts of one 31ack playwright operating with a conscious awareness of the theoretical Potions of the Black Spirit.

The study concluded that the Black Spirit is a pri­ mordial aesthetic of mellifluous, polyrhythmic, spontaneous and infinite dimensions. The study also concluded that Black drama can and does clarify and elevate noble dimen­ sions of the Black Spirit when the drama reinforces and informs Black people that they are needed by one another and further, shows Black people how to reach out to each other across this need. The three plays: Ride a Black Horse, Time Turns Black, and Black Sermon Rock are linked in their structure and in their intent. The first two, full-length plays, reveal the plans, efforts and failures of Black men who resist social and political oppression. The third, one-act play is a ritual-funeral apotheosis of their lives by Black witnesses. iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

With deep appreciation for my Professors here who have inspired and permitted my growth as a critical and creative writer. Especially: Dr. Robert Findlay and Dr.

Charles Boughton. A special note of appreciation goes to the Brothers and Sisters here who have given faith and credulity to my efforts. Especially: Robert and Katherine Stephens and the members of the Black Caucus. The insistent patience of Dr. Allen Kepke has been invaluable. iv

DEDICATION

To my Mother and Father

Beauta and George Scott

who paid

the early dues

AND

To Barbara, Jimmy and Jon-Jomo

whose memories

make tomorrow

possible V

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page INTRODUCTION ...... 1

The Problem ...... 3

The Procedure...... 4

Review of the Literature ...... 5

THE BLACK SPIRIT: AESTHETIC THEORY ...... 14

Introduction ...... 14

Underlying Assumptions ...... 16

Black Beauty and Order...... 23

Black Language...... 28

Characterization and Imagery ...... 31 Black Action...... 36

Internal Causes and Incidents ...... 39

THE BLACK SPIRIT: AESTHETIC PRACTICE ...... 43

Introduction ...... 43

Scripts: RIDE A BLACK HORSE...... 47 .

TIME TURNS BLACK...... 99

BLACK SERMON ROCK...... 145 Production Notes...... 160

BIBLIOGRAPHY 162 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

THE PROBLEM, THE PROCEDURE, AND A

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

we better find the time before there isn’t any —John Chenault, Blue Blackness

Finally, in the American history of Black people, serious questions regarding the art of politics and the politics of art are being raised concurrently. In the emerging Black Theatre, artisans are grappling with varying notions about the art of dramatic cause and the cause of dramatic art. Most often these questions are raised because plays projecting racial conflict require the raising of such questions: for reasons artistic and humane. In Black communities and in literary quarters the question most * frequently asked about these kinds of plays is: What does it do for the cause? Black drama—plays representing Black and white confrontation in physical and psychological abrasive­ ness—has, indeed, in the words of a popular Black disc- jockey, "caused motion in the ocean." For Blacks and whites, this genre of drama is producing pity and fear, and more.

For those connected with or touched by this drama of 2

racial conflict, it is difficult to avoid the taunting and,

oftimes, haunting questions being asked. Even if some

observers should like to regard this dramatic literature as

curiously out of tune or riding the crests of topical sensa­ tionalism or, for whatever reason, not warranting specific examination, the real-world conflict will unquestionably hit them with its seriousness or burn many with its sense of urgency. Moreover, since racial conflict is spilling over from the real into the representational social milieu with increasing frequency, there is an obvious need to understand the language and intent of those who speak of the conflict. Because we Blacks represent the larger body of writers who have chosen racial conflict as our theme, we present the logical critical focus.

Few Black writers have been accorded serious critical attention and, similarly, few Black playwrights have advanced any detailed theoretical notions about their styles or their intent in writing drama. The result is a relative critical- theoretical void for a vital segment of comtemporary drama.

Much of the reluctance by critics to seriously confront

Black playwrights and their plays, aside from the scarcity of production and publication, seems predicated on the absence of certain critical requisites. Namely, white scholar-critics are not familiar with the language of Black aesthetics and, are not—in most instances—adequately equipped 3 to critically evaluate the dramatic intent of Black drama.

Similarly, because Black playwrights have not, in the main, defined their schemes of aesthetics or their intent, the fabric of Black drama remains unclear and misunderstood.

One would quickly defend the sanctity of the Black play­ wright who is no more responsible for explaining his craft than is the non-black writer; however, the reality of sup­ posedly serious dramatic criticism, at the present, is that most theatre critics are whites who know little and under­ stand less about Black experience. More important, Black people want and need to understand as well as sense what is happening in the minds and hearts of Black playwrights and their drama.

Consequently, the language of Black aesthetics, the structure of Black drama from Black perspectives and the intent of both need to be examined. One would hope that a theoretical and creative exploration of the aesthetics and structure of Black drama would be helpful in its yield of meaningful critical directions. Beyond this, one would hope that the critical directions might be useful to citizens of the real world of racial conflict: persons of all colors and persuasions.

I. THE PROBLEM To provide a useful body of theoretical ideas one must isolate certain meanings from existing terms and ideas 4 so that the selective meanings are definitive when the broader or more widely used meanings prove inadequate.

The problem here, therefore, was to isolate and define the assumptions, language, and actions of Black aesthetics and, further, to identify the dramatic intentions of Black writers in drama of racial conflict. For both problems, the purpose here was to offer a basis for and a systematic approach to a definition of aesthetics and dramatic in­ tentions from a Black perspective.

Ultimately, the theoretical portion of this study attempted to define what contemporary Black drama is about, suggested what it ought to be about, and postulated a basis for critical evaluation. This study, then, sought to explore theoretically and creatively the Black Spirit as it operates in contemporary Black drama: both ideologically and repre- sentationally.

II. THE PROCEDURE

First, a theoretical discussion and description of the Black Spirit was given to provide a background from which the more specific notions of aesthetics and dramatic intention could be related to, compared with and drawn from.

This theoretical discussion is a philosophical exploration of beginnings of Black humanity and sensibilities. And though the discussion, particularly of the underlying assumptions, advances a theory of Black and human beginnings, 5 they are not regarded as immutable fact nor should they be

read in a factual context. Beauty, Order, Language and

Action have been discussed in relationship to the theory

of the Black Spirit.

Following the theoretical discussion, a trilogy

of original plays is presented. These plays reflect the

creative efforts of one Black playwright operating with a

conscious awareness of the theoretical notions of the Black

Spirit. Therefore, in the sense of the writer’s awareness

of the theory, the plays reflect a practical extension of the Black Spirit.

. III. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

There exists a substantial body of literature about the Negro and theatre and, concommitantly, very little dealing with Black playwrights. There is virtually no literature dealing specifically with dramatic theory in relationship to Black playwrights and their themes. Indeed, the scholarly studies regarding "Negroes in American theatre" nearly exceeds the actual participation of Blacks in that theatre. The inevitable result of drinking from a shallow well, as it were, has been the creation of a body of so- called scholarship which is general in its focus and scope.

Simply stated, participation by Blacks in the American theatre has been as limited as their participation in the other facets of American life: partly from systematic exclu­ 6

sion, partly from aversion. There are some studies that

can and have served as background tapestry for this study,

though only in a limited or incidental way are they

related to this study. Those sources are included here.

In 1939, Hilda Josephine Lawson wrote, for her

doctoral dissertation, of The Negro in American Drama.

She presented a survey of the Negro’s involvement in theatre

from before the civil war through 1936, describing actors,

plays, playwrights, Negro dramatic groups and the prospects

for Negro drama. It is no wonder, therefore, that such an

expansive effort has difficulty revealing any specific

notions about Negro styles or Negro production intentions.

Nonetheless Lawson reveals a notion less curious now than it

must have been then: "The major portents, therefore, seem

to be in favor of the ultimate development of a Negro drama . . and a Negro theatre."^ Speaking of Negro playwrights, Lawson

offered an idea that now appears -grotesquely prophetic in this age which admits to racial-cultural pluralism:

The Negro playwright on his part must be brought to realize that he has an enormous advantage over the best of the dramatists of the other [white] group in that from birth onward, he has been in close contact with the life of his people.2

Given the proper militant-jargon, such an assertion today

•^Hilda Josephine Lawson, "The Negro in American Drama," (Unpublished Doctoral thesis, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, 1939), p. 196. 2Ibid., p. 192. 7 would qualify for rejection by some critics who seem mystified by the vagaries of Black nationalism.

Gloria Thomas Crumpler wrote, for a Master’s thesis, of The Negro in the American Theatre and Drama

From 1950 to 19% in a chronology of the Negro’s partici­ pation in the professional and non-professional theatre as an actor. She ventured to speculate that this partici­ pation was a mirror of the Negro’s participation in the larger, real, American scene. Having accurately recognized and drawn the parallels of sparceness, Miss Crumpler opti­ mistically concluded that, "the position of the Negro in the American Theatre is not the epitome of success, but it 3 is a firm position which will become better with time."

One hopes she is around to witness the "firm position" that

Blacks enjoy in contemporary American Theatre.

A somewhat sketchy work with the all embracing title, The Negro in American Drama^ appeared in 195$. This was a poorly documented attempt to study the drama of Negro authorship and also to compile the dramatic activities in

Negro colleges. Where this study could have been valuable—

^Gloria Thomas Crumpler, "The Negro in the American Theatre and Drama From 1950 to 1956." (Unpublished Master’s thesis, Tennessee A & I State University, Nashville, Tennessee 1957), p. 120. ^Althea Ann Millner, "The Negro in American Drama," (Unpublished Master’s thesis, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, 195$). 8

in its discussion of Negro-written plays—inconclusive

documentation leaves it weak. Of similar limited value,

with regard to this study, was Sarra Lee Searcy’s unpublished

Master’s thesis Aesthetic Qualities Found in Certain Negro

Dramas. To begin with, this study regarded certain Negro

dramas to be Maro Connelly's The Green Pastures and Dorothy

and DuSose Heyward’s Mamba’s Daughters: both plays which

refract the Black experience from a white playwright’s

perceptions of being Negro. Moreover, Searcy never views,

or never considers the notion of viewing aesthetics as having

racial peculiarities or ethnic dimensions. Perhaps unwittingly,

Searcy alludes to a neo-ante-bellum response to an ethnic- aesthetic quality when she writes:

There is a beauty of sound in the softness of Negro tone relaxing one’s ability to listen and allowing him to hear in comfort—especially when these voices are blended in song or reciting poetry. The Green Pastures included both.?

It seems that her aesthetics and stereotypes fused.

More recently, Alphonso Sherman’s doctoral dissertation,

The- Diversity of Treatment of the Negro Character in American

Drama Prior to i860, has provided us with a background of earlier characterizations before the ante-bellum Negro character. In a major conclusion, Sherman reveals a notion that has been largely unrecognized by white scholar-critics

^Sarra Lee Searcy, "Aesthetic Qualities Found in Certain Negro Dramas," (Unpublished Master’s thesis, Ohio State University, 1950), p. 182. 9 while substantiated by subsequent Black writers. Sherman

observes:

The stereotyped Negro characters show so many variations—cultural, social, political and educational— that in the very process of analysis the stereotypes diminish, leaving rough sketches of real-life models.

It is this kind of sensitivity to characterization that the

critic needs to bring to his assessment of contemporary

Black characters in plays reflecting Black experience.

Though not directed specifically toward dramatic

literature, Nancy Collins' study, The Image of the Negro

as Presented in 1966-67 Television, reveals some interesting

and valuable findings—particularly as one attempts to

explain the apparent differences between Black and white

aesthetic points of view. Using a monitored sample of 587 half-hour units broadcast between April 20, 1967 and

June 21, 1967, the Collins study claims as its greatest « significance the fact that "the most frequent role of Negroes

in a dramatic program was the role of an African tribesman.

Such performances accounted for 41 per cent of all Negro

dramatic roles." Such a finding brings into focus the

question: Has television created the Afro-American image

Alphonso Sherman, "The Diversity of Treatment of the Negro Character in American Drama Prior to i860," (Unpublished Doctoral dissertation, University of Indiana, Bloomington, 1964), pp. 226-227. ?Nancy Boyland Collins, "The Image of the Negro as Presented in 1966-67 Television," (Unpublished Master's thesis, Purdue University, 1968), p. 91. 10 image for its Black viewers? Vias such an image-making phenomenon intentionally reinforcing? Further, the Collins study reveals that, "no program viewed during the study portrayed any situation in American life where the Negro g was a majority or where Negroes were in control.”

Obviously, Blacks have recognized and understood such sleight-of-hand exclusion in real life, while witnessing the athlete-entertainer entries into the American mainstream.

Critics of recent Black drama need to recall these facts of our cultural media influence. When assessing the style and intent of Black drama, one ought to consider that the plays and their writers are inclined to reverse such trends and their accompanying impact on the Black psyche.

Two works that would appear to be most clearly related to this study were not yet obtainable. Those studies are: Singer Buchanan’s "A Study of the Attitudes of the Writers of the Negro Press Toward the Depiction of the Negro in Plays and Films, 1930-1965," (unpublished

Doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, 196$);

Clyde G. Sumpter's in progress study, "Militating For

Change: A Study of the Black Revolutionary Theatre in the

United States," (unpublished Doctoral dissertation,

University of Kansas, 1969). The titles of these works suggest a greater critical awareness of the need to study

a Collins, p. 106. 11

Black drama from the Black man’s point of view and to include that frame of reference in any serious discussion thereof.

Finally, the one available study that does view

Black playwrights and their plays, provides us with an ample background from which to view Black drama today.

That study is Doris Abramson’s "From Harlem to A Raisin in the Sun: A Study of Plays by Negro Playwrights (1925-1959)/'

(Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, 1967). Abram­ son’s work, now available in paperback, views the plays and playwrights of that period as they are influenced by and reflect the times in which they wrote. In her view of the future of Negro playwrights, she concludes that some will join the prevailing American cultural structures while protesting its values and standards and others "trying, in the face of traditional obstacles, to establish ethnic theatres in which they may do things their way for their people. Such a notion leads to the threshold of this study.

Similarly, Abramson raises an issue that this study properly confronts, when she suggests that "which route he takes will depend on the playwright’s purpose.The ultimate purpose of this study was to direct critical coteries and

^Doris E. Abramson, Negro Playwrights in the American Theatre 1925-1959 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), p. 283. 10Ibid. 12

Black people to where some are going, and why.

In conclusion of the overview of pertinent literature,

several books can be mentioned because they have been addressed

to the-nature of the Black writer and Black Theatre, and to

some peculiar problems each confronts. Anger and Beyond,

edited by Herbert Hill, offers essays by famous Black writers

in the United States, though the emphasis is not on dramatic literature but, rather, is on fiction. Similarly,. Images of the Negro in American Literature, edited by Seymour Gross and John Hardy, is addressed primarily to writers of fiction and poetry. The criticism, however, is quite diversified, including Black and white critics of Negro writing. Frantz

Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks is an invaluable source of essays which cut through the import of Black language,

Black thought, Black judgement. Also, Thomas Dent, Richard

Schechner and Gilbert Moses have edited a chronology of the

South's once-radical Black Theatre in a book titled: The

Free Southern Theatre by the Free Southern Theatre. The editors of this interesting documentary have asked a question that undoubtedly has been asked by 31ack writers a long time, and is a question that is one reason for this study. Here is the statement and the question:

There must be a form in which the theatricality of the black church, the black freedom movement, black music, black militancy—black power in its widest and deepest sense—can be made into myth, 13 allegory, public performance. Why not now?11

The theoretical discussion of the Black Spirit follows in Chapter Two.

Thomas C. Dent, Richard Schechner and -Gilbert Moses, eds., The Free Southern Theatre by the Free Southern Theatre (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1969), pp. xi-xii. IH

CHAPTER II

THE BLACK SPIRIT: AESTHETIC THEORY

only the dead know the truth and the dead don't talk or won't to strangers!!! —John Chenault, Blue Blackness

Because aesthetics is fundamentally a system of defining one's philosophy of life and art, there are Black schemes of aesthetics. Only the most stubborn assimilation- ists refuse to acknowledge that Black people view life and art differently than non-blacks. And it is not just a matter of sight, this vision. Watch, listen to, or ask

Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder or Roland Kirk: they know and they are blind. Imamu Baraka (LeRoi Jones) reminds all that . . . we've lived here which is what everyone else has done, and we have memories of our particular and specific ways of living here, and that is valuable as a statement not only about this place but about the nature of the world.1

When, therefore, Black sensibilities are directed to defining and criticising art, the need to investigate and

LeRoi Jones, "Philistinism and the Negro Writer," in Anger and Beyond: The Negro Writer in the United States, ed. Herbert Hill (New York: Harperand Row, 1966), p. 5?. 15 clarify those sensibilities becomes obvious. Also, the need to acknowledge, learn from and use a Black aesthetic is prerequisite to understanding or judging art that is borne from Black sensibilities. As aesthetician Monroe

Beardsly points out as the proper function of this body of thought, Black aesthetics too must "ask questions about criticism itself, about the terms it uses, its methods of 2 investigation and argument, its underlying assumptions."

As art is a reflection and explanation of the perceived Beauty and Order of the universe, Black aesthetics becomes the system of defining and evaluating Black Beauty and Black Order—or their absence. The apprehension of

Beauty and Order has never been an easy matter. To get a glimpse of their meanings, Plato went into his cave,

Sysiphus pushed a rock up-and-down a mountain-side, Nietzsche sent Zarathustra out into the wilderness, Thoreau sat by his pond and DuBois returned to an African hut. Myriad efforts, by thoughtful men leave earth unturned today.

Where can one go to get a glimpse int.o the nature of Black

Beauty and Black Order? Where is still—always!—a matter of maddening choice. How can be suggested.

One can, indeed must, apprehend the Black Spirit: the Black Essence of humanity. However, one must recognize

2 Monroe C. Beardsly, Aesthetics: From Classical Greece to the Present (New York: The Macmillan Company, T^6j ,’ p7 K"------16

at every turn and with every revelation that the Black

Spirit is not a Procrustean Bed that one must stretch or

shrink in order to fit into. Alas, if a bed at all, it is

not to induce an everlasting racial sleep but to provide

rest so that human strength is renewed. Simply, this essay

is not intended to polarize people or limit exploration.

Again, the only factual import of the discussion lies

in the reality of the writer being Black with perceptions of genetic, anthropological and mythological dimensions.

The relationship of the following underlying assumptions should not be separated from the intended purpose of developing an aesthetic attitude from which plays can be written and examined. Simply, the essay should be regarded as a testa­ ment of faith that is frequently ignored and often misunder­ stood.

UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS We are what we are because we are the embodiment of the Black Essence from which all human life evolves. The

Black Essence is: TIME, SPACE, and DUST. These elements have always been and will always be. They are individually and collectively Black in idea and form. They are Black because they are infinite! Is not infinity Black?

At a point in Time and Space with Dust, a cosmic interaction of these forces created the first living organism from which evolved a pre-historic Black creature which was 17

both male and female. This Black creature reproduced itself:

the process of reproduction disintegrated the creature but

gave birth to God. God was Black and still is. This Black

God, being the supranatural embodiment of both the coming

together and disintegration of Black forces—an embodiment

of both death and life—had, has and will always have the

capacity to create and disintegrate images of itself. The

sequence: the forces are Black; the first organism was

Black; God is Black; the first images of God were like IT

(Him and Her): good and Black—like TIME, SPACE and DUST—

like infinity.

Our Black forefathers—the first and the first known 3 inhabitants of this planet in Egypt--were mysterious,

strong and spontaneous. Early African culture indicates

that they lived along lines that were mellifluous, curved,

polyrhythmic, spontaneous and infinite. This is the foundation

of the Black aesthetic and what it properly reflects. Notions

of Black Beauty and Black Order are cast from these lines.

Since The Black Essence provides the natural fulcrum

of life, it is good. It is both natural and good that men

live, primarily and primordially, within the construct of the Black aesthetic. Our basic human needs of food, drink,

sex, shelter and a sense of belonging are more pleasurable

•^Y. Ben Jocamin, "The Sermon on the M.F.," paper delivered at Bowling Green State University (Bowling Green, Ohio, February 10, 1971), permission granted. (See: Black Man on the Nile.) 18 and more enriching when we pursue and partake of them mellifluously, polyrhythmically, softly, spontaneously, with curved and infinite direction and dimensions. We are reminded by Black psychiatrists Grier and Cobbs that,

. . . the brother [Black man] has a streak of hedonism and a capacity for ¿joy. He drinks more, dances more, and loves more. ... An enthusiastic embrace of ¿joyful things is imminently adaptive to allowr the black man to pursue the watchful, careful threading of his way through daily life.4

Important too, is the profound thought that can occur when one feels enriched and joyful. The minds of people who embrace the Black aesthetic will become reflective and contemplative rather than quantitative and calculating. A weakening of the consciousness of the natural goodness of the Black aesthetic—while seeming to allow greater control of the universe's elements—leads us away from our humanity and away from the infinite specter of joyful human interaction

The Black aesthetic can direct us to people and to God; the abstractions of the Black aesthetic will direct us to objects and loneliness.

Though it is, and should be regarded as, an imputation to define the antithesis of the Black aesthetic—because this antithesis seems so obvious and is so often documented for us—the value of putting it into a proper perspective makes the effort necessary. Therefore, the obvious question:

^William H. Grier and Price M. Cobbs, 31ack Rage (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1968), pp. 113-114. 19

what then is a white person, a white aesthetic? Actually,

there is no such thing as either because, one must remember,

all human life sprang and continues to spring from a

natural Black Essence. There are, however, mutations and abstractions from the Black Essence. Let us briefly look at them.

The first white-looking person astounded his Black parents, to say nothing of how God reacted. Other Black people both admired and feared this different looking

creature. Consequently, the white-looking person—and subsequent whites—came to develop an inordinate level of admiration of and fear for himself. Worthy of note is the fact that the white mutants were allowed to live because

God and other 31ack people realized that, though different in appearance, the whites were of and thereby one of them.

But because of the reverence and the fear and certain in­ trinsic mutant qualities, the white abstractions from the Black Essence gravitated together and began to develop different feelings—unnatural feelings—and visions about

Beauty and Order. The mutants, because of their unusual relationships to their Black brethern and because of con­ flicting feelings about their Black life force, became more distant from the natural attraction of the Black Essence.

Similarly, since the very beginning of the mutation- abstractions from the Black Essence, subtle and increasingly 20 strong departures from the natural life force have occurred.

Those people farthest from the Black Essence—in form and ideology—develop unnatural aesthetic premises. What we have come to call Euro-American aesthetics embraces straight lines, absolute delineation, prescribed structure and a finite order. The poetic (dramatic) theory of Aristotle, the music of Bach, the painting of Picasso and the technology of Von Braun serve as argumentative models for the vanguard of a white-abstracted aesthetic. Consequently, those who are not closely enough in harmony with the Black Essence— in form or spirit—have sought to repress and destroy people and the aesthetics that are in harmony with the natural life force. It should not be surprising that

. . . many whites are haunted by a vision of being oppressed, exposed to the whims of a powerful black man. . . . and to dissipate the fantasy, increasing barriers have had to be erected.5

Further, the unnaturalness of the abstracted aesthetic creates an internal self-hostility as one resists the natural attraction of the Black Essence. Again, Black psychiatrists ask that we look for this unnaturalness:

Reflect if you will: the most powerful nation on earth, afraid of the poorest, least educated, most leaderless ten per cent of its population. Truly, the white American projects his own hostility onto theg latter-day slave. How else to understand this terror?

5 ^Grier and Cobbs, p. 33. 6Ibid., p. 3$. 21

Conversely, the continuity of the Black Essence is evident

by observing that

. . . along with their scars, black people have a secret. Their genius is that they have survived. In their adaptations they have developed a vigorous style of life. It has touched religion, music and the broad canvas of creativity. . . . For white America to under­ stand the life of the black man, it must recognize that so much time has passed and so little has changed.7

It should be equally clear that assaults upon the Black

Essence have been continuously answered as in this Claude

McKay poem:

0, Kinsmen! We must meet the common foe! let us show us brave And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!6

The resulting confrontation-conflict, which we have come to call racial, is however, often as healthy as it is inevitable. Throughout, both Black and the abstracted-black people are made consciously aware of the assaults on this natural life force and subsequently are made—by God and other men—to feel sad and foolish; thus, from the resulting humility the phenomenon of the Black Essence can be apprehended.

Sociologist Horace Clayton speaks to this very issue:

. . . confrontation is an old and honorable word; it means a direct face-to-face meeting of people with conflicting interests, ideas or values, which must

n 'Grier and Cobbs, p. 38. d Saunders Redding, "The Negro Writer in American Literature," in Anger and Beyond, p. 13. 22

be resolved. A confrontation may be resolved by a synthesis of these conflicting ideologies or beliefs or it may result in avoidance, isolation or violence. . . . it is always a tense, fateful and meaningful phenomenon.9

The very activity of confrontation-conflict gives the natural Black Essence momentum through people who sense and rediscover its power.

All people have been and are continuously beaten or cajoled into periods of semi-consciousness whereby we fail to live adequately by the vision of the Black Essence.

Therefore, the function of the dance, the song and the drama, especially, is to restore Black consciousness. Black art must induce and remind us to embrace life-producing images rather than death producing images. Black art must inspire men to reach for, as well as chart a path to grasp, inner-attainment; meaning that one must be at peace with oneself and through inner-peace, be capable of being peaceful and joyful with others: even those who look and sometimes

■think differently. Black art is a reflection of Black Every­ thing and thus everything is Black art. Cookin’, Politickin’,

Thinkin’, Lovin’ and Fightin' can all be Black Art. No

Black art should have annihilation as a natural culmination because Black art is a reflection and affirmation of Black life, even if the art product depicts death.

^Horace R. Clayton, "Ideological Forces in the Work of Negro ’Writers," in Anger and Beyond, p. 48. 23 Black art and Black life, therefore, must be col­

lective and functional. The energy of Black life and Black

art must be directed to defend, recreate and enrich the

Black Essence for all humanity: all the Black spawns.

Black life and Black art—the Black aesthetic—should be

shared with and embraced by all people, who, whereever they

have gone, in form or idea, came from the Black Essence.

Though a racial archetypal pattern, the Black Essence is not

a racist one. It is for all humanity because it is of all humanity. The Black Essence is the most natural life force

in the universe; to resist or forget the aesthetic bases of this force is unnatural, unwise and self-destructive.

As we move, therefore, from the underlying assumptions about Black aesthetics to the critical dimensions of its properties of Beauty and Order, in literature particularly, we are enjoined to consider that:

The images of the Negro in American literary criticism can be said to be undergoing an exquisite reversal. For whereas our [whiteJ criticism began by locking the Negro into a phantasy construct of the stereotype . . . one recent phase of criticism has interpreted him and his situation as archetypal.10

BLACK BEAUTY AND ORDER Considerations of. the ideas of Beauty and Order have traditionally been discussed separately. Similarly,

■^Seymour L. Gross and John Edward Hardy ed., Images of the Negro in American Literature (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, l9b6), p. 2$. 24 both 3eauty and Order, in aesthetics and in literature have often been regarded as having "absolute" and "essential" meaning. In Phaedo, Plato speaks of "absolute beauty"^ and Aristotle's very beginning of the Poetics leads to

"the essential quality and . . . structure required for a 12 good poem." Both of these cornerstone theoretical ideas, and innumerable theoretical elaborations and refinements that have developed from them, are rooted to the notion of an unchanging—finite—human destiny. The ideas suggest that there is an unalterable beginning and end to being human and alive that can and must be embraced. This is an aesthetic that begets prescription: direct lines, cause and effect relationship, and specificity. Such thoughts inevitably will lead the mind to pursue with angularity, modality, and swiftness. In contrast, the Black view of human destiny and its artistic reflections is infinite— eclectically infinite—and, therefore, if it is to be apprehended at all, it must be pursued with no form save the emotional openness to receive the coruscations of either humanity or destiny or both together. Simply, one should not walk or run to find and understand Beauty or Order, but dance.

^Plato, Phaedo,Trans. B. Jowett (Roslyn, N. Y.: Walter J. Black / Trie /) , p. 110. 12 Aristotle, Poetics, Trans. Samuel H. Butcher (Roslyn, N. Y.: Walter J. Black, Inc.), p. 419. 25 Since there is no real purpose, in the human if

not practical sense, in destroying a believed disfunctional

aesthetic premise—though the Black Spirit carries retri­

bution—one must clarify the alternatives and make the

distinctions. Having generally distinguished an abstracted-

white aesthetic regarding Beauty and Order, one must move

to clarify the ways Black sensibilities regard Beauty and

Order.

The very roots of Black aesthetics seem to grow from

a collective notion of the Black Spirit. The idea is col­

lective because the Black Spirit is a union of Beauty and

Order. Black Art, therefore, is properly any representative

agent which postulates the issue of Black union. Exemplary

Black Art, then, is that which strengthens the union of

Black Beauty and Black Order. As Larry Neal has succinctly

stated this idea: "the Black Arts Movement believes that

your ethics and your aesthetics are one." Therefore, what is beautiful and what is well-ordered depends largely

on how effectively the art product clarifies and elevates

noble dimensions of the Black Spirit. The most noble

dimension of the Black Spirit is its transmitted feeling of

infinite Black togetherness. Blackness and feeling become

implicit in this state of togetherness. Consequently, the most adequate exemplification of Beauty and Order is the

IB Larry Neal, "The Black Arts Movement," The Drama Review (Vol. 12, No. 4 (T40) Summer, 1968), p. 3T". 26

art product which informs and reinforces the implicitness

to Black people that they are needed by one another and,

further, shows Black people how to reach out to each other

across this need.

Vie are reminded, however, that "there is no immutable law of artistic adequacy, because significance is always for a mind as well as of a form.""^ Thus, the forms of Beauty or Order must get their definition from daily Black life movements. The informed symbols must be ideas, people and objects from daily Blackness. To be sure,

... a form, a harmony, even a timbre, that, is entirely unfamiliar is 'meaningless,’ naturally enough; for we must grasp a Gestalt quite definitely before we can perceive an implicit meaning, or even the promise of such a meaning, in it: and such definite • grasp requires a certain familiarity, [emphasis addedj ?

When Black artists are successful in clarifying these needs of familiarity for Black people, they will respond to, love and support the artist and his art. Similarly, the often heard criticism of Black Art lacking universality should then be put to rest. The adequate union of Black

Beauty and Black Order will lead "to universal meaning through 3.6 race, and the question of audience will be academic." If the words and the deeds do not become ‘informed by the Black

■^Suzanne Langer, Philosophy in a New Key (New York: New American Library, 1951J, pp. 222-23. 15Ibid., p. 223. 16 Neal, p. 31. 27 Spirit then neither artistic language nor action will carry- much meaning and will fail to reach any noble heights.

The progression from philosophical aesthetics into the aesthetics of practical dramatic theory is never easy.

However, the journey is made measurably less confusing by remembering that "poetry [drama] is a concrete function; an 17 action. No more abstractions!" Thus, the discussion here will concentrate on the language and action—words and deeds—that are and need to be reflected in comtemporary

Black drama. And though language and action are discussed separately, the same theoretical questions are asked of each. Do they relieve Black oppression? Do they reflect physical and psychological Black reality?

To be sure, the scope of contemporary Black drama is not—nor should it be—limited to the predelictions of any one particular urging. However, certain charges of passion and thoughtfulness are worthy of consideration.

Thus when Clayton Riley asks that Black theatre offer

"personal portraits, living sounds etched and orchestrated by memory, by all the folks and all the things we come from," and when Imamu Baraka (LeRoi Jones) informs us that

^Neal, p. 31. 18 Clayton Riley, Introduction to Black Quartet: Four New Black Plays by Ben Caldwell, Ronald Milner, Ed Bullins and LeRoi Jones (New York: New American Library, 1970), p. x. 28

"the Black artist is desperately needed to change the images

his people identify with, by asserting Black feeling, Black 19 mind, Black judgement, one can—must—recognize the current

thrusts of the intent of language and action in contemporary

Black drama.

BLACK LANGUAGE

The historicity of Black people affirms a strong

belief in and dependence on the spoken word to communicate,

particularly, with one another and to the peoples of the

world. Consequently, among Blacks, the nuances of the pre­

cise meanings of words are frequently determined by inflection,

gesture and a sense of a felt common experience: the Black

Spirit. The difficulty in recording, projecting or, indeed,

sharing these subtle nuances of Black language is obvious.

Nonetheless, Black writers must use the written word being

ever conscious of the colonized trap of using language to

get closer to—to become more like—the colonizer. Black

playwrights, particularly, must use dramatic language to be

Black with no concessions, no adaptations to white expectations.

Simply, Black language must function to preserve old and invent

new myths and intellectual schemes for holding Black experience.

At the same time, as one white critic observed, Black play­ wrights should attempt to "distinguish in the white control-

^LeRoi Jones, "The Legacy of Malcom X," Home: Social Essays (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 196b), p. 248. 29 led present [usage] whatever has remained human and might 20 recommend itself as ally."

Even though, as Frantz Fanon points out, "to speak

in this or that language means above all to assume a 21 culture." Black American playwrights do and must choose

to use the English language to our advantage rather than

to our disadvantage. In using the language, "the Black man

should no longer be confronted by the dilemma, turn white

or disappear: but he should be able to take cognizance of 22 a possibility of existence." Through Black language any

master's orders or any discriminatory position of honor can

be denounced more effectively. Black language can and

therefore should put people in a position—or a frame of mind—

as Fanon further points out, to "choose action (or passivity) with respect to the real source of conflict—that is, 'toward 23 the social structures."

Black language has been and must continue to be a

vehicle for carrying preservative secrets of the Black Spirit.

Grier and Cobbs remind all that

. . . the 'jive* language and the 'hip* language, while presented in a way that whites look upon simply as a quaint ethnic peculiarity, is used 20 21 22

20 Richard Gilman, "’’White Standards and Negro Writing, " New Republic (March 9, 1968), pp. 26-27. 21 Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, trans. Charles Markmann (New York: Grove Press, inc., 1967), p. 17. 22Ibid., p. 100. 23Ibid. 30 as a secret language [and J to communicate the hostility of blacks for whites.24

This phenomenon of Black language is not, however, simply

a product of today’s or yesterday's Black militant sensi­

bilities, but, indeed, is rooted in the more primordial

reality of the influence of the Black Spirit. Imamu (Jones)

affirms this idea when he observes that

... it is absurd to assume, as has been the tendency among a great many Western anthropologists and sociol­ ogists, that all traces of Africa were erased from the Negro's mind because he learned English. The very nature of the English the Negro spoke and still speaks drops the lie on that idea.25

Because, then, Black writers use language differently

and for different reasons than other writers, anyone evalua­

ting their work must be cognizant of those differences

generally and, further, of the differences of particular

Black writers. Similarly, Black writers, playwrights

particularly, must remain cognizant of a primary purpose

to communicate effectively to other Black people and through them to all people. Imamu (Jones) reminds Black writers that

"the changing of images, of references, is the Black Man's 2 6 way back to the racial integrity of the captured African."

Therefore, when one examines the language used by Black

^Grier and Cobbs, Black Rage, p. 125. 2 5 LeRoi Jones, Blues People: Negro Music in White America (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1963), p. 9. 26jones, "The Legacy of Malcom X," p. 246. 31 playwrights one must assess first, if and how it relieves the oppression of the Black Spirit and, second, if and how it reflects characteristics of the physical and psychological reality of the Black Spirit.

Characterization and Imagery

Unquestionably, the most singularly unique character­ istic of contemporary Black life is the shared feeling and experience resulting from white oppression. After all the rationalizations, the vagaries, the reasons have settled, like so much dust: oppression is slavery. It is imperative, in any investigation of Black dramatic characters, we acknow­ ledge that "in understanding him [the Black man] we return to the same reference point . . . We must conclude that much of the pathology we see in black people had its genesis in slavery." Consequently, drama that is not generated by characters and images reflecting this reality is not Black drama, no matter who the writer. Similarly, any critical discussion of the characters and images in contemporary Black drama must acknowledge and direct itself, first, to this reality.

The feelings and experiences of past and contemporary oppression are the dominant motives behind the major figures and are the fabric threads of the dominant images in Black

27 Grier and Cobbs, p. 31. 32

drama today. Black playwrights are thus right on target as

we—in the main—affirm and point up the most shared exper­

iences and feelings of Black people.

Who are the characters shifting amidst oppressiveness

in today's Black dramas? They come from all ages, sexes,

socio-economic levels and political persuasions. There are

the youthful: the tough Ora, Love and Foots in Imamu

Baraka's (LeRoi Jones') The Toilet; the sexually distorted

Big Girl in Ed Bullins' Clara's Ole Man; the revolutionary­

conscious June Bug in Herbert Stokes' The Uncle Toms; the

haunted Johnnas in Bill Gunn's Johnnas. There are the

middle-aged: the revolutionary-retributionist Walker Vessels

in Baraka's (Jones') The Slave; the subterfuging domestics,

Ellie and Vi, in Douglass Turner Ward’s Happy Ending; the

fraudulent Dean in Ronald Milner's The Monster. There are

the old: the morally confused Reverend Henry in James

Baldwin’s Blues For Mister Charlie; the delusory Russell B.

Parker in Lonne Elder's Ceremonies in Dark Old Men: the

inauthentic Father and Mother Love in William Wellington

Mackay's Family Meeting. And there are other figures who,

though different from these, all reflect a fact known to most

Black people:

. . . the Black man of today is at one end of a psychological continuum which reaches back in time to his enslaved ancestors. . . . However much the externals differ, their inner life is remarkably the same.28

Grier and Cobbs, p. 21+. 33 That anguish from struggle provides an inner strength

that is a key to understanding Black dramatic characters.

Consequently, the characters and images in Black drama

must retain an inner-definitiveness that, while the figures

struggle with oppressors, permits and, indeed, induces

the necessary experiences of joy and tranquility. One can

look for shifts from being a victim to being a hero and

should not, therefore, be dismayed with any universal notions

of dramatic preparation.

Similarly—and simply—The Blues must not be neglected

nor overlooked in the characters and particularly the images

of Black drama. For as Imamu (Jones) reminds all, "the

blues occurs when the Negro is sad . . . when, however, the 29 blues are manifest, his sadness passes away." Inside the whirling intellects of Black thinkers, between the folds of

fat, Black Mama’s, under the tight muscles of wizened Black

Daddy’s and in the flaring nostrils of ditty-bopping Black

boys and girls lies the blues. The shapes and utterances

from all this—and more—is the stuff of Black drama. And when critics miss the blues and describe the drama opaquely

as did Harold Clurman when he reviewed Ed Bullin’s The

Electronic Nigger, stating that "the play is not about Negroes

. . . It deals with modern schools and schooling, with com­

puterized thinking and teaching, with the force, attraction

29 7Jones, Blues People, p. 12. 30 and horror of mechanized education." Black playwrights need only shudder and should not be coerced into ruling out any character types or images.

As Clayton Riley aptly reminds us, the characters and the images of Black drama are now and must continue to be informed by:

. . . those residual effects the survivor receives from his ancestral palaces—sky cabins, chapels near the railroad, Baptist kitchens leaning toward the front rooms of AME Zion, tenement hallways flooded by the chill of January wind and choirs of bent and mumbling grandmothers, communal bathrooms rattling with a perceptual occupation force of Black men with bad jobs . . . every doorway, all the staircases looming once again; and each discarded stockingcap, can of hair grease (Dixie Peach as an introduction, a surrogate constellation of jewels in a homemade crown) all the documents of threat to evict or repossess, letters denying credit—all these things slow dragging from the past. With preacher-driven big cars with bigger fenders, sidewalk barons from lost estates standing in hard-earned elegance, their alligator shoes pointing the way to nearby candy stores. A cueball clicks in the long ago cotton dresses filled with Ashanti princesses flutter passing by, somebody’s father hops toward the Elk’s Club amid a swirling cloud of cigar smoke, as six tone- deaf strangers try to harmonize after the fact of their dropping out of high school . . . the owner of the barber shop has a son swaggering down the street in his Marine Corps dress blues, easing into an alley headed for some­ one’s bedroom, going off tomorrow to die in some country we never heard of. All this. [Italics mine] And parties on the week-end, submerged in somebody's basement, squeezed into learning how to dance with some silent girl who is reputed to have passed third-year Latin, watching to see if the heavy-weights who drink wine and smoke reefers will turn the place out because the hostess is demanding to see their invitations . . . Knowing how poor everybody really is at a funeral of some kid who drowned on the Fourth of July, knowing because all dark suits in the crowd were bought cheap from the same cut- rate merchant who was, we knew, a rich man despite his

^Harold Clurman, Nation (March 26, 1968), p. 421. 35 wrinkled work shirts and battered Chevrolet; he retired and left town with the profits of our teen-aged Easter shopping sprees. We came from these places.31

Thus, either going forward—which is what The Electronic

Nigger really is about—or going back, through characters or images, is not, however, to be regarded (by critics or playwrights) as just some nostalgic trip away from the agonizing realities of being Black in today’s world. The images of all of Black historicity do and must increasingly point to the fact that many Black people tried to forget what and who was left behind. Further, Black characters and images have and must continue to illuminate that much of Black "legendary ugliness existed primarily because we willed it so . . . and our beauty could exist for the same „32 reason.”

Black drama has, therefore, a functional and spiritual commitment to the Black Essence. As Reverend Albert Cleage observes from the pulpit: "We say that we are created in the image of God. He [the white man] refuses to accept that.

It is his fault, not ours.”^ Black characters and images should properly reflect an informed Black Spirit. So too should they be judged on their capacity to recreate and

BI Riley, p. x-xi. 32 Ibid., p. xi. 33Albert B. Cleage, Jr., "The Black Messiah," in The War Within: Violence or Non-Violence in the Black Revolution, ed. James Robert Ross (New York: Sheed and Ward, I9'7IJ7”p“132. 36

strengthen this spirit while it struggles against being

oppressed from any quarter.

BLACK ACTION

Since the time of the captured African, the literal

and psychological movements of Black people have been in

direct relationship to our feeling oppression. Thomas

Pettigrew observes that

. . . broadly speaking, the diversity of reactions to oppression can be subsumed under three categories: moving toward, against, or away from the oppressor. The first of these, moving toward, consists of seeking full acceptance as an equal human being. The other two form the familiar fight or flight pattern; moving against includes the numerous types of avoidance reactions.34

Consequently, it can be argued that most—if not all—Black

action has, for a long time, been reactionary. Indeed, it

can be argued, in the Hegelian sense, that self-consciousness—

and any resultant action—exists only by being acknowledged or recognized by another self-consciousness. If, then,

Black people are phenomenologically caught in a reactionary web an acknowledgement of the Black Essence of humanity seems a likely, perhaps inevitable, avenue of escape for all ensnared. Escape into what one must ask? With the Black

Spirit as a vehicular force, one can escape into the intellectual

■^Thomas F. Pettigrew, A Profile of the Negro American (New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1964), p. 2?.

w. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Mind, trans. J. 3. Baillie, 2nd ed. (London: Allen and Unwin, 1949), pp. 230-231. 37 and moral chasm of a phenomenological Black abyss. Where

the web of reaction seems to trap and strangle, the abyss

can engulf all with infinite humanity: once the fear of

darkness is obviated. To be remembered is the observable

fact that phenomenological reality is always a matter of

choice.

Before one can assess the meanings in any changes

of self-consciousness and changes in the descriptions of

phenomenological reality that Black drama currently purports,

one must recognize that the works are—at once—products and purveyors of change. Therefore, when we assert characters, images, and particularly, internal causes and incidents from revolutionary self-consciousness, theoretical and structural shifts—between the old and the new—will be in evidence; indeed they will be inevitable. More often than not, critics are unwilling or incapable of noticing either the shifts or the distinctions between old and new levels—actions— of self-consciousness. Though lamentable, such critical shortcomings are not surprising as Seymour Gross has noticed:

Naturally, a critical disposition that orients itself toward the ’tragic vision’ (the inevitable betrayal at the heart of things) would not find much viability in any literary program based on the assumption that life's evils are . . . reversible.

And though none among Black playwrights begs for understanding

^^Gross, "Stereotype to Archetype: The' Negro in American Literary Criticism," Images of the Negro in American Literature, p. 19. 38 or special critical attention, we caution—Brothers parti­

cularly—against hasty and pusilanimous examination or

evaluation: be it scathing or adoring. Gross reminds

white critics that

... it is foolish and a mistake to try and treat the plantation songs, the esoteric jargon and the like with the dignity of scholarly seriousness without imputing dignity to the race that composed them.37

With the possible exception of Baraka’s more recent

works (i.e. A Black Mass and Home on the Range), few would

argue that action is contemporary Black drama has sub­

stantially or successfully moved to free itself from

reactionary self-consciousness. Nonetheless, when one

examines the internal causes and the incidents of action

in much of the genre, one must be cognizant of Black play­ wrights* intentions to do just that. Similarly, an examin­

ation of the incidents in Black drama must be informed by

the sensitivity to the Black playwright’s awareness of his need to restore Black phenomenological reality. Critics can look for the representational parallels to the observable actions of 31ack people. Pettigrew tells us that

. . . the movement has shifted in emphasis from legalism to direct action, from narrow objectives to full scale attack, from pockets of protest to genuine mass movement cutting across divisions within the Negro community. ... It has achieved a heightened militancy and urgency, a sense that even yesterday was too late.38

3?Ibid. 3^Pettigrew, p. 193. 39 Internal Causes and Incidents

The why of Black internal causes of action should

be relatively clear by now. Making the distinction between

incidents that are reactionary and those that are self­

consciously assertive—propelled from the Black Spirit—

is likely to remain murky for many. The ubiquituous

critical notions of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Apollonian-

Dionysian Spirit seems a workable critical handle, however.

With its base of shifting spirits, Nietzsche’s idea suggests

a means of isolating and clarifying some of the structural

dimensions of recent Black drama—particularly those which

focus on conflict.

In the poignant essay The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche

suggests that all art, but particularly the drama, owes its

evolution and power to an Apollonian-Dionysian duality of spirit, which is a matter of ’’constant conflicts and periodic 3Q . . acts of reconciliation." He defines the Apollonian spirit as "the fair illusion of the dream sphere,where, essentially, men can enjoy the vision of form, where shapes

speak directly and where we sit peacefully amidst torments— supported and delighted by the wisdom and beauty of illusion.

Conversely, the essence of Dionysiac rapture "is one

^Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy From the Spirit of Music," European Theories of the Drama, B. H. Clark ed. (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1965), p. 297. 40 of physical intoxication . . . [when] so stirred, the

individual forgets himself completely.Nietzsche further explains the impact of the Dionysian spirit:

. . . Man now expresses himself through song and dance as a member of a higher community; he has forgotten how to walk, how to speak, and is on the brink of taking wing as he dances. Each of his gestures betokens enchantment; through him sounds a supernatural power. He feels himself to be godlike and strides with the same elation and ecstacy as the gods he has seen in his dreams. . . . While the transport of the Dionysian state lasts, everything that has been experienced by the individual is drowned.42

The definitions of the Apollonian-Dionysiac states of rapture seem to fit, and can be used to describe and understand the shifts of incidents in Black plays like

Mackay’s Family Meeting. For example, in this satirical denouncement of fraudulent middle-class Blacks aspiring to white assimilation, Family Meeting strikes the chord of some Blacks who are so inextricably confused about their blackness that their actions shift with the unreasonableness and dispatch of a hurricane. Brother Love Black personifies the shifting nature in this speech:

Brother Love Black: (abruptly, resoundingly) And so” this slow purge towards meeting the reality. . . the life . . . explodes into painful understandings and knowledges . . . the reality of the life can no longer be kept hidden behind the veil of the dream which has been the very essence of his existence up to this point . . . But then . . . just as quick as all the confusion had started, everything is quiet again. The world just stops completely still. And you can't even hear the sweet sound of a baby sucking away at his

^Nietzsche, p. 29$.

42Ibid. 41 / o mammy’s nipple. The whole world is silent. J

In this instance and in others, throughout the spectrum of Black drama, the shifts from coolness to rage, from immobility to fast action, from actions of low self-esteem to actions of feeling Godlike, point to movement between reactionary and self-consciously assertive action. To be sure, Black incidental action and their internal causes do not either have to devastate critics or inspire them to just abrogation. Perhaps by trying the Apollonian-Dionysiac critical handle one could get beyond insensitive responses to Black plays like Dutchman, described as "hysterical . . . less art than frenzy;or Blues for Mister Charlie, des­ cribed as "murky with hatred and illogic for all its reaching 45 out for a vision of judgement.'

One thing is certain: the development of action as one shifts with the Black Spirit—into and out of Apollonian-

Dionysian raptures—will not be clearly perceived by someone looking for a denouement that has been funded from a finite scheme of order.

It has been said often that history envisions its own

^William Wellington Mackay, Family Meeting in New Black Playwrights, ed. William Couch, Jr. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 19o8), p. 247. ^John Gassner, "Broadway in Review," The Educational Theatre Journal (October, 1964), p. 289. 45Ibid. 42 extinction, which is what we really mean by progress, If that is true, let the incidents and internal causes of Black drama be clear to some today. Tomorrow's marcher will likely find a drummer. ^3

CHAPTER III

THE BLACK SPIRIT: AESTHETIC PRACTICE

confident voices whispered screaming condemnations the second shift came on and I still wouldn’t confess —John Chenault, Blue Blackness

There is a point where the discussion of creative

theory, even one’s own, becomes fruitless and maddening.

Consequently, this portion of the study is that reflection

of the Black Spirit as it existed at a point in creative

time. The three plays which comprise this portion are:

"Ride a Black Horse,” "Time Turns Black," and "Black Sermon

Rock." The plays are original works and do not in any way

intend to recreate the lives of persons past or present.

Because these three plays are decidedly linked in

their structures and in their intent, they are called

and are intended to be a trilogy: in the traditional

reading and performance sense. Simply, current performance

conventions notwithstanding, these plays are intended to be

viewed consecutively. They do, however, exist as individual

dramatic pieces and may be read or performed as such.

The title of this trilogy is: "Blackness in Orbit:

The Apsides of the Black Spirit." As an extension of the creative activity in these plays,- a few words about the

origin and the meaning of the title of the trilogy might

prove useful.

As Blacks view it, the first space vehicle in this

world was the first slave ship which transported Black

people to any alien and foreign soil for exploitation.

In this respect, Black Spirit went into orbit. Thus, in

an orbit, the apsides are those points at which the distance

of the body from the center of attraction is either greatest

(higher apsis) or least (lower apsis). This trilogy,

therefore, is a reflection of both points of distance and

of the center of attraction.

Simply, the Black Essence is the center of attraction

of the Black Spirit. Therefore, that Black Spirit, being

in orbit, changes its distance from the Black Essence. One

movement in each play is intended to reflect that point when

the attraction is greatest (the higher apsis); one movement

in each play is intended to reflect that point when the

attraction is least (the lower apsis). One movement in each

play is intended to reflect the center of attraction, the

pulling body: the Black Essence! To reveal which movement

in which play was intended to reflect which idea is, for

me, to reach beyond the abyss. Equally important, such a

revelation by me is likely to obstruct someone else from making the plunge into the abyss. Consequently, for the 45 reader of, or the performers in the plays, the issue can be regarded as a creative exercise in critical discovery. 46

These plays are protected by copyright laws. For information regarding production, contact the author’s agent:

Joseph M. Hamer Associates 912 Fifth Avenue New York, New York 2/7

RIDE A BLACK HORSE

A Play in Two Acts 48

CHARACTERS:

Carl Blanks Sandy, his wife Lloyd, his father Faye, his mother Harley, his brother Junior Bonner Rudy Black Alfred Sharon Bob Harold Max Edie, Bob’s wife (The Man)

PLACE: In the mind of the city and in the city of the mind

TIME: Now . . . before and after. ACT I

A haunted melody is heard. It is the agonizing Coltrane/Roland Kirk sound: fearful thoughts. The lights come on. Barely visible, four places are suggested to us. UR is a shoddy bar sign. DR is a tall tree extending upward, out of sight. Running alongside the tree, toward the bar, is a wall on which is scribbled or spray-painted several distinctly vivid declarations of Black pride and anger. Also, assorted names appear on the wall: some well known, some just from the neighborhood. Down left is door leading into a modest house. UL is a fragmentary skyline, with a university tower being the most prominent feature. These four areas are connected by a series of platforms, with a generous center space. The stage should be thrust. Backdrops at center, and/or at each side serve to project images and messages.

All the people are onstage; they need not leave the stage throughout, though they may. Light serves to illuminate people and places at appropriate times.

Carl enters UL, as if leaving the tower. He wears pressed slacks, a turtleneck sweater and a sport coat. He carries a hand-size briefcase: no handles. He is past thirty and unmistakeably a Black man. He stops near the center area, looks back and really thinks about that tower. Lights a cigarette and smokes it all: no matter what the audience might say or do. When he stamps it out, the light comes up.

CARL (FULL FRONT, GRINNING) That was a fine smoke. Comforting! (TO SOME FRIEND WHO IS WAITING, SEATED IN THE AUDIENCE) Thank you for waiting, My Man. (MILDLY DISTURBED WITH HIMSELF) Hmmm, when I called you, I promised myself that I would be specific and direct. (APPARENTLY THE MAN HAS SMILED) Oh, you know about that. (SMILES) That's how it goes: as they say. (SERIOUSLY) I certainly thought the words would come much easier, having gone over everything so thoroughly. I really thought I could say it all. (LISTENING) You say I don't have to rush? Thank you? Thank you very much. Yes, I'm sure that’s best. (THERE IS A PAUSE, THEN HE GOES UL AND JOINS THE MEN THERE. THE WOMAN IS STANDING APART FROM THEM, IRRITATED.) Let's call it a day. 'We've done enough for humanity today. (THEY BEGIN A MUTED CONVERSATION. BOB AND HAROLD LOOK VERY MUCH ALIKE, THE DIFFERENCE BEING THAT B03 IS WHITE, HAROLD IS BLACK. MAX IS A FEW YEARS OLDER THAN THE OTHERS, AND VERY JEWISH. ALL EXUDE INTELLIGENCE, NOT SUPERFICIALLY. EDIE IS A BOVINE BEAUTY.) 1-4 50

SOB Let’s go have a beer, or something.

EDIE What about me?

30B (MATTER-OF-FACTLY) You should be home. (MEN CHUCKLE)

EDIE (SIMPLY) Mo sex for you tonight. (PAUSE) Not for the rest of the week. (THEY CONTINUE THE MUTED CONVERSATION ABOUT RESEARCH, THE LAW AND CIVIL RIGHTS.) 3ring home some milk when you come. (NO ANSWER) Booob! (PAUSE) And a bottle of gin.

BOB (QUICKLY) Say something, hon? Gin?

EDIE Urine, Robert.

BOB (EM3ARASSED) Hon! (SHE LEAVES, IN A HUFF)

HAROLD (CONVERSATION ERUPTING INTO PROMINENCE) . . . precisely! It’s the exact position you took in your paper, Bob. You know, the one on Malcom X. I thought what you said was perceptive and potentially workable.

MAX (MILDLY IRRITATED) Workable, how?

HAROLD You’re becoming a very hostile middle-aged lawyer, Maximillian.

MAX And you're becoming a rather defensive up-and-coming lawyer, Harold Andrew Brownlee the Third. (SHRUGS) Hostile.

CARL (TRYING TO JOKE IT AWAY) But the inflection you gave 'workable revealed hostile intimations.

30B Max hasn't read it yet, Harold. Forget it. 1-5 51

HAROLD (TO BOB, BUT FOR MAX) Okay, but he did read that Haskin kid’s brief, and he wouldn’t represent him in court.

MAX (REALLY IRRITATED) Haskin was guilty and he couldn't pay . . . aside from his being black. Forgive me for not being altruistic and forgive me for asking questions. Forgive me that in the name of brotherhood, Harold.

BOB If we're at each others throats (WHISTLES) just think what’s happening in the ghetto.

HAROLD Anyway, we'd better keep at it. If the brothers keep rapping the way they are, and the authorities remain intractible, the lid’s going to blow off this not-so-fair city of ours . . . With Carl’s contacts in the ghetto and Bob's entre with his dear father, the Mayor, there’s still hope. But if we don't come up with something soon, this place is going to be barbecued.

BOB And us with it. Why not continue meeting tonight?

CARL I was going to take Sandy to a movie. I promised her . . .

HAROLD I put my date off. Carl!

MAX (TO BOB, IN REFERENCE TO EDIE) A date is not exactly a wife.

HAROLD Neither is hunger death, exactly!

CARL (SIMPLY) My place after dinner.

HAROLD Beautiful, brother. (DOUBTFULLY) You going to make it, Max?

MAX I always make the meetings. (LABORED) We all do, don't we!

(LIGHT OUT. CARL WANDERS TO CENTER AND EMITS A LOW KEYED CURDLING SOUND OF ANGUISH) 1-6 52

CARL Shut up! I know how it starts, but how do you make it stop? (TO THE MAN) We’re like lemmings. We love and we rush toward brotherhood and equality and justice and you name it . . . searching for safety in a flood of sincerity. ("I HAVE A DREAM" AND MARTIN L. KING IS PROJECTED) Yes, there are many who do. (LIGHTS CIGARETTE, OUT QUICKLY. LIGHT UP DL. WE SEE FAYE AND LLOYD, DRESSED SIMPLY.)

LLOYD You been smoking again, boy?

CARL (IN MEMORY, NOT RELATING TO THEM) Sir, no sir.

LLOYD (ALMOST BUMPING FAYE ASIDE) Lying is the lowest possible human act. If you forget everything else I tell you, don't forget that!

FAYE (PROTECTIVELY) Dad, Carl's a junior in college, not a little boy. Go eat, son.

LLOYD Oh! "A junior in college" doesn't have to tell the truth? If you want to make something of yourself, boy, you'd do more studying and less smoking. You might even consider doing a little working during the summer here, instead of . . . (CARL SMILES) That’s funny to you, is it? Just remember that I work hard in tight corners with grease on my hands, and I can stand up and be counted as a man. There are other ways to become a man beside talking Civil Rights nonsense . . . and smoking cigarettes! (THE LIGHT GOES OUT. CARL WORKS WAY DC.)

CARL Yes sir, there’s something to be said for becoming a self- sufficient man. I suppose I’ll always remember my father. A working man . . . that’s something to behold. (HE LIGHTS A CIGARETTE, WITH A HINT OF SURREPTITIOUSNESS) A strong will and a strong back: some epitaph. (IMAGES OF BLACK SLAVES BEING LASHED ARE PROJECTED.) One thing about my father . . . rather strange ... I thought about this too, before I called you ... he never mentioned the fact of his being Black. He never mentioned getting called a nigger or Boy or Sam. Maybe he never was; maybe he put it in the back of his mind: as they say. (PAUSE) Maybe he was too tired from working. (PAUSE) You know, there are many people who get bored waiting for something to happen ... if they 1-7 53 don’t have a formulated concept of what’s to come. Then again, some get terribly bored if they know the outcome. Of course, this being, as we like to say, the age of eclecticism ... we usually have to manufacture certainty, if that's what we want. (PAUSE) Well, like my friend Lou once said . . . (PAUSE) Lou was a guy I met in the army. I suppose everyone has a friend like Lou. You know, that rare person whom you meet, admire, learn to love, then forget: except when you need their existence to make a point. (PAUSE) Lou was a white guy who liked to read Lord Jim and smoke cherrywood pipes. He was relaxed in the" midst of anxiety. (PAUSE) But he did change his name. Both names! (PAUSE) Maybe all this has nothing to do with what he said, or what I mean by relating what Lou said . . . but I’m not sure that it doesn’t, and this is the time when I just can't gamble. (PAUSE) Lou, or whatever his name is now, said . . . (SLOWLY) "Carl, life is a symphony of sighs.

(THE LIGHT GOES OUT AND THE HOUSE IS FILLED WITH THE FORCE AND VOLUME OF RIOT SOUNDS AND IMAGES. THIS SHOULD CONTINUE FOR ABOUT THIRTY SECONDS AND NEVER LOSE ITS INTENSITY UNTIL THE END, WHICH IS ABRUPT. AS THE LIGHT COMES UP WE FIND BONNER, RUDY AND ALFRED. THEY ARE DRESSED IN MILITANT HUSTLER’S STYLE: FLASHY. THEY ARE MUCH ALIKE EXCEPT THAT BONNER IS TALLER, RUDY IS SIGNIFICANTLY FATTER, AND ALFRED IS SHORTER AND VERY BLACK. BONNER WEARS A LEVI DENIM SUIT OR JACKET, RUDY IS ALWAYS EXERCISING HIS HANDS AND ARMS. ALFRED CARRIES A JOCKEY WHIP. THEY ARE EXTREMELY RELAXED AND GROOVIN' WHEN WE FIRST SEE THEM. BONNER SEES CARL FIRST.)

BONNER What’s happening, professor?

CARL (RELIEVED FROM THE IMAGES) You tell me.

ALFRED Who is this dude, Junior? BONNER Junior Bonner . . . must I always remind you to say my whole name! This is Carl. (TO CARL) This is Rudy, and this is Black Alfred. (THERE IS TENSION THOUGH ALFRED IS SMILING AS HE NEARLY ALWAYS DOES, NO MATTER WHAT) Remember me telling you about Alfred?

CARL Oh, yes. I - $ 54

RUDY (APPRAISING CARL’S WIRE GLASSES, CLOTHES AND BRIEFCASE) Ain’t nobody told me enough about you. What’s your game, rich Nigga?

BONNER Rudy, (DELICATELY) you don’t have any upbringing.

CARL (AMUSED MORE THAN INTIMIDATED) I’m not sure what my game is. And I not a very, ah, rich Nigger, ha. (ALL WAIT FOR HIM TO CONTINUE) Really, I’m not very . . . very . . .

BONNER (ENJOYING CARL’S PREDICAMENT) Original? You’ve got to tighten up your improvisation (HE TAKES GREAT PRIDE IN HIS USAGE HERE AND THROUGHOUT). The code here, professor, is to force yourself to come through in the clutch.

CARL I assumed, Junior (REMEMBERING) . . . Junior Bonner, that you had run it down to the fellows.

BONNER Oh I ran it down, alright. (LICKING HIS LIPS WHICH IS A HABIT) This is the dude from the university thing.

ALFRED Aw, yeah, the dude with the plan, I remember now; well, you’re really something ... a brainy dude. Tell Alfred all about it; you see, Alfred wants to be brainy too,

CARL (TO BONNER) Didn’t you tell them the basics?

BONNER (DELIBERATELY) Ye(sss.

CARL (RELIEVED) 'Whatever Junior Bonner told you is all I have formulated ... at this point. What we need to do is discuss how those beginning steps can most efficiently be set into action. (RUDY AND ALFRED RESPOND WITH JOKING CONTEMPT) Listen, brothers . . . (THIS TRIGGERS AN EASY, LOW KEYED VIOLENT STREAK IN RUDY)

RUDY You listen, mister (STUMBLING OVER THE ’WORD) soc-o-lol-ical motha (IMAGES OF YOUNG BLACKS CONFRONTING POLICE ARE PROJECTED) . . . you come down here with a briefcase full of papers and a head full of shit and expect me to bust my 1-9 55

nuts over your presence? You may be black' on the outside, but your guts ain’t black, and you ain’t my brother! (ALFRED WHISTLES "Wheeelll.")

BONNER (SOBERLY) Welcome home, professor. You still feel like dealing . . . with all the elements?

CARL You're dealing with all the elements, aren't you?

BONNER (WITH A SARDONIC SMILE) Oh yeaaah. And you can deal too, as long as you take the time to understand the old and remember the new elements. This ain't just "overcome’' week, dig it!

CARL (LIGHT GOES OUT. HE WANDERS TO CENTER, SEARCHES FOR SOME PAPERS, ZIPS THE BRIEFCASE, SIGHS, AND ADDRESSES THE MAN) I suppose the time wrasn't right. I wasn’t ready. (PAUSE) But I'm ready now. I believe tonight will be the night! (SHARON COKES FROM UR DOWN BEHIND HIM AND HER MEMORY AFFECTS HIM THOUGH HE DOESN’T RELATE DIRECTLY TO HER. SHE WEARS THE BAUBLES AND BANGLES OF A SMALL CLUB SINGER. SHE IS NOT NECESSARILY ATTRACTIVE.)

SHARON (AS A YOUNG GIRL, COY) Carrrl, are you going to take me to the basketball game tonight? Carrrl, why didn’t you answer my note in math class? (PAUSE) Do you go steady with Sandy? (PAUSE) Carrrl, my grandmother has a lot of books up in her attic.. . . she's gone downtown for the afternoon. We could have some fun looking through those books. Carrrl . . . (SHE RETREATS UR)

CARL (TO THE MAN) A long time ago I ... oh, if you have some place else to go this evening, just say the word, but you did tell me to take my time. (PAUSE) Thank you. It really is more comfortable this way. A whole has so many parts that it's unbelievable! But of course you understand that. Some don't. (QUICKLY) Say, did I tell you that I resigned from the university? Well, I did. My brother . . . yes . . . I didn't tell you about him. The one named Harley (SQUEEZES HIS HEAD FOR RELIEF) ... I only have one brother. He’s really something, that Harley. One day ... I was fifteen, he was only nine, just a little pot licker: as they say . . . We were going to -a movie and the ticket-taker, actually the money-taker, anyway, she made a comment about how pretty and curley his hair was. I could tell that she I - 10 56 was putting him on . . . people do that to little Negro boys. (PAUSE, TO HIMSELF) Why? (PAUSE) When we got inside . . . we had to sit upstairs even though we wanted to: the kind of paradox that is wonderful as a kid, but maddening as a man . . . anyway, we sat down and started in on a box of Ju-Juy Fruits, and Harley leaned over to me and whispered: When I get big, you know what I’m gonna do?" I told him no I didn’t know and be quiet so I could watch the movie . . it was called “The Thing" . . . about a vegetable monster ... so Harley said . . . his eyes gleaming in that dark place ... he said, just nine years old ... he said (WHISPERS) "When I get big, I’m gonna fuck that white lady in that cage."

(IMMEDIATELY ALL LIGHTS GO OUT AND THE SOUNDS AND IMAGES OF REAL WAR FILLS THE HOUSE. BOMBS FALLING, WOUNDED SOLDIERS, SCREAMxS, ETC. THEY SHOULD LAST FOR FIFTEEN SECONDS THEN END, ABRUPTLY. CARL WANDERS DR WHERE WE FIND SANDY, WHO IS PRETTY BUT NOT BEAUTIFUL IN APPEARANCE. THIS IS A WARM ENCOUNTER, WITH JUST AN UNDERCURRENT OF TENSION.)

SANDY (CALLING HIM) Carl, you've already missed the news. Probably just as well, nothing but chaos. (COMES TO HIM, EAGERLY) Please honey, come and eat your dinner.

CARL Alright. What are we having?

SANDY (PROUDLY) It's not going to be like just any Friday. I have a surprise, I hope you won't be angry. I splurged! (PAUSE) Aren't you curious? We're having Red Snapper, honey. (KISSES HIM ON THE CHEEK, WANTING HIS APPROVAL) Cold Red Snapper!

CARL (SENSING HIS NEGLECT) I'm sorry, Sandy. What did the doctor say today?

SANDY He said . . . (COYLY) he said for me to stop worrying, take vinegar douches and "keep on making happy love."

CARL (SEXILY) We'll make one of those little black screamers yet, baby,

SANDY Let’s eat, first. (SHE LEAVES TO GET DINNER. THE LIGHT GOES OUT AND HE WANDERS TO CENTER, SITS AND LIGHTS A I - 11 57

CIGARETTE. SOON WE HEAR HIS VOICE (PRERECORDED) STATING FACTS. THE FOLLOWING SCENES THAT INTERJECT MOVE RAPIDLY AND WE SHOULD SEE COMPLIMENTARY IMAGES, WITH FLASHING LIGHTS, THROUGHOUT. CARL JUST SMOKES.) 1619—Twenty Negroes purchased by English colonists of Jamestown, Virginia, to serve as bondsmen.

1663—More than one hundred slave revolts occur on land and on ships at sea.

1770—Crispus Attucks killed in the Boston Massacre.

(LIGHT ON DL)

LLOYD Faye, how can we teach those boys that they must work hard and sacrifice if they are to make something of themselves?

FAYE They'll learn what's right; somehow, they'll learn. You learned, didn't you?

LLOYD If you want to be free, you got to be right and then toe the line. (LIGHT OUT)

1775—As commander of the Continental Army, George Washington orders all Negroes exluded from service in war. Later modified accepting free Negroes but barring slaves.

1787—Founding fathers provide for a twenty-year extension of slave trade in drafting the Constitution.

(LIGHT ON UR) ALFRED I got my notice from "Uncle Sam" today.

BONNER (LAUGHES) You going?

RUDY I'm going, when the Army stops usin' tanks and starts usin' long, green Cadillacs.

BONNER You're in Junior Bonner's Army, baby! (LIGHT OUT)

1800—Denmark Vesey organizes a plot to seize Charleston, South Carolina. Betrayed! Vesey and forty-seven 1-12 58

others executed.

(LIGHT ON ÜL)

HAROLD Did you hear about the president's response to Carl's letter, Max?

MAX Yes, what's your response?

HAROLD Ah . . . Bob and I were just talking about that. Yes, we were just discussing that. I'm not as optimistic . . .

MAX I understand. (LIGHT OUT)

1831—Nat Turner leads fellow slaves in Southhampton County, Virginia insurrection. Fifty-nine white men, women and children murdered.

(LIGHT ON DR)

SANDY Carl, if you don't get some rest, we won't ever have a baby. Come to bed, honey; you've done enough work tonight. (LIGHT OUT)

1857--In Scott vs Sanford (DRED SCOTT DECISION), U.S. Supreme Court proclaims slavery a national concept and states that Negroes have "no rights a white man need respect."

1863—President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation.

(THE MOCKING LAUGHTER OF BONNER, RUDY AND ALFRED IS HEARD. CARL GOES TO TALK TO THE MAN.)

CARL My man? Oh, there you are: I hadn't noticed that you moved. Not seeing you gave me a start; its happened so many times before. But tonight is the night; I must keep at it! (EACH CHARACTER IN TURN CALLS, "CARL." THE ORDER IS UNIMPORTANT, EXCEPT THAT BONNER AND CO. ARE LAST AND THEY SHOUT IN UNISON. THE CALLING SHOULD BUILD TO PRODUCE A RESOUNDING CHEER.) There! (TO THE MAN) It seemed quite simple didn't it? (PAUSE) They'll back me up. (PAUSE) Truth! It's that simple. (HE STARTS TO LIGHT A CIGARETTE BUT PUTS IT AWAY AS THE LIGHT COMES ON DL).

/ 1-13 59

FAYE Carl . . . that’s what the principal said, Is that the correct story?

LLOYD (IN A RAGE) Now I suppose you feel great? Answer me! Tell me why you had to fight the mayor’s son? Did it ever occur to you that I have to look at that man when he brings his car in here? No all you want to do is hit some white boy and feel like a big shot.

CARL . I have a reason . . .

LLOYD The mayor is a decent man, boy! He doesn’t even have to send his son to your school, but he does. Don’t you know that? I suppose you have a real pat excuse, don't you?

CARL Bobby called Harley a . . .

LLOYD (NOT WANTING TO HEAR IT) So what! Will a name kill you?

CARL Just a little bit, Dad.

FAYE He’s got to stand up for his little brother, Lloyd. If he doesn’t, who will?

LLOYD He doesn’t have to hit the mayor’s boy, over something like that!.

CARL Next time, I’ll speak to the mayor.

FAYE Just try to do right, Carl. (LIGHT OUT. CARL WALKS TO CENTER AND LOOKS FOR A LIGHT FOR HIS CIGARETTE AND SEES HARLEY WHO TRYS TO AVOID HIM. HARLEY IS WEARING SOME OF ALL THE LATEST BLACK FASHION FADS: LONG NATURAL, BEADS, A DASTrTKI, ETC.)

HARLEY I’m sorry about the other night, Carl, but I just can’t join that class thing you’re talking about. Do you realize what would happen to my thing . . . why the fellows would put me down . . . and if they put me down, I'm down! And 1-14 60

it’s something else too . . . it’s the brotherhood thing, you dig?

CARL (WEARILY) I am your brother, Harley.

HARLEY Oh, you going to bring up that brotherhood thing. Okay, man, so I owe you. So you slapped a few white dudes when they called your little brother a jig-a-boo. So you let me nap at your pad when Lloyd threw me out of the house . . . and you gave me some bread to go to night school, which I didn’t dig in the first place. So you did a ton of beautiful things for me ... so thanks!

CARL I don’t need you to patronize me, too. You talk about the power of black; how long do you think it will be before that long hair snarls your brain and those beads choke you to death. (HARLEY STARTS TO LEAVE AND IS CUT OFF) Don’t you undersatnd that we need substance: no more masks, no more rules. No more fake Negro! No more like me.

HARLEY Carl, it’s different. We don’t mind being black, you dig? You talk about my hair; well that’s beautiful to us. No more grease, no more hair tonic embarrassment: just long and nappy!

CARL Nappy and happy. Do you think that’s where peace is . . . internal peace?

HARLEY For me, yes! Carl, I bust my back five days a week on the dock . . . you know why? . . . so I can buy pretty black peoples’ clothes and take out pretty black ladies. Black is beautiful, and we don’t want nothing from white people or from jive-middle-class Negroes,•either. (CARL STARTS TO SPEAK) This is a revolution, Carl; there ain't no middle. (CARL STARTS TO SPEAK) Maybe you’d better stop trying to be half-way black. Some of the fellows don’t dig you . . . they hurt people like you. (CARL STARTS TO SPEAK) They know you're my brother, but that's not the same kind of brotherhood we’re laying down. You gotta have a black soul, and prove it.

CARL (DISAPPOINTED) I see. (SEARCHES FOR A MATCH) I need a light, got one? (HARLEY LOOKS AT HIM CONTEMPTUOUSLY) I need a 1-15 61 match, brother, can you give me a match?

HARLEY (PROUDLY, EXCESSIVELY) No man! I don't smoke no more. And I don't drink. I'm cleaning up my mind and my body. (CARL STARTS TO SPEAK) None of you cats that made it out understand that; you're all too busy in that half-way white world. Look, I've gotta make it; see you around.

CARL (REACHING OUT) Harley, maybe we . . .

HARLEY (IMPATIENTLY) What time you got?

CARL (CHECKS HIS WATCH IN DISBELIEF) It can't be this late; my watch must have stopped.

HARLEY Yeah, a long time ago. Look, I've got to go see some of the folks.

CARL (QUICKLY) Could I come along?

HARLEY (SIMPLY) No, this is someplace special. These are black folks. See ya', brother. (HE LEAVES BEYOND THE BAR AS THE LIGHT GOES OUT. WE SEE CARL FRANTICALLY SEARCHING FOR A MATCH. DISTRAUGHT, HE RUSHES HOME, DR)

CARL I . ... I rushed home, but I don't want to stay here.

SANDY (MISSING HIS MOOD) Well let’s go someplace. Isn't there someplace special we can go?

CARL No! . . .we can't go there, Sandy, not yet.

SANDY ’Where? Where can't we go?

CARL We can go for a long walk.

SANDY Big deal! 1-16 62

CARL (CRASSLY) We can't just go anyplace . . . right now.

SANDY You don't have to get upset, just because I ask you to take me someplace. You seem to find enough special places to go to, apparently.

CARL (PLEADING FOR HER UNDERSTANDING, THOUGH HE IS INCAPABLE OF TELLING HER) Some of it is not clear, Sandy. The struggle . . .

SANDY Oh, it's clear, alright. Your going out every evening doesn't seem to be much of a struggle for you.

CARL I tell you where I go, every time.

SANDY Sure . . . "To the bar." . . . "to catch the pulse of things" . . . "to try and help my brothers." Some explanations!

CARL Oh, Sandy . . .

SANDY (BEGINNING HERSELF TO BE FEARFUL) Carl, do you realize that I don't really know, anymore, what you are all about? I wait and I don't know what I'm waiting for. (STRAINED) How long do you expect me to wait for you to come from that bar . . . from the endless meetings . . . for you to come home to me from your own thoughts? For how long will I be shut out! Carl, this is terrible . . .

CARL (ABSENTLY) This is a terrible time. (SHE TURNS AWAY AND THE LIGHT GOES OUT DR: CARL WANDERS TO CENTER AND SITS FACING OUT. THE HAUNTED MELODY PLAYS AND FOUR BRIEF SEQUENCES APPEAR, QUICKLY. UR BONNER & CO. ARE SERIOUSLY ENGROSSED IN READING AND DISCUSSING "THE PLAY" AS ARE B03, HAROLD & MAX UL. FAYE AND LLOYD ARE DL WEEPING AND ANGRY, RESPECTIVELY. DR SANDY AND EDIE ARE LAUGHING AND DANCING MERRILY. SHARON RUNS FROM DL TO UR, STOPPING BRIEFLY TO LOOK AT CARL AS SHE PASSES. THE MUSIC ENDS: CARL STANDS AND ADDRESSES THE MAN.)

CARL How comforting to be alone with one's thoughts. Sometimes 1-17 63

we need a relief, don’t you agree? (PAUSE) What’s that? The plan? Yes, I know you’re anxious for me to get to that; (SMILES) I could hear you mumbling something about that while I was thinking. You’re just like the little old bread maker, you never rest do you? You know what I was thinking about? Well, I decided ... to stop smoking! But here’s the big decision. (SLOWLY DC) here’s the plan. (ANGUISHED) Nooooo! I can't tell you 1-2-3, because that's not how it happened. I guess no one can really describe what it is like, except that it is different. (PAUSE) Anything that different will make you start smoking. (HE LIGHTS A CIGARETTE AND STANDS DR, AS THE LIGHT COMES UP ON BOB, HAROLD AND MAX READING THE PLAN.)

BOB What do you think, Max?

HAROLD It's a beautiful piece of thought, isn't it, Max?

MAX Not only a beautiful piece of "thought," but a stunning application of creative social reform. It's really some­ thing.

BOB That’s for sure.

MAX Our brilliant colleague just might have fashioned the blueprint of our reconciliation.

BOB You’ve got to be mad!

HAROLD Don't freeze up now, brother. It may be different, but a hopeless situation demands a radical solution. To me, the beauty of the plan is its total involvement. We bring them into the court proceedings, the draft board hearings, real estate commissions, parole boards, Mayor's committees and the whole works. Here we have all the policy makers, sure enough making policy! ... If you'll permit me to delve into the ethnic vernacular . . . the plan will make all of us button up our lips and put our asses on the firing line.

30B What about the legalities, administrative hangups, etc.? You know how long it takes the status quo to respond to I - 18 64

innovative suggestions. It’s virtually impossible to even get half-ass recommendations approved.

HAROLD In ordinary times, yes. But these are not ordinary times. The power moguls are scared shitless themselves.

BOB When they’re scared shitless, it doesn’t necessarily make them more receptive to radical proposals. In fact, all evidence points to the contrary—they become more recalci­ trant .

MAX That’s our task, to reduce their stubborness.

BOB And to do that, we need time!

HAROLD And time is what we don’t have. The brothers are looking for answers. And when they're fed up with waiting, they want everybody to do like the sergeant in the army said: "Fall out every living ass."

CARL (ENTERING) That’s right, brother.

HAROLD Where have you been, brother? We stayed up waiting for you.

CARL I’ve been thinking.

HAROLD Don’t mess with this brother when he’s been thinking.

BOB 'Well, do some thinking for these nuts . . . Carl, you didn't mean for this plan to be taken literally, but rather as the basis for more realistic compromise, didn't you?

CARL I meant it as it is.

BOB Without serious modification what fools chance do you think it has of getting accepted? My father, for one, will think 1-19 6$

we’re a bunch of crackpots who've gone off the deep end.

CARL Your father will also give us permanent possession of the keys to the city if we can rescue him and all the rest of us . . . Everyone is looking for alternatives. This plan is the only alternative that will work.

MAX I think the plan is pretty reasonable under the circumstances.

BOB I don't think that’s an objective evaluation.

CARL Would you rather objectively evaluate a riot . . .?

HAROLD Carl, have Bonner and his associates agreed to the guide­ lines?

CARL We're still rapping. He knows where I'm coming from. I'm optimistic about his approval.

MAX Are they willing to allow us time? Will they keep the truce until we can soften up possible resistance?

CARL We don't have three-hundred years to wait!

HAROLD Hear, Hear!

CARL The crucial issue is our own faith, conviction and solidarity among each other. Whether we're willing to go down to hell and damnation in forcing them to accept what's desperately needed to rescue us all from a fucked up situation. They don't dare reject the plan if we are united behind it. It's as simple as that . . . What do you say? Are you with me?

HAROLD I'm with you brother.

MAX . . . As Bob says, I may be touched with a bit of madness, but I have nothing else to lose but everything. Count me in . . . 1-20 66

CARL And you, Bob?

BOB ’Well, gentlemen, my father may wish I was something that ran down his leg, but . . . lead on MacDuff.

CARL Good. I’ll consult with Bonner first, then we’ll all march downtown to confront our city fathers.

HAROLD Vie’ll be waiting in the trenches 'til our leader calls.

(THEY LEAVE LAUGHING AT AND WITH HAROLD. WE SEE BONNER & CO. READING AND ALTERING THE PLAN THROUGHOUT. PROJECTED IMAGES OF BLACK WOMEN IN PAIN . . . DOING THINGS THEY’VE NEVER LIKED DOING. CARL IS STRUCK BY THE IMAGES AND BY SHARON’S PRESENCE. HE SITS.)

4 SHARON Carl, what are you trying to do to yourself? I heard your brother and those boys talking about you when they came into the club last night. Carl, they’ll just eat you and then toss you away like leavings from the supper table. I know them well . . . intimately . . . and that's just another twist in a very winding road. (PROJECTED IMAGES OF BLACK WOMEN JOYOUS BESIDE THEIR SUCCESSFUL MEN). Carl, your knowledge and your position mean a lot to me . . . and has kept me going through many a dark night. When our son asks about his daddy, I know that whatever lies I tell and what­ ever sacrifices I make have meaning. Don't misunderstand, I don’t want your pity and I don't need your praise: I made my choices and I live- with them. I need you to be the man you are . . . somebody truthful in my life. I need that from you! (LIGHT OUT. HE STARTS HOME BUT IS HIT WITH ANOTHER MEMORY AND ACCOMPANYING IMAGES FROM HIS YOUTH)

LLOYD You surely have something important to face now . . .

FAYE Son, that girl, Sharon, was here today and she . . . is . . (RELUCTANT TO FINISH)

LLOYD . . . is very much full about the belly. It seems you haven’t spent all your time reading books and being a tough little nigger. 1-21 67

FAYE She doesn't want you to miss college ... didn't she say that, Dad?

LLOYD She said quite a few things that prove she's a darn sight better than you are, boy. (LIGHT OUT)

CARL (TO HIMSELF, STARTING TO GO HOME AGAIN) It only happened once. (AGAIN THE MEMORIES STOP HIM. THEY COME WITH INCREASING SWIFTNESS, DRIVING AND PULLING AT HIM, UNTIL THEY ALMOST OVERLAP AT THE END)

SHARON Don’t you fall down here with me and those boys . . .

LLOYD I'll pay for your mistake this time . . .

FAYE You owe that girl something ...

SHARON Dragging me and your own son down . . .

LLOYD I’m depending on you to make it, boy . . .

FAYE Vie want to be proud of you, son . . .

SHARON Carl, they're ready to kill and die and take you down with them ,. . .

LLOYD AND FAYE You got to make it son . . . lotta people countin' on you.

SHARON I need you to be a dignified man, even if I'm.not Mrs. Carl Blanks. (LIGHT OUT. CARL IS REELING AND BROUGHT OUT OF HIS THOUGHTS BY THE SQUEALING LAUGHTER OF SANDY AND EDIE . . . THEY ARE DANCING HAPPILY. CARL SEARCHES HIS BRIEFCASE, WHILE LOOKING FOR THE MAN)

CARL Oh, I admit my reluctance ... I suppose there's some embarassment and some . . . fear. (PAUSE) Really, the whole matter is quite simple ... at least it began that 1-22 68

way. (IN AGONY) How did it really begin? (PRE-RECORDED "FACTS" AND IMAGES ARE PROJECTED)

1903—W.E.B. DuBois published The Souls of 31ack Folks

1919—Twenty race riots rock the United States. Washington, D.C., July 19 . . • Chicago, July 27 . . . known as the "Red Summer."

1930—The Black Muslim movement founded in Detroit.

1944—All-Negro 92nd Infantry Division loses 3,000 lives in the Italian Campaign. Awarded 65 Silver Stars, and 1,300 Purple Hearts.

(SANDY AND EDIE CUT THROUGH AGAIN WITH LAUGHTER, LIGHT UP ON THEM DR. CARL SMOKES AND LEAFS THROUGH IMPORTANT PAPERS)

SANDY Now, Edie, don’t you say anything yet. I haven’t told Carl.

EDIE Jesus, Sandy, you’ve got some restraint. I ran right up to that big old intellectual factory and went straight to Bob’s office and (LIFTS HER DRESS OVER HER HEAD, ONCE AND QUICKLY) said: LOOK!

SANDY (EMBARASSED) Edie!

EDIE You should have seen his face. Then he went all Ph. d-ish on me . . . mumbling about the chairman of the department coming in . . . (LAUGHS ALOUD, DOES AN "OPPS!" THEN WHISPERS AGAIN) So I told my dear, erudite husband . . . because it seemed like he had forgotten . . . "it was you, long John Silver, who knocked me up . . . not the chairman of the department."

SANDY I wonder how Carl will react? We've been wanting a baby for so long.

EDIE He’ll probably swallow his briefcase.

SANDY Sometimes Carl does react unexpectedly when he’s working on some project. 1-23 69

EDIE I know what you mean. (TRYING TO KEEP SANDY UP) Hey, Sandy, here’s a way to wipe out discrimination. Put all the men into one big university to study the world’s problems, let them out twice a month to screw . . . then we would be forced to really solve the problems they study about (KNOWING HER STORY HAS GONE DOWNHILL) in cooperative loneliness.

SANDY I don’t like Carl being away so much either; but right now I’m too thankful to care. I’m going to tell him. (SHE GOES TO CARL, WHO IS PREOCCUPIED)

CARL Did anyone call today?

SANDY (BUBBLING) Carl, I’ve got some news for you.

CARL Did a . . . ah . . . man named Bonner call?

SANDY Good news, my wonderful, intelligent, creative, virile husband.

CARL (ANNOYED BY THE FLATTERY) Not Red Snapper again, is it?

SANDY I’d get mad at you for talking about my specialty if (COYLY) I wasn’t so pregnant. (PAUSE) Well, what does the smartest sociologist in the whole world say about that?

CARL (TO HIMSELF) What a time for that to happen.

SANDY (SHAKEN) What! What did you say?

CARL I didn’t mean that the way it sounds, Sandy. 3ut something terribly•important to all our lives is about to happen. I planned to tell you all about it this evening.

SANDY What so terribly important is about to happen that you can’t 1-24 70

take a few minutes to tell your wife that you’re happy she’s going to give you your first baby?

CARL Sandy, please listen . . .

I’m tired of listening! What social_pr-O.hle.m. is more .impo.rtan.t„t.o-^youU:han.-youiu.ma-nho.o4J I know it won’t be very exciting to those people at that Bar you live in . . . and you probably can't write a damn article about it . . .

CARL Please ...

SANDY But for little insignificant me . . . it’s what I've been waiting for and praying for . . . and crying for . . . and now you tell me that the time isn't right! By whose damn calendar are you living your life, Carl!

CARL (SHAKEN DEEPLY . . . RESULTING IN AN ALMOST SIMPLEMINDEDNESS OF EXPRESSION) There's no way I can explain . . .

SANDY (TERRIFIED) Don't explain anything to me. Do something? (SHE RUSHES BACK TO EDIE, THEY LEAVE. CARL LIGHTS A CIGARETTE AS A FUNKY BLUES COMES UP AND BONNER & CO. EMERGE FROM THE BAR WITH THE PLAN. CARL GOES TO THEM.)

CARL . . . Well, Junior Bonner, is there anything you want clari­ fied?

BONNER I'm not ignorant, brother. You forget, you just write about the "peoples," I live with ’em. I know what’s been happening all these years ... to my grandfather, my faaaather and my older brother . . . and all the rest of the cats who end up shooting smack and drinkin' wine and playing checkers all their lives . . . But that’s not the point right now . . .

CARL You got something in mind? Run it down.

BONNER You see, Carl . . . all our lives we been studied at., writian about, analyzed, proposed to♦ programmed and planned for> Finally, when the’deal goes down, all the plans have always 1-25 71 amounted to shit . . . Your plan ain't the first one, pro­ fessor, but it sure might well be the last.. You see, pro­ fessor, the one thing missing in your plan is the same thing that’s always been missing in all the other plans. That one little old absent thing ... is control.

CARL There’s control in the plan.

BONNER I'm hip! But we ain't got none of it!

CARL We cooperate together.

BONNER Been done before, professor. No good.

CARL My friends and I will be fully involved. Don’t you trust us?

HARLEY Your friends agree to the plan, Carl?

CARL To the limit.

BONNER Still no good, professor.

CARL Then, what kind of control you need, Junior Bonner?

BONNER Not me, brother, we . . . all of us.

ALFRED Don't forget my part, Junior Bonner!

BONNER There's a whole lot of folks who don't want to be forgotten this time. Like all the folks down here who've always been forgotten in those other jive plans.

CARL What kind of control, Junior Bonner?

BONNER We need to call the shots, all of 'em, from the very begin­ ning, dig it? 1-26 72

CARL Suppose my friends reject that prospect?

HARLEY If they agreed to your proposal, don’t worry, they'll go for ours.

CARL I’ll know that better when I hear the specifics.

RUDY You know, ’fessor, we could just throw you and your plan offa the top of one of these buildings.

HARLEY That’s my brother, Rudy . . . There’s no need . . .

RUDY If I have to cut off his right nut, you better be gettin* the left one . . . Brother!

BONNER Cool it! . . . You see, Carl, it’s very simple. The plan’s got to be a little blacker, that’s all.

ALFRED Yeah, I got a hip plan on how to cool out this funky city . .

BONNER Alfred! . . . Alright, professor, let me run it down . . . the specifics . . . Are you ready, cause it’s dynamite. No—in fact it’s this OR dynamite, you dig?

CARL I’m listening, Junior Bonner. BONNER Instead of the people from the community just going to these jive boards and commissions to have a dialogue and participate . . . as you put it ... we want to run them completely.

CARL I don’t get you.

BONNER For one month . . . one month . . . for just one month we put the people into the power slots with complete authority to make decisions. Some in the courts, some in city hall, some in the university thing, some at the police department. All those things you already got in your plan . . . except 1-27 73 we wrant the top slots . . . with the power to make final decisions . . . one month! You see we’re very reasonable. We’re not asking for a lifetime, or the forever time them power dudes been crapping on top of us. Just one month for them to relinquish the reins of control to us. Just one month for us to find out how to reverse this madness we have to deal with and show them how to keep on reversin' it. One month!

CARL And what do the power dudes do during that time—take a trip to Florida?

RUDY Hell no, mutha. They comes down here and lives in this shit for a month.

BONNER You see we plan to use them as consultants and confidants when we have to make decisions . . . like in a courtroom or dealing with urban renewal. . . We plan to utilize them for information and attitudes. But we wrant them to make sure they get some realistic attitudes and some realist information. Dig it? So they come here, live on our starvation diets and menus, survive on our pissy bedgets, cope with our monster rats, rodents, cockroaches and the rank garbage of our streets and our lives.

RUDY And we goes up there where they live and scope on their point of view . . . from them big fat houses eatin' on that big fat hog.

ALFRED And riding those real horses too, huh, Rudy?

CARL They've always rejected less, Junior Bonner. What makes you think they'll accept more?

BONNER What other choice do they have? They've never faced the consequences they're faced with now. Like I said, it's this or dynamite. If not from the Junior Bonners, or the Rudys, or the Black Alfreds, then certainly from all the others who are just waiting to get the bonfires blazing . . . Besides, your friends have already made the giant step in agreeing to your plan. Is it too much to ask them to stretch a little farther in going for our little temporary amendment. One month is a very short time to exchange for even worse 1-28 74

"bad news?"

CARL (AFTER A LONG PAUSE) You know . . . Junior Bonner . . .it’s so fantastic, it’s almost appealing . . . We've all been like blind rats racing around in a dark maze with no avenues of escape in sight . . . Your little amendment . . . might just be the kind of dynamite to open up peoples eyes. All that it requires is a tremendous act of faith. Yes, a tre­ mendous act of faith!

BONNER That’s your word, professor. I say it requires guts . . . pure human chitlins.

CARL . All I can say, Junior Bonner, is that I’m game to try it . . .

RUDY "I’m game to try it!" Listen man, we've heard that shit from other half-white Niggas. If we don't make this plan work, all them other plans those bastards dream up will go down shit street . . . and there's a lot of us who know where the street is at!

BONNER How about it. Carl! Are you ready to put yourself up for colateral?

CARL Like how?

BONNER Lay everything on the line. If your friends and those pro­ fessional administrators.freeze up, are you ready to accept the "bad news?"

CARL Meaning what? BONNER Meaning "pure-d-hell for everybody . . . your wife, that singer broad . . . your little boy . . .

CARL Don't threaten my family or anybody involved with me!

BONNER I’m not threatening your family, brother . . . But my family and Rudy's family and Alfred's family and all the other 1-29 75 black people who are tired of eating dog shit for every meal. If the heat comes on, there won't be no cool place to hide for anybody's family!

RUDY Shit! If you ask me, the heats been on!

BONNER Is the message clear, brother?

CARL I understand ... as long as you also read me clear.

BONNER Groovy ... I hope your friends come through for me as well as you.

CARL They say risk is also part of the black struggle, brother.

ALFRED Can I really be what you said, Junior Bonner?

RUDY I know whose place I'm gonna take.

HARLEY I'm glad you picked up the axe, brother.

BONNER Yes, Harley, but you'll be the executioner if your brother has misinterpreted his friends* ideals.

HARLEY Execute what?

BONNER Some minds . . .

RUDY Some asses . . .

ALFRED And you'll be the cut-off man. Ha ha ha.

(THEY ALL EXIT EXCEPT CARL. HE WALKS DOWN CENTER AND SPEAKS TO THE MAN)

CARL My Man, I know you've already got it figured out, because 1-30 76 you’ve got Soul . . . Now I, too, am a Soul Brother. LL LIGHTS GO OUT AS CARL STANDS MOTIONLESS. THE HAUNTED LODY RISES) BLACKNESS Tl

ACT II

AGAIN THE HAUNTED MELODY IS HEARD. AS THE LIGHT COMES UP WE FIND CARL STANDING AT CENTER, JUST AS HE WAS. AFTER A FEW MOMENTS THE MELODY ENDS AND HE SPEAKS TO THE MAN.

CARL My Man? Oh, there you are. I didn’t want you to leave because tonight is the night. The whole business is a relief. (PAUSE) It’s always a relief for a man to know where he stands and who he is and what’s happening to him, isn't it? (PAUSE) I tried to be me. (SOFTLY) That’s why I called you; there were no more alternatives. (PAUSE) I listened for a long time. I heard the thump, thump, thump of the heart. I heard the television news and the grass growing loudly in the vacant lots where the waste of dogs was white and crusty. I heard the dying gasps of healthy people . . . round and plump until the final wheeze: then a chill set in. Yes, My Man, a chill, a supremely different dimension of what we all know as a common chill. Night riding on the bony wing of a huge, naked bird. (PAUSE) It was different, quite an experience. Often it is said that we are extended by our experiences; I was thus extended. (PAUSE) The dank air funneled behind my ears, the white stuff of the clouds passed through my eye sockets; while in the mud, my bare feet tracked a pattern: ankle deep. (MOCKING HIMSELF, PLAYFULLY) Through it all, I didn’t forget that I’m a sociologist; (SMILES) relevancy regained its grip. Life’s handlebars! (PAUSE) 3ut after awhile even that was different, for relevancy wrap ped around my extended waist like a moist python; only it didn't squeeze, it just circled around me and began to shut out the light. (PAUSE) It was getting cold and dark: (SOFTLY) Grandma's basement, Grandad's grave, the penguin's playground, Plato’s cave. (LIGHT COMES UP ON MAN, HAROLD AND BOB WHO ARE READING CARL’S AMENDED PLAN AND THEY EXPLODE ON CARL).

B03 Carl, we . . .

MAX Listen, Carl . . .

CARL Won't! Just say won't, if that's how it is.

HAROLD ’Why didn't you tell us about the little amendment before you took the plan downtown? II - 2 78

CARL Are you telling me that you won’t join with us?

BOB Carl, your amended proposal just wipes out the necessary control measures.

CARL Well, we’ll just have to handle the problems as they come up. Damit, there isn't time to play prophylactic games.

MAX We even did some of the groundwork, Carl. We've got some of the mechanics of those programs you outlined all set to begin . . . pending their being funded of course.

CARL There isn't time for all this academic . . .

HAROLD Man, you're not even stopping to reason. We haven't just been sitting on our behinds passing judgement. I talked to your president and he thought the community-academic- seminar was a good idea. And he committed some money to bring in some of the prominent literary and political talent to relate to people like that Bonner kid.

CARL Stop all this prattle . . . this shit! Not only should Bonner come to the university to be related to but he thinks he can and should teach there. I happen to think we should be given an opportunity to have him relate his criminal experiences in the department . . .

■ HAROLD He’s been bit!

30B Don't be so pig headed! I talked to Dad and he's in favor of renovating some buildings down in the core area so that the apprentice classes in community action control . . .

CARL (GETTING DISTRAUGHT) Guys like Rudy don't need just renovation, and we'd better show some innovation. Rudy wants to show us how to run the police department not just learn why it works ... or doesn't work.

MAX Carl, please listen. I'll go live in their houses . . . just like you told the Prosecutor. They can have my crummy II - 3 79

apartment . . . there’s nothing there but the decorations and the walls. But by what code—legal or social—can I tell someone else to switch places . . .

CARL We’d better start trusting the Rudys and the Alfreds and start putting a little faith in our capacity to adjust. (LOUDLY) Must young black people always do the adjusting . . .

HAROLD Carl, what’s the matter with you? Don't you realize that we're all willing to make sacrifices. I don't happen to feel like some twentieth-century Nat Turner as apparently you do. Damn right its time for action; but we can't let our reason be destroyed by our personal histories . . . however wierd the pages read. What you're suggesting in this little amendment just can't be done; nobody can do it.

CARL Your personal history isn't even personal anymore, Bro! (MAX HAS TO RESTRAIN HAROLD) That's right, be ready to do something ...

303 You talk about an act of faith, what do you want me to do, send my wife down there for them to give vent to their pent up agression . . . You're so screwed up trying to be the great black faith healer, you'd probably give your own wife for "the cause."

CARL They don't much be wantin' white women anymore, Bob!

BOB I don't have to take this crap from you . . . (HE STARTS TO LEAVE AND IS CUT OFF BY CARL)

CARL (LABORED) Listen, man. Dig this. Poor Black Alfred has seen your Dad's picture in the papers and has heard stories of his riding exploits. Poor black-assed Alfred got kicked in the head sneaking into a circus trying to ride an old work horse. (SADLY) Now Alfred want's to ride a thorough­ bred horse and thinks he has to be the mayor to do it.

HAROLD He's really been bit! (BOB LAUGHS AND TURNS AWAY)

CARL Not everyone in the ghetto wants to be lawyers and sociolo­ II - 4 80

gists; some like Alfred will do other things if they get a chance to ride a thoroughbred horse ... in whatever form it comes.

MAX Carl, I’m only one man ... (HE HARDLY GETS THIS OUT WHEN HAROLD LEAPS AT CARL)

HAROLD Man, you are the original "Doctor Tom-ASS." So the ghetto is full of simple, small visioned, gentle people who merely want to exist with a few of life’s pleasures? Remember, I’ve been there too, and if you’ve been down there talking that crap . . . man, what they wouldn’t do to you?

CARL Rudy wants to kill somebody . . . Maybe you, maybe me . . . to prove to himself that he’s not a weak faggot because his manhood is hiding up his ass.

HAROLD And you let a young punk ram your manhood up your ass?

CARL I have to support them with action and you do too, Brother!

HAROLD Action? Aren’t you something. I want to take some action to become a judge someday . . . you . . . prefabricated militant . . . but I’m not about to cause a holocaust on thousands of brothers just to fulfill my personal aspirations

CARL You better help relieve the pressure on them.

HAROLD Pressure? Some of those young bastards don’t know what pres­ sure is . . . and you seem to have forgotten. You irk my black ass, now Carl . . . you better dig that pressure! (MAX AND BOB INTERVENE)

BOB You suggest we do whatever they say . . . give them a two day tranquillizer of power and glory and then knock the shit out of them back to the ghetto with a happy headache?

MAX That's even a greater deceit, Carl.

HAROLD Is that how you got out? You better remember . . . II - 5 81

CARL I’m not out, Harold, neither are you, yet! Listen, we’ve got to show some real faith . . . along- with the rest of our well meaning programs. You've got to trust Bonner, Rudy, Alfred and me too! You've got to trust that black people won't burn up this beautiful world. We all have to take off the masks, and I'm glad the time is here. This is not "tell" time, this is "show" time!

MAX Carl, the president of the university and the mayor have already indicated to us that they’re not going to yield to any ultimatums. What else can we do?

HAROLD And what if we do and all the power people just chuckle and watch us~3isappear?

CARL (WEARY AND SHAKEN) You’d do what you have to do, Man.

HAROLD I can see it now. Resign our jobs . . . buy a dashiki . . . say "Right On!"... Let me tell you something, crazy intellectual soul-brother. I won't compromise my sense of right and wrong to pacify a hand full of juveniles, and I don't care what the black masses or the pseudo-ghetto people like you think about me. I have to trust my own behavior and pray that what I'm doing will be right in the long run.

BOB That's about where I stand too, Carl.

CARL (MORE TO HIMSELF) Can't we prove our capacity to trust another person, even if he's not lettered, refined and well scrubbed? (HE STARTS TO PACE ABOUT)

HAROLD Who needs proof, they or you?

MAX Trust is not a slogan, Carl; it takes a long time to be born. That's the tragic thought from my ethnic memory.

CARL (ERUPTING) Then we've been writing the wrong tragedies and giving birth to the wrong babies. II - 6 $2

BOB A Negro Nietzche! You’re nuts.

HAROLD And if you don't pull yourself together, you'll be unem­ ployed . . . that's straight from the cow's mouth, Ghandi.

CARL (LAUGHING STRANGELY) We'll know what we should have done one day ... or somebody else will know. The historians and the groundhogs will know, ha, ha.

MAX Don't give up, Carl, we have too much to lose.

HAROLD Are you coming our way, brother, or are you going to chase an illusion?

CARL (ALMOST SING-SONGY) Look in the mirror, what do you see: a man with a face or thee?

MAX Wake up, Carl. Nobody can do what those boys have in mind. Even you can't.

CARL ■I oxuit smoking.

BOB Edie and I were supposed to eat dinner at your house tonight. Are you going home now?

CARL (SOMBERLY) I don't eat pork anymore.

HAROLD Leave him alone; that's what he wants. (THEY BEGIN TO LEAVE) How do you say so long in Arabic, Carl X?

MAX (LEAVING RELUCTANTLY) Call me later, Carl, will you?

(CARL CROSSES DC TO ADDRESS THE MAN) Won't! They won't, My Man! I'll wager that it's always cold in the beginning. I didn't know that immediately. It always takes awhile to understand who people really are, doesn't it? You have to see snow before it melts, otherwise you'd II - 7 83

think it just rained, or that something just sprung a leak. All our lives we strive to understand people and predict the weather; nothing else really matters. (PAUSE) Where? Where? (IN EARNEST) Where is God, and where is the weather­ man? (HE GOES DR TO HIS PARENTS . . . HERE HE CONFRONTS THEM FOR THE FIRST TIME.)

LLOYD You don't have to come back here. You don’t owe us anything . . . least of all any explanation of why you acted like a fool.

FAYE I want to know, son. Tell me what was so important that you had to bring shame on us and on yourself.

‘ CARL There’s no explanation. I did what you told me to do . . . when the time came, I acted like a man.

LLOYD Getting fired from your job, is that acting like a man?

CARL I resigned, Dad.

FAYE Your friend, Harold, told us that the president released you.

LLOYD I know the truth. The mayor stopped by the garage and asked if you were sick . . . meaning crazy. How do you think I felt about that?

CARL (TO KlMSELF AS MUCH AS TO THEM) I gave them my resignation.

LLOYD It amounts to the same thing; you're a disgrace. You don't even have enough sense to know what's best for yourself . . let alone what's best for a bunch of no good, lazy punks.

CARL Dad, please . . .

LLOYD A waste, that's what you are. I'll never know what all that schooling did for you, but you sure got things mixed up somewhere along the line. II - 8 84

CARL I know I owe you and Mom ... I owe you so terribly much . . . and I’m trying to untangle the terrible mess of living lies . . . so I can pay up.

FAYE The only payment we want, son, is for you to make us proud of you. That's all! You can do that, can’t you?

CARL Not without telling you lies and living in a dark shadow. Don’t you want me to be an honest black man? Can't I be proud of myself, too?

LLOYD You sound like those other hoodlums who hang out on the corners; you sound like that other good-for-nothing son. (CONTEMPTUOUSLY)

CARL (RILED) Alright now Dad . . .

LLOYD You don't know anything at all about being a black man. A Black man ... a real black man . . . knows how to be proud in his heart and let it go at that. You don't have to have your pride popping out of your mouth all the time.

CARL (3RUTALLY) Not only is your mouth forever closed. Dad, but your heart is empty. That’s not pride you feel in your black heart, it's the pressure of a vacuum.

FAYE Is that what.we’ve earned from you, Carl?

CARL You haven’t just earned it, Mother, you've owned it a long . . . long time.

LLOYD Don't you talk to us that way; get out of here. Go on back to the streets and the vice and the dope; go back where there's filth to match your tongue.

CARL I came here because there's vice and dope in this house. That's why your heart is empty; you've been drugging your mind to keep from risking your heart . . . II - 9 $5 LLOYD (NERVOUS ANGER) Boy ... boy .. .

CARL Stand up, for once, and tell all men . . . not just your son . . . that you’re a black man who wants to open up his heart. Prove that you have the courage and the pride to live black or to be destroyed. (GRABS HIM) If you’re going to die, Dad, know it. (SHAKES HIM) Don't let it sneak upon you and carry you away still eating fried chicken (LLOYD BREAKS AWAY AND PUSHES CARL DOWN. CARL RECOILS . . . WANTS TO FIGHT HIS FATHER BUT, AFTER A MOMENT, LEARNS THAT HE CAN’T)

LLOYD Let me die the way I want to; just you be ready when your time comes.

FAYE Stop it! Stop all this talk about death. We finally get a little breathing room to live and all I hear is talk of death.

CARL Mama, a little breathing room doesn’t last very long, and it makes you hoard the air.

FAYE The little bit I need, God will give me for as long as he wants me to have it.

CARL God may give it, but some white man decides how long. (SHRIEKING) Haven’t all your years of black agony told you that? (DENOUNCINGLY) Come, mother, that's not our son; he's a stranger. Somebody has taken both our sons away. (THEY LEAVE. LIGHT OUT.) CARL (SCREAMING) Who took my mother and father? (CLUTCHES HIS BRIEFCASE AND RUNS OFF, TERRIFIED)

(THE LIGHT FADES IN WERE WE DISCOVER SANDY AND EDIE APPROACHING THE MAN, TIMIDLY. THE DRONE OF A FUNKY BLUES BLARES THEN FADES OUT AS BONNER AND CO. RECOGNIZE THEM)

SANDY Oh, Edie, maybe we shouldn't have come down here.

EDIE (BRACES HERSELF) You've got to ask someone. II - 10 86

RUDY (TO NO ONE ESPECIALLY) Man, this is a funky night.

EDIE (LESS BRAVE) Maybe we should go ask Max where Carl is. (BONNER IS PREOCCUPIED WITH SOME IMPORTANT PAPERS.)

ALFRED You ladies looking for somebody or something?

SANDY No! I mean yes . . .

ALFRED Can’t make up your mind? That happens to me sometimes.

RUDY What’s your name, baby?

EDIE (EMPHATICALLY) Mrs. . . .

RUDY I said, "Baby," which automatically don’t include you, Mrs.

BONNER Don’t be rude Rudy, I recognize the sister. This is Carl’s old lady. Your name is Sandy, right? (EXTENDS HAND WHICH IS NOT GRASPED) I'm Junior Bonner. (HE TOO RECOILS) That isn't nice Mrs. Blanks.

RUDY (ATTEMPTS TO PUT HIS ARM AROUND HER) You're real nervous ain’t you. Let me calm you ... EDIE Keep your hands off her. (ONLY BONNER’S STARE MiAKES RUDY BACK OFF) Come on, Sandy, let's go.

ALFRED Sandy! That’s a pretty name; I'm gonna name by horse Sandy when I get one.

SANDY (BLURTING OUT) What are you doing to my husband?

BONNER To him? What are you talking about? II - 11 87

SANDY (IRATE) Have you seen my husband tonight? (BONNER NODS NEGATIVE) Do you know where he is? (SAME- NOD) Do you all know anything about some kind of drastic action that is going to take place soon? (NODS AFFIRMATELY) What? What is going to happen? Just tell me what's happening to my husband?

RUDY He’s putting his ass on the line.

SANDY You mean, spiteful, black . . . (HARLEY ENTERS)

RUDY Why you washed out, stinking . . .

BONNER (PROTECTIVELY) Cool it! I see your problem, Mrs. Blanks. That's why your husband comes here, and that's why some­ thing drastic is going to happen.

HARLEY Sandy, what are you doing here? (CAUTIOUSLY) Carl isn't around here. Why don't you go home and wait for him!

EDIE You're just like the rest of them; you should be ashamed.

HARLEY White Lady, I don't need you for an opinion on me. Go back to the beauty parlor and get ready to be Miss America . . . and when you get back you might be surprised to find a black woman wearing the crown.

BONNER Okay, Harley save the rhetoric.

SANDY Will somebody just tell me where to find my husband?

BONNER He's gone to have a meeting with the man. He and I have an agreement.

SANDY What has Carl agreed to, Harley?

HARLEY He's agreed to speak for the real black man . . . II - 12 88

BONNER Harley! . . . Mrs. Blanks we have a plan that we believe will help many of the people here in the community. Your husband is playing an important role as our emissary.

ALFRED He made a promise. I believe this one, and I don’t want to be let down!

SANDY What kind of a promise could he make to your kind?

BONNER Maybe you don't know me, lady, but you better have a little faith in "our kind" if you expect—

SANDY Faith? Have faith in what? ... In you? You're all sick! You'd destroy the little peace we have, and you have nothing to put in its place but meaningless slogans or broken bodies . . . You'd kill everybody's dreams just to stick out your chest and hold up your nappy head! BONNER (TO EDIE) You can go anytime. (TO SANDY) But you need to understand something sister. Your head may be crooked, but it surely isn't empty!

SANDY Don't talk to me like that!

BONNER I'm making allowances already ... My back's been bent, and my head's been hung too damn long. We're going up— a lot of black people .are going up. And not just those like you who believe in that horseshit that you've won special victories above the rest of us. We're going up, and if we bust out some ceilings . . . then they'll just have to build a taller house.

SANDY Or bigger jails! BONNER We're going to bust out the sky, and if the rain comes in where you live, then you'd 'better move to another planet. The suburbs won't be far enough, is that clear, bitch!

HARLEY You don't have to talk to her like that! II - 13 89

BONNER I’ve had to talk to my mother like that, Harley—boy, and she has some dreams too.

SANDY You don’t know anything about a mother’s dreams; all you know is to destroy. I’ll fight all you stand for . . . I’ll fight you! (SHE HITS BONNER IN THE CHEST: HE INSTINCTIVE - LY SLAPS HER BACK, BUT WANTS TO TAKE IT BACK)

EDIE Don’t hit her again; she’s going to have a--

HARLEY Leave her alone! Carl’s promised to come through, now lay off. (TAKES SANDY) Go home, Sandy, we’ll find Carl.

SANDY (BECOMING HYSTERICAL) I’m not going to let you destroy my husband!

RUDY He’s got to pay his dues like everybody else!

EDIE (INADVERTANTLY) You've already cost him his job. (ALL ARE ASTOUNDED: SANDY MORE HYSTERICAL)

SANDY What do you mean?

EDIE I didn’t mean for you to find out like this, Sandy . . .

EDIE Bob and Harold told me this afternoon. The president refused to agree with some plan Carl was proposing and Carl blew up . . . and ...

BONNER (TO SANDY) What about the plan?

SANDY (CRYING) I don’t know . . . why am I always last . . .?

ALFRED Last again, am I going to be last again?

RUDY Did your faggot husband cop out on us? (HE SNATCHES HER) II - 14 90

Answer me, you funky . . .

HARLEY Leave her alone. (EDIE AND HARLEY INTERVENE. HARLEY AND RUDY GRAPPLE WITH SANDY IN THEIR MIDST)

SANDY Oh, Carl ... (SHE FALLS AWAY FROM RUDY AND HARLEY. BONNER HELPS HER UP)

BONNER You alright? (HE SMOOTHES HER HAIR)

HARLEY Let me take you home.

BONNER She’s together. Come on, let’s go find Carl.

EDIE Somebody call a doctor . . . she just found out she’s carrying a baby.

BONNER I’m carrying a baby too, white lady, and I didn’t just find out. (THEY LEAVE UC TOWARD THE UNIVERSITY, HARLEY LAST)

SANDY (WEAKLY) Carl . . . Why? (EDIE HELPS HER DR)

(CARL NERVOUSLY WALKS DC AND WE HEAR "FACTS"—DISTORTED FOR THE FIRST TIME—SEE ACCOMPANYING IMAGES PROJECTED)

1963—Four Negro girls killed in the bombing of their Birmingham, Alabama Sunday School.

(AT THE SOUND OF THE EXPLOSION WHICH ACCOMPANIES THIS "FACT" CARL STAGGERS UP WHERE WE FIND SHARON. HER DRESS IS TORN AND SHE HAS BEEN HURT: IN MANY WAYS.)

SHARON You had to do it, didn’t you Carl! (HE APPRAISES HER CONDITION WITH REMORSE) Look in my heart . . . that's where the damage is . . . that's where the pain is. Look at the pain. What do you think the hurt will be like if they find out where our son is? How will you feel when your own son gets what they call the "bad news?" II - 15 91 CARL Don’t weep, Sharon. Everyone will stop hurting you when they learn who you are and how wonderful you are.

SHARON You don’t understand at all. I don’t like getting beat, but I know about it. You’re causing the pain. I need you to be up there. I breathe through you, Carl, and I’m beginning to suffocate. I hate to admit this, but the only way I can escape from the filth and the lies is through you . . . through what you stand for.

CARL I stand for you, Sharon. I didn’t fall down here. I walked gladly! (HE WRETCHES) You’ve got to understand that.

SHARON (SHE WANTS TO EMBRACE HIM BUT RECOILS KNOWING THAT SHE SHOULDN'T) Carl, if you want to pay a small debt . . . just be a dignified man. That will keep me safe until I can see my way by myself. (HE REACHES OUT FOR HER BUT SHE BACKS AWAY AND LEAVES.)

CARL We must trust ourselves to embrace. (SHUDDERS) It's getting too cold and too late. (TO THE MAN) Once the cold set in, it became almost unbearable. Did I . . . and the darkness. . . (LOUDLY) did I tell you about the darkness? (PAUSE) Faith. That’s why I called you after all this time. Faith is indestructible; faith is inhuman; faith is everything, and (WHISPERS) faith is on trial. Listen to the sound. Look at it in the air. Dig it!

(THE FOLLOWING SEQUENCES ARE SUPERIMPOSED ON EACH OTHER AND SHOULD OCCUR WITH RAPID TRANSITIONS OF LIGHT, PICTURIZATION AND SOUND. FIRST WE SEE FAYE AND LLOYD LOOKING FOR CARL BUT NOT FINDING HIM. THEY ARE FEELING PAIN. A LITANY AND IMAGES OF SLAVE TRADE TALK IS HEARD: "A FINE STURDY PAIR . . . WANT TO INSPECT THEIR TEETH . . . WILL HAVE STRONG BABIES ... ETC.")

(NEXT WE SEE HAROLD, BOB AND MAX DOING A "MEETING-CONFERENCE" THING AND SEE IMAGES OF MOUTHS TALKING ACCOMPANIED BY CONVERSATION THAT QUICKLY DEGENERATES INTO GARBLE.)

(THEN WE HEAR RECORDED "FACTS" WHILE UNDER THIS BUILDS THE CALL FOR "CARL" FROM ALL. AT THE END OF THE "FACTS" THE MOST DOMINANT CALL IS FROM BONNER AND CO.

1965—Watts II - 16 92

1967— Detroit 1968— Memphis, Tennessee: "Free at last, free at last . . . thank God Almighty, I’m free at last."

(CARL GOES TO BONNER AND CO. HE IS NOT DEFENSIVE, RATHER, RELIEVED AND APPEARS STRONG.)

CARL They won't.

BONNER I know. Why?

CARL There are many reasons, but the only one that matters is that: there is no real trust.

HARLEY (CAUTIOUSLY) We ... we can trust each other. With that, we'll find a way for black people to make it. (HE FOLLOWS EACH AS THEY MOVE AWAY) Junior Bonner? (PAUSE) Rudy? (PAUSE) Black Alfred!

ALFRED The mayor wants to ride, now! (SWINGING VICIOUSLY)

CARL (CROSSES TO THEM) I know, Alfred. I tried and I'll keep on trying. We've got the most vital force we need. We've got black unity.

RUDY We haven't got shit we didn't have before. We trusted you, man; don't you come back here saying "they won't" and think everything is cool.

CARL You didn't really trust me before, Rudy; how could you have? Now you can though; now we are ready.

RUDY Listen to this crazy mutha ....

HARLEY What more can we ask from him?

BONNER (WITH A SMOLDERING ANGER) I'm listening to him, Rudy. And I'm listening for his next plan. They just put a steel roof on the sky, Carl; how do you think we get it off now? II - 17 93

CARL I’m here under the same sky.

BONNER Maybe you haven't straightened all the way up yet, Carl.

HARLEY Carl has proven he's a brother . . . he's in . . .

ALFRED He lied. They always lie; don't they, Junior Bonner? Why do people always lie about something I want all the time? (TO CARL) You liar!

BONNER Lay dead, Black Alfred . . . Carl's not to blame.

CARL (TO THEM AND TO HIMSELF) For the first time in my life I have some real faith. I had to risk everything, but I didn't lose ... I won faith and that is a beautiful feeling.

RUDY (SCREAMS) Faith in what!

CARL Faith in you . . . knowing that we can walk together because wre*re all alike: black and ready.

BONNER Man, don't make that blackness a mask to hide behind. Whitey kicked us in the ass . . . don't you run back here crying "I'm black . . .I'm black too!" They made a promise, professor, and they didn't come through.

CARL (TO HIMSELF AS MUCH AS TO THEM) I came through. Carl is a black man ... he just saw himself.

RUDY (LEAPING AT HIM) You put on a false-face you black cocksucker. This isn't halloween. I want to go someplace besides this funky corner. I'll rip that false-face off you . . . (TRIES TO GRAB HIM AROUND THE HEAD)

HARLEY (WRESTLES RUDY OFF) Get off my brother, chump . . . don't just stand there, Carl; bust him back. II - 18 94

CARL What can I do that I haven't already done?

ALFRED (SWINGING AT KIM WITH THE WHIP) You can be my horse. (BONNER RESTRAINS HIM)

BONNER You can fight. You can die, if necessary. They refused our plan. That's what we're going to do now . . . deal in lives, not words.

CARL I did fight. I gave up everything to fight alongside you . . . with the people.

BONNER That's what I've been waitin' to hear. Let's go!

(LONG PAUSE)

CARL Not with guns . . .I'm not going that way.

HARLEY I'm not going either. He's given up more than anybody.

RUDY (PULLING A GUN ON HARLEY) Pick! Us or him?

BONNER We're going downtown; you with us, professor?

CARL There must be something else . . .

BONNER Kill that's it! Some white people and some so-called black people too: everybody who turned their back and built that steel sky.

CARL We must prove our own faith too . . .

RUDY Faith in what? What else but to kill somebody?

HARLEY We'll get killed. Carl, you're right about that substance thing. Ain't none of us ready yet. II - 19 95

BONNER (ANGRY PLEA) Come on with us, Carl. Show that all kinds of black men are ready to kill. Show your faith in your black brothers how!

(PAUSE)

CARL I can't kill. I have shown my faith and my blackness to myself. (SHUDDERS) I must build on that or be destroyed by it.

RUDY Didn’t I tell you, Junior Bonner! We going to do him the way we said?

BONNER You can't make it alone, Carl. Haven’t you learned that yet? We don't have any other choice; none of us do. Man, I don't want to do this . . . (PAUSE) (TO ALFRED, WHO GOES INTO THE BAR) Get the stuff, hurry.

HARLEY You’ll have to kill me if you kill my brother.

RUDY Only takes two bullets, Mohammed!

HARLEY You’d shoot a black man in the back?

BONNER We can't know if a man’s a black brother if his back is turned to us.

CARL I turn my back to you (CROSSES DC) . . . as a black brother. (ALFRED RETURNS WITH TWO PAILS)

HARLEY No, Junior ...

BONNER (MENACINGLY) This is your last chance, Carl. (PAUSE) He thinks he’s a god. (WALKS AWAY IN DISGUST)

ALFRED (RAPS CARL ACROSS THE BACK) He’s my horse. (HARLEY TRIES TO HELP CARL BUT IS STOPPED BY RUDY’S GUN) II - 20 96 RUDY What’s god look like, underneath. (RIP’S OFF CARL’S SHIRT)

ALFRED Take off your pants ... I want to see what kind of legs my horse has. A fine horse has strong, skinny legs.

HARLEY Don't do it for me, Carl. Don't degrade yourself anymore .

(HE STARTS TO UNBUCKLE HIS PANTS AS WE SEE IMAGES OF BLACK DEGRADATION)

CARL (SOFTLY) Never doubt . . . never doubt . . . (REPEAT)

BONNER (LAUGHING SOFTLY) I don't need to kill you, Carl; you'll kill yourself. You'd rather kill yourself than kill a white man.

HARLEY Carl, please don’t . . . (BONNER RESTRAINS HARLEY WITH GUN)

RUDY (SLOWLY STROKES WHITE PAINT ON CARL) Be white then if that's what you want to be.

HARLEY Carl, don’t . . .

BONNER (ANGRY AT HIMSELF TOO) Shut up!

ALFRED (SLOWLY BRUSHES BLACK PAINT ON CARL) Make my horse black, Black Beauty!

RUDY Now you're white and black; just what you really want. Now take off those pants.

BONNER (REPULSED) That's enough! We don't have to strip him. Look at him, he's stripping himself. Soul Brother! Who are you now? You and your plans and your faith. Who do you put your faith in now?

CARL (QUIETLY) It's cold. II - 21 97

BONNER Speak up black man! Don’t mumble . . . only old niggers mumble. You’re new, aren't you?

CARL Dark. (REPEAT)

RUDY Let's off his ass and get on downtown.

ALFRED (SLAPS HIM ACROSS THE BACK: CARL WINCES BUT DOESN'T MOVE) Let's ride him; I want to ride.

BONNER That's enough, I said. You ready to fight yet? Does the phony brother have his cause all lined up in his mind? Do you still have a mind or did you lose that along with your guts and your soul? (WAVING THE GUN AT CARL)

HARLEY Don't Carl. Don't die for nothing. (HE ATTEMPTS TO GET GUN FROM BONNER, IS STRUCK AND SUBDUED BY RUDY AND ALFRED . . . BUT STRUGGLES UNTIL TAKEN OFF)

BONNER Take him back to the club. (THEY ARE RELUCTANT TO MISS THE END) Go on, I'm calling the shots. (THEY GET HARLEY OFF, HE REPEATS "I'M SORRY, BROTHER")

(PAUSE)

Say something. Do something.

(CARL MOANS UNINTELLIGIBLY)

You won't even fight for your life? Ask me to wash that shit off you, man. I will. Then fight. (SLAPS HIM BRUTALLY) Kill me! (PLACES THE GUN IN CARL'S HAND) Here, kill me. Learn from somebody that you have to kill to get free. (THE GUN FALLS) (CARL BEGINS THE SHUDDERING THAT WILL END IN RIGIDITY)

Then beg! Beg me to kill you. I'll kill you with my bare black hands. Just beg me to do it. Call me boy; I'll do it for that. (PASSIONATELY, BROTHERLY) I'll do anything for you . . . you black mother! Don't you know that?

(CARL SPEAKS TO HIMSELF IN AN UNKNOW TONGUE) II - 22 98

What are you doing? What are you thinking? Where do you go from here? You’re alone and naked, brother! (HE IS CIRCLING CARL)

(PATHETICALLY) Soul . . . black . . . I . . . today . . . nappy . . . kill . . . chittlins . . . slave . . . the turn is coming . . . brothers ... my name . . . black . . . horse . . . ride . . . I . . . I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I- ...... (RIGID)

BONNER Carl! (LOUDER) Carl! (SCREAMS) Carl! (PUSHES HIM VIOLENTLY, CARL BEGINS TO FALL STIFFLY AND IS CAUGHT: BONNER CRADLES HIM) Man, I looked to you ... I thought you knew how . . .

(BONNER LEAVES HIM CRIMPLED, IN THE FETAL POSITION: HE PICKS UP THE GUN AND LEAVES, BRISKLY. THE HAUNTED MELODY COMES UP AND CONTINUES SOFTLY AS THE LIGHT SLOWLY GOES OUT.

END OF PLAY TIME TURNS BLACK

A Play in Two Acts 100

The characters:

Rufus A West-Indian born Black; drives a taxi; speech is clipped, manner is urgent

Weldon A Black lawyer; appears older than he is; weary.

Mayor Whitson A middle-aged white man; the liberal mistake.

Precious A quietly attractive Black woman.

Gerta A rather thick white woman.

Steve A Black junkie musician.

Carty A 50-ish Black man, trying the "Black thang."

Malcolm Black, eight years old

Ricky White, eight years old.

The time: Black Now . . . before and after.

The place: A tenement-apartment in the 31ack City. /Of

ACT I

(RUFUS ENTERS FROM THE REAR OF THE HOUSE, CURSING UNDER HIS BREATH; HE MOUNTS THE STAGE IN A NATURAL HUFF. THE SCENE BEHIND HIM IS DIMLY LIT AND IN TABLEAU: RUFUS' APARTMENT IS SPARCE BUT NEAT. PICTURES OF BLACK HEROES DECORATE THE WALLS (ESPECIALLY LARGE ONES OF MALCOM X AND MARCUS GARVEY): A MURAL OF JACK JOHNSON, SUGAR RAY ROBINSON AND MOHAMMED ALI IS PROMINENT ON THE BACK WALL. THERE IS A ROUND TABLE NEAR THE LEFT CENTER OF THE ROOM, WITH CHAIRS. A SOFA, TWO SOFT CHAIRS AND A RECORD PLAYER ARE PRESENT. A CURTAINED-OFF DOOR LEADS TO THE KITCHENETTE AND ONE DOOR LEADS TO THE BED­ ROOM; ANOTHER LEADS TO THE OUTSIDE HALLWAY.)

RUFUS (CLIMBING UP TO THE CENTER OF THE STAGE, HE BRANDISHES A LONG, WEST-INDIAN KITCHEN KNIFE. HE LOOKS OUT AT THE AUDIENCE WITH DISGUST.) I’m Rufus, mothafukka’s! Yes you . . . you are stone-cold mothafukkas . . . all y’all, mahn. Crackers and Bloods . . . mens and (DRAWING IT OUT) laaadies. And if you ain't one, you ain't proved it to me, and probably not to nobody else neither. (GRUMBLES UNDER HIS BREATH AS HE LOOKS AT THE SCENE BEHIND HIM) If this was real, I'd cut some of y*all from earlobe to asshole. (QUICKLY) It ain't no funny thing neither. I'm good and Black-blood mad and I don't care whether y'all like the words I'm usin' . . . cause y'all done done y'all's little poopy in the street too. (ANOTHER GRUMBLE; ANOTHER GLANCE AT THE TABLEAU: THEN SHRIEKS IN A MACHINE-GUN FASHION) I'm tired of y'all left- hand fukkan me! From now on it's gon be belly to belly and back to back . . . all the fukkan is gon be right handed . . . straight up. And if you think I'm jivin' . . . next time you come fukkan with me: bring your lunch, your supper and maybe a midnight snack . . . cause it's gon be awhile fo you be gettin' back to whereever you coming from. And you Bloods out their better bring breakfast too! Vie gon be doin' our "don'tchaknow" till Indians stop drinking the blind stop blinkin' and pussy stop stinkin' . . . and that's a long time. (HE SPINS AWAY FROM THE AUDIENCE AND MOTIONS TO THOSE IN TABLEAU; THEY BEGIN TO MOVE BUT MAKE NO NOISE). Some good stuff and some funny stuff been goin' down among the bloods. But I ain't gon philosophize with you. I'm just gon give you time to turn back from where you headin' now. And if you don't . . . Rufus gon be jitterbugging with you ’in the streets, mahn! (WHIRLS THE KNIFE AROUND AND TURNS TO ENTER THE APARTMENT. AS THE LIGHTS COME UP, WE HEAR THE FAINT TICKING OF A LARGE KANDLESS PENDULUM CLOCK WHICH STANDS OMINOUSLY IN A REAR CORNER. IT TICKS THROUGHOUT. SOFT OR LOUD . . . DEPENDING ON HOW BLACK THE TIME GETS. WELDON, PRECIOUS AND GERTA ARE SEATED AT THE’TABLE; THE TWO BOYS 1-4 102

ARE CAUSING HAVOC WITH THE CAP-PISTOL).

MALCOM Comeer! (SHOOTS) Stop runnin', Ricky, you’re dead. (HE SHOOTS SEVERAL TIMES FOR GOOD MEASURE)

PRECIOUS Malcom, don't shoot that gun; daddy's trying to think.

RICKY (CAUTIOUSLY) You'll never see me dead; I'm too fast. Now leave me alone. (MALCOM STRIDES UP TO RICKY, ON TIPTOE WITH A PEACEFUL GESTURE, AND THEY BEGIN TO INSPECT THE GUN AND TALK QUIETLY)

RUFUS (SLAMMING HIS FIST ON THE TABLE) No, mahn, no! We got to do it now and let them know. Everybody got to know. All the eyes are too full of political slogans to otherwise change, mahn.

GERTA (TO WELDON) Weldon, you know this is preposterous. You do realize what will happen (POINTS TO THE WINDOW) out there. Your, brainchild is a monster. (PLEADING TO BOTH MEN) Stop and think . . .

RUFUS No, mahn. We think and we act . . . but we ain't gon stop. mahn.

GERTA (SOFTLY) Must you call me a man, Rufus? You call Precious '’mahn"; we are not men . . . understand that if you don't understand anything else.

PRECIOUS (CAUTIOUSLY) You're forgetting to be tender, honey . . .

RUFUS (IMPATIENTLY) Well, goddam. Weldon, we supposed to be like pork chops. (TO PRECIOUS) You want me to take time to call you a lady every time I speak. You should be wantin' me to grunt (HE DOES) if I could save time and a few Black babies doin' it. I'm 31ack, goddamit ... I drive a funky hack ... I grunt . . . I curse ... I say "mahn" . . . and I'll do anything else that I think will take care of business.

WELDON Cool yourself, Rufus; she's just a little edgy. I - 5 103

PRECIOUS You’re not the only one here who's Black . . . nor the only one here who cares about Black babies.

RUFUS (TO PRECIOUS) You want me calling you lady, when you are no lady . . . and you ain’t one cause you have no man. I am no man, and a woman without a man is no lady! (THE WOMEN ARE EMBARASSED BUT THIS ONLY SERVES TO EXCITE RUFUS INTO REVENGE) We make love to you and give you babies, but we are not men yet. When it happens you will know it in more ways than lookin’ inside my pants.

PRECIOUS Then you’d better welcome me when I come looking someplace other than in your pants . . . like in your head!

WELDON What time is it?

GERTA Nearly one o’clock.

MALCOM (SHOOTING) There! I tricked you and you dead now; "stone cold dead in de market.”

RICKY Mama, make him stop.

MALCOM (STILL SHOOTING) There . . . there . . . there . . . head to toe and full of holes.

RUFUS I thought I told y’all to stop that racket. Go outside and play and leave that gun here. (MALCOM PLACES THE GUN NEAR THE DOOR).

RICKY Let’s play on the roof; we can see the whole world from up there. But no more tricks, Malcom; I don't like your tricks.

. GERTA Ricky, stop and see if Steve is awake yet and see if he needs anything. (HE GIVES HER A MEAN LOOK) Stop rolling your eyes at me . . . and be careful up on that roof.

PRECIOUS You act your age up there, Malcom. 1-6 104

MALCOM I'm twenty-one and on the run, Momma. (SHE STARTS AFTER HIM) Come on, Ricky. (THEY RUN OFF) let's go wake up Steve ... he always got some candy.

WELDON (DOODLES ON A LEGAL PAD) Better check with Carty, the man is not going to stay in his palace all day. And remember, don't be too anxious; don't attract any attention.

RUFUS I got it, mahn. (PULLS OUT A SMALL TRANSISTOR WALKIE-TALKIE) I've taken care of business like even you never thought of. (IN THE WALKIE-TALKIE) Carty . . . Caaarty! (SMILES AS THE RESPONSE IS HEARD) What’s happening, mahn; you hear from Benny yet? The guys got the parking spaces all filled? Beautiful.

WELDON Dig him. Precious; he groovin' for the first time.

GERTA Some groove. Might turn out to be a rut.

PRECIOUS Whatever it is, I wonder if we fit in it.

RUFUS I'm going to get in my hack right now and join the (LAUGHES) procession. What you mean I should have been gone? (TO WELDON) Listen to this cat, checking me out. (BACK TO THE WALKIE-TALKIE) It's only two blocks ... no traffic lights . . . forty-three seconds . . . two minutes to get from that office to the street. (TO WELDON) I did it myself, walking fast (LAUGHS) and he don't walk too fast ...

WELDON He's a proud man, Rufus. Proud men walk slowly and on Sundays they walk God-like.

RUFUS (TO THE WALKIE-TALKIE) Yeah, I got it covered, mahn; you just get the rumble set up on 42nd Street so we can get up here (VERY PRECISELY) unnoticed. What? Speak up, mahn . . .

PRECIOUS Weldon, what if Rufus gets caught?

WELDON (MATTER-OF-FACTLY) You know well as I do . ... Prison . . . I - 7 105 get shot ... or any number of wierd blasts that can happen to a Brother who is trying to do it . . .

GERTA Your mind is distorted. Danger doesn’t even phase you.

PRECIOUS Why must Rufus take the risk?

WELDON I don’t know what you’re looking for, Precious . . . but some of the answers ought to be evident to you; he’s your man.

PRECIOUS (RUSHING TO RUFUS) Don’t you go, baby ... (HE IGNORES HER) Well, dammit, at least tell me what you’re going to do . . . who you’re going to . . .

RUFUS Hang on Carty. (TO HER) What you want, mahn? Can’t you see I’m takin’ care of business?

PRECIOUS There must be somebody else who can do whatever you’re . . .

RUFUS (DISMAYED) I don’t believe your lips! I been watching some­ body else go for years . . . and ain’t nobody got there yet. Today I am going Lady! (BACK TO THE RECEIVER) Yeah, Carty . . . (EXCITEDLY) Bennie called? I’m gone . . . see you back here in ten minutes. (HE SMILES AT WELDON AND RUSHES OUT, NOT LOOKING BACK AT THE DISTRAUGHT PRECIOUS)

PRECIOUS God, look after him and keep him safe.

WELDON (ABSENTLY) This is one Sunday when we’re depending on Brothers to look out for us. The God thing hasn’t been working very well.

GERTA And you propose Black guerillas in His place?

WELDON If Blackness sickens you, Fraulein, why don’t you go back . . there’s a nice racist resurgence going on there.

GERTA That thrust is not deep enough. You forget who I love and 1-8 106

live with.

WELDON Sleeping with a Brother should not be confused, my continental dutchess, with loving him or him loving you.

PRECIOUS Leave her alone, Weldon. (TURNS AWAY FROM KIM) Anyway, love doesn’t seem to be your best subject . . . from what I can tell. (HESITANTLY) Just tell me why my man has to be the one going out there to do whatever this dangerous plot is you're working out?

GERTA (SNEERS) Something to do with sacrifices and lambs.

WELDON (IGNORES GERTA) For inside he must go on this mission . . . and if not today, then tomorrow or the next day ... or bust. His destiny is out there . . . or at least out of the confines of here.

PRECIOUS And you, where's your destiny? Why isn't your destiny out there too?

WELDON Mine is in Mississippi or was. If not for Rufus (WITH PASSIONATE RESPECT) and all the other Rufuses out there. I'd still be in Mississippi gambling: (REMINISCES) Your Honor if the court please based on the evidence submitted here . . . (DRIFTS OFF INTO CONTEMPLATIVE SILENCE) I object your honah, the defense has not . . . (DRIFTS OFF) Objection sus- tained . . . will the jury retire to the chamber and return with the verdict ... as soon as possible . . . we got foah no' cases to hear . . . and I'm gettin' a mite hungry. (HIS OWN SIGH BRINGS HIM BACK TO NOW) Then they return . . . they always return with that and smile. And the saddest among them always says: "We the jury find the accused Billy Joe, Larry LeRoy and Charlie Boy the third not guilty yo' honah . . . for the terrible misfortunes committed against those honorable young Nigra girls." (HE IS FAR AWAY NOW)

GERTA Weldon, I'm sorry for your hell . . . which, I guess, I don’t really understands. (SINCERELY) But I do hurt with you. (PAUSE) Someone ought to tell us that learning is one thing and living is another.

PRECIOUS I wish somebody would tell me how to get rid of this knot in my stomach. 1-9 107

WELDON (TO THEM BOTH, ERUPTING) We have been told. (TO PRECIOUS) We must perform the act before the words have any meaning. (THEY ARE CONFUSED) We must descend into the Black abyss to learn what is there and discover how to use it!

PRECIOUS (GLANCING NERVOUSLY AT GERTA) Just what does that mean?

WELDON (BACK TO THE NOW OF HIS MENTAL ANGUISH) Precious, surely you've heard Rufus weep and know how he suffers trying to get a true glimpse of himself . . . his view of his manhood. But you won't understand his pain nor can he grasp that elusive man-feeling until he strikes out . . . maybe until he bleeds.

PRECIOUS That's all Black men are talking about nowadays; ain't there some other way to feel like a man besides bleeding?

WELDON (ABSENTLY) Better we bleed than explode into unrecognizable slivers of hysteria.

GERTA I'm going to Steve; his suffering I understand.

WELDON (WITH CONTEMPT FOR STEVE) Do that! If he's awake, he'll need some heavy understanding.

PRECIOUS You have the money, Gerta?

GERTA (PROUDLY LYING) Yes. Yes I do! (SHE PICKS UP RICKY'S TOY BOAT FROM THE FLOOR, PUTS IT ON THE TABLE, AND LEAVES)

WELDON How bad is Steve?

PRECIOUS Real bad. He took Ricky's transistor radio last week . . . before he sold Gerta's only decent dress. He needs medical help and a new outlook too.

WELDON How does he make it? I - 10 108

PRECIOUS (SIMPLY) I bought the radio and the dress; he makes it like that.

WELDON (RUMINATING) Rufus thinks that they may be useful to the mission if we get trapped up here ... I hope we don’t have to depend on either of them.

PRECIOUS Does that . . . what*d you call it . . . Black abyss, include Black junkies and for-real white people?

WELDON (AFTER A PAUSE) What time is it?

PRECIOUS (ALSO AFTER A PAUSE) Very late. Why don't you wear a watch . . . surely you can afford one?

WELDON I can afford to buy one, but I can’t afford to watch time passing.

PRECIOUS Shouldn't Rufus be back by now? (PAUSE) What’s going to happen, 'Weldon? Those big white folks aren't going to sit back and do not do nothing.

WELDON The retaliation will come . . . then we will strike back with renewed rage. (SOBERLY) And finally we will be forced to really look at one another for the first time in the history of the whole sickening mess.

PRECIOUS My stomach is upset, or something. Seems like Malcom ought to be back by now too.

WELDON (MUSING) Penthouse of the ghetto: the roof. Where Malcom can see the sun and the sons-of-bitches in one quick blink.

PRECIOUS Because you never had to, don't make fun of him!

WELDON I wasn't born at that law school, Precious. I just passed through. I'm from right down there on the avenue. (THE FAR AWAY SOUNDS OF GUNSHOTS AND WILD COMMOTION DRIFT INTO I - 11 109 THE APARTMENT: GLASS BREAKING, VULGARITIES, POLICE SIRENS, ETC. THEY GET LOUDER, THEN FADE INTO THE DISTANCE)

PRECIOUS Oh, God, they've started in the streets. (STARTS TOWARD THE DOOR) Please, Rufus, come home.

WELDON (AT THE WINDOW) Come here, Precious, LOOK! Look at the Brothers out there.

PRECIOUS No. Who wants to watch people running, fighting, screaming and bleeding: who in God's name wants to see that!

WELDON (ABJECTLY) A little warrior just got run over by a police car ... it isn't stopping . . .

. PRECIOUS (RUSHING TO HIM) Oh, God, Malcom!

WELDON I don't think it's Malcom; he isn't bleeding like Malcom would bleed. He isn’t even moving: Malcom wouldn’t die so quietly.

PRECIOUS (SCREAMING) Malcom! Malcom! He looks like Malcom!

WELDON Malcom’s on the roof watching . . . watching himself die or be reborn.

PRECIOUS You are crazy! (HYSTERICAL) I'm going down there. Malcom, oh Malcom! (AS SHE RUNS TO THE DOOR, IT IS FLUNG OPEN BY MALCOM WHO BURSTS IN)

MALCOM (BREATHLESS) You call me, Momma? I heard you way up there on the roof.

PRECIOUS (CLUTCHING HIM TO HER BREAST) Oh, baby . my baby!

MALCOM (EM3ARASSED, BREAKS AWAY) Uu-wee, Mama, you should see what's going on outside. Can I go down to the street, Mama? 1-12 110

PRECIOUS Have you gone crazy, too? You stay right here with me!

WELDON Why do you want to go down there, Malcom? Don’t you know it's dangerous down there?

MALCOM Seems something like Saturday night to me. (IMPETUOUSLY) I just feel like runnin’! (GUN SHOTS PEAL AND CARS SQUEAL OVER A MONTAGE OF CIVIL DISORDER SOUNDS) There they go again. What’s happening, Mama, don’t seem like them other riots ... (AT THE WINDOW) seems like a real war picture on TV. SHE TURNS AWAY AND SLUMPS INTO A CHUrJ Mir. Weldon, will . . . (WHISPERS) let’s me and you go d-o-w-n-h-e-r-e.

WELDON (WHISPERING) Would you go down there by y-o-u-r-s-e-l-f?

MALCOM (SHYLY) Mama won’t let me, else I would go. If Daddy was here, he'd take me.

PRECIOUS Oh, Malcom, shut up. Just shut your mouth and sit down! (HE GOSS INTO A CORNER AND PLAYS WITH HIS TOY PISTOL)

WELDON He'll go tomorrow or the next tomorrow . . . and all the mothers won't be able to keep them home. (TAPS HIS CHEST) This is stronger than all the biggest, baddest Blackest Mama's there ever was.

PRECIOUS (COLDLY) All right, college-boy ...

WELDON (SERIOUS) Didn't you hear the boy? He felt like running. At eight, he's already tired of being cooped-up.

PRECIOUS (STANDING) You . . . you think that boy understands what's going on out there?

WELDON Maybe he does. But he surely understands what goes on in here . . . and that's a good enough beginning. 1-13 111

PRECIOUS So I should just say: "Go baby boy, go and fight ... it doesn’t matter why . . . just go and fight . . .' go and run!" I should say that and then look out the window and see him ’ struck down by a police car or by some other fool who doesn’t know why he’s running either? You don’t know mothers, you don’t know little boys, you don’t know shit! (HE TURNS TO LOOK OUT) Oh, you think you know everything . . . but you really only know what words sound like . . . you don’t know what they, mean! You’re a boy-lawyer who . . . YOU GO! Don’t you tell me to send my baby-boy . . . you get up off them words and you go!

WELDON (AFTER A LONG REFLECTION) I’ve been. (QUIETLY) I’m there now and I’ll be there until . . . until Malcom can run . . . until you can smile instead of cry when Malcom goes-a-runnin’. (PAUSE . . . THEN TURNS TO MALCOM) Comeer, dude. You want to see what’s happening outside . . . well, you mind your Mama this time and watch from up on the roof . . . (SADLY) it’s a more complete picture. Now go on back up there and promise not to hurt anybody (JOKINGLY).

MALCOM (EYEING PRECIOUS) Can I, Mama? (SHE WEARILY NODS APPROVAL) Grooove-eee! Don’t worry, Mama . . . (WHISPERS TO HER) I’m not going down there by myself . . . and Ricky-he too scared. (HE KISSES HER QUICKLY, GRABS HIS CAP PISTOL, SURREPTITIOUSLY, AND BOLTS OUT THE DOOR)

WELDON (DRYLY) Boys need to run and men need to stop.'

PRECIOUS (QUIETLY) Thank you for . . . (MAKES A SERIES OF FUTILE GESTURES) handling Malcom. (PAUSE) I’m sorry about some of the things’ I said . . .

WELDON (NERVOUSLY) What time is it? (THEY MUTUALLY ACKNOWLEDGE THE A3SENCE OF A TIMEPIECE WITH A GLANCE AT THE HANDLESS PENDULUM CLOCK) It’s awfully quiet out there now. (HE JOINS HER AT THE WINDOW AND HOLDS HER PROTECTIVELY—NOT, ROMANTICALLY)

PRECIOUS Something must have gone wrong.

WELDON There are too many Brothers with too many dreams and too much soulfulness for it to go wrong. (TAPS HIS CHEST) This 1-14 112 if from here ... (THE DOOR SLOVZLY OPENS BUT THEY DO NOT NOTICE STEVE AS HE WATCHES THEM) We have never shown our women anything like this before. I believe that this mission will inspire the greatest kind of love between us all. Don't your soul just be aching for that pure deep love?

PRECIOUS Only if I can do some showing too.

STEVE (CLOSES THE DOOR, SINGING SOFTLY) "What the world needs most is love-sweet-love ..." (SLYLY) Don't mind me. If there's two things in the world I hate most to see broken up . . . it's a revolution and a love affair.

PRECIOUS Steve, we weren't talking about us.

STEVE Saaaaay, Counselor, what's this my woman tells me y'all going to do? And you say I live in a phantasy world? You cats are on some hipper-scag than I gets. (LAUGHS) Where do you score that real dynamite stuff?

WELDON If you have to score your love someplace, you're really hurtin', Brother!

STEVE I 'spose you a real good authority on scoring some love . . . especially somebody elses.

PRECIOUS Steve, you don't understand. There’s nothing between . . .

STEVE I know, Precious, you don't have to explain nothing to old Steve. I lie, steal, cheat, do anything: Rufus would never believe me, would he?

WELDON Look, Steve, think anything you like, but don't cause any trouble. And I'd appreciate your not making whatever Gerta said a matter for public discourse.

STEVE Is that a legal term, Counselor? (SCRATCHING AND RU33±NG HIS EYES THROUGHOUT) Anyway, I hadn't planned to stay so long ... I was just lookin' for my woman. She came in, mumbled something and then split. I was wondering if she •I - 15 113 left any money down here for me? (TO PRECIOUS) It’s almost that time.

WELDON She didn't leave anything, Steve.

STEVE (SNIDELY) My, my, my! Can't hardly believe my Gerta would do that to her sweet-ole-jazz-man. I play so pretty for her.

WELDON Why don't you go back to your apartment, maybe she's back by now.

STEVE (THREATENING) I'll tell you what, Counselor, I was just thinking that maybe she left the money with Rufus and I'd wait here until he got back. Maybe he could tell me some­ thing or I could tell him something ... (SMILES) ah, some­ thing.

PRECIOUS Oh, yes Steve, I almost forgot; Gerta left ten dollars. (SHE GOES BEHIND THE KITCHENETTE CURTAIN AND RETURNS) Here.

STEVE You know, ever since I opened that door I figured she'd done something like that. Funny how we forget things when our minds are distracted. (WITH DEEP GRATITUDE) Thanks, Precious . . . for remembering. (HE LEAVES, HUMMING THE SAME MELODY)

WELDON Why did you pay off that parasite?

PRECIOUS I didn't just pay him off; I gave him what he needed. Right now, he's got a revolution going on inside his belly too!

WELDON You rich enough to pay for it?

PRECIOUS Are you rich enough to pay for mine? Can you afford to pay me off if Rufus gets caught or killed? What are you going to use for payment? (PAUSE) God, what time is it? Where is he?

WELDON (PACING) It's really ouiet down there. Damn! (THEY BUSY THEMSELVES, BUSYING THEMSELVES. SHE PUTS ARETHA FRANKLIN'S 1-16 114

"MY CHANGE IS GONNA COME" ON THE RECORD PLAYER)

PRECIOUS (AFTER A LONG PAUSE) Perhaps this waiting wouldn't be so bad if you told me everything about the mission. (HE IS IMMERSED IN THOUGHT) How do you all expect us to understand or help if we're always in the dam dark ... or in the kitchen!

WELDON Why didn't she go back to Steve? I told Rufus we should have put that chick out . . . damn her 'mobility.'

PRECIOUS (DRYLY) Gerta is downstairs in some tenants room turnin' a ten-dollar trick to pay me back. That too is a revolu­ tion. Now suppose you tell me something . . . like where my man is . . . and stop the revolution goin' on inside my stomach. Please. (THE DOOR OPENS, CARTY PEERS IN, CLOSES HIMSELF OUT, AND OPENS IT AGAIN)

CARTY Everything copacetic here, lawyer-man? They're on the way up. (HE EXITS, LEAVING THE DOOR AJAR; WELDON TAKES OFF THE RECORD)

PRECIOUS Who's on the way up? Is Rufus . . .

WELDON (BELIEVED) Yes . . . yes Precious . . . Rufus and our friend (HE PREPARES A PLACE ON THE SOFA. THE MAYOR IS PUSHED IN BY RUFUS AT GUN-POINT. CARTY CLOSES THE DOOR AND WELDON RUSHES TO LOCK THE DOOR BEHIND THEM) Key, Brothers, and welcome, Mr. Mayor.

PRECIOUS Mayor Whitson! Oh, my God, what is going on?

RUFUS (BREATHLESS) Sit down, mahn, don't ask no questions right now ... (SHE GIVES HIM A LOOK OF DISGUST) Just sit down and watch! (PUTS THE GUN IN HIS BELT) Welcome, Mayor Whitson, to the humble home of Rufus Faulkner . . . one of your most dedicated citizens. (GENTLY PUSHES HIM ONTO THE SOFA) MAYOR (IN DISBELIEF) What are you bringing me here for? 1-17 115

CARTY Bringing? You're here, chump!

MAYOR Why? Why am I here? (THEY SMILE AT EACH OTHER) You won’t get away with this! Who are you?

WELDON Don’t make senseless threats . . . that’s one of the best tactics we ever learned from you . . . don’t blow your image. (FORMALLY) Mr. Faulkner you’ve met . . . this lady is his Misses ... Mr. Carty there went to high school with you ... in the same physical education class, can you grasp the relativity in that? And me: I’m just another disgruntled Black.

PRECIOUS Oh, God-almighty, you didn’t say it was going to be like this or that it was going to be the Mayor.

RUFUS I guess it’s a good thing we didn’t. Who the hell you think we was going after, mahn, the guy who owns the candy store?

PRECIOUS (RUSHES TO THE WINDOW) The police will be here before you know it.

CARTY (CYNICALLY) It’ll be the first time they came upstairs to an avenue apartment since I been here . . . and I was born in this building, if that means anything. Not even the Brother- cops come up this high.

MAYOR Look, tell me what’s going on! (STANDS) Why am I here?

WELDON (SMILING) Kafka in Soulville!

RUFUS (RUSHING THE MAYOR) Sit down! This is my house ... my day . . . and my time to call the shots. You'll find out what's goin' on, mahn, and you're not goin' to like it.

CARTY Comprendo, "Slick Charlie?" That's what people called him in nigh schoo1. I - 18 116 PRECIOUS Rufus, please . . . get him out of here.

WELDON (TO HER) Why don’t you go get Malcom or . . .

RUFUS (VEHEMENTLY) She lives in this freaky-world same as I do . . . and she’ll stay and see how to change it. (TO HER) A lady earns the right to be called one.

MAYOR What is it, Sir, that you plan to do to earn the right to be called a man? (RUFUS ADVANCES IN A CONTROLLED RAGE)

RUFUS Maybe . . . (DRAWING AND POINTING HIS GUN TO THE MAYOR’S TEMPLE) Maybe just blow your brains all over my sofa.

CARTY Ease up, Rufus.

PRECIOUS (FRIGHTENED) Rufus, baby, please . . .

WELDON He’s alright.

RUFUS (MORE CONTROLLED) Precious, sit down in that chair. When I need you, be ready to help me. Can you do that as a first step of our togetherness.

PRECIOUS (SITS NEAR THE WINDOW, TURNING AWAY FROM HIM) Sure ... you lead, I follow . . . some heavy togetherness!

RUFUS Now, Mr. Mayor, about this business of earning rights. I’ve already earned the right to be called a man . . . and you do call me a man nowadays. Your problem is that I've got to earn the right to call myself a man . . . and feel like a man when I say the word. You see . . . you've automatically felt yourself to be a man, haven't you?

MAYOR For the most part, I've always felt that I've acted like a man. 1-19 117

CARTY How 'bout now, Slick Charlie? (GRABS THE MAYOR BY HIS THINNING HAIR, JERKING HIS HEAD BACKWARD AND PROCEEDS TO FONDLE HIS FACE LIKE A CHEAP PROSTITUTE) How manly, you feelin' now with your life on the line?

WELDON Okay, Carty, that's enough.

CARTY (IGNORING WELDON) Suppose somebody took your money (TAKES HIS WALLET) like this? (TAKES HIS WATCH AND WEDDING RING) And your little gifts? (RIFLES HIS WALLET OF PICTURES) And your momentos? (HURLS ALL THESE VALUABLES INTO A TRASH CAN) How you like it? How you like somebody takin' all your shit just because they can? (PULLS HIS GUN) Call up your manhood now, Charlie-boy, and watch it get burned! You ain't never been no more of a man than me: you and me just thought you was! (HE IS SPENT, HAVING RELEASED A LONG HARNESSED GOBLIN)

MAYOR (MOVED, BUT MORE FRIGHTENED; UNABLE TO THINK) Who are . . . I don't understand you . . . but I think I could if . . .

RUFUS Weldon, the mahn don't understand. (COOLY) One more time . . .I'd hate to see you go out not knowin' why. All the rotten and wicked things y'all did to my father ... to my uncle . . . to my mother, they didn't just go away when the people died. Each and every one of them insults . . . them injustices . . . them unfair shares of them unfair hard times . . . each one of your manly acts is right here in my chest.

MAYOR Surely you can't blame me for all of our history.

VffiLDON History belongs in books not in Black chests. And until we change that method of recording it ... or find God to blame . . . you're it!

MAYOR (TO WELDON) I'm not afraid of you.

CARTY Then you like it here? 1-20 118

WELDON 1 wouldn’t expect you to be afraid of me. You’ve seen me in movies, on TV, at cocktail parties, at political benefits and on airplanes ... so right away you surmise that I’m something like you . . . not as good but something similar. But Rufus, he’s one of these Big Bad Black Brothers that you have nightmares at noon about. When you think of Rufus, you think of a two-headed gorilla dancing with your wife at the country club. Why?

PRECIOUS Because you’ve given Rufus the gun, that's why! Because Rufus is the one who will kill and get killed . . . that's why he’s afraid and why I'm afraid too. (BURYS HER HEAD)

RUFUS (TO HER AND THEN TO THE MAYOR) You wouldn't even give me credit if I killed myself, would you? The real reason that both of you are afraid is that I'm different than I was yesterday!

CARTY (SMILING) Like an old man with a young girl scares the young-bloods.

RUFUS Weldon didn't put no gun in my hand; he didn't even give it to me. I bought this gun with the money for the telephone bill. And there are others, like me, who didn't buy so many groceries last week and the week and the week before . . . to buy guns . . . and to buy dynamite . . . and to buy more guns and more dynamite for those who didn't have the money. Vie got bullets now, Mr. Mayor, and not so many beans.

MAYOR So that's how you plan to solve the problems . . . 'bullets instead of beans?' CARTY And carbines instead of cadillacs!

WELDON Unless you get off about sixty billion dollars worth of beans a year . . . for the next twenty years.

RUFUS (TO ViELDON) Ain't no twenty-year program going to do nothing for me, mahn; by then I'll be like a bag of prunes. That's too late. 1-21 119 CARTY You got any ideas on how to saxueeze a seventy-three year old Black man into law school. That’s how old I'll be.

WELDON (MUSING) Hmmm, a senior-citizen Panther-lawyer.

MAYOR I don't understand what you're getting at; but I do under­ stand that you're all fanatics at that you'll probably threaten to kill me as some threatening example to the world . . . if the police don't get here first.

CARTY No chance of that!

MAYOR (TO WELDON) What you don't understand is that the plight of Negroes . . . Black people . . . will be just as bad, if not worse, after such terrorism has been carried out.

WELDON Plight? I guess that's why it's guns now. We're trying to build lives, and you're talking about preserving plight.

MAYOR What makes you think intimidation and violence will build lives . . . whatever that means.

CARTY That's what you used, whatever that means.

RUFUS Mahn, there are thousands of people out there who are doing a thing to get the weight off our backs. Its almost a coin­ cidence that so many of us are doing the same thing at the same time. I didn't grow up with Carty or Weldon; neither one of them is from my time. But we got the same kind of backs and the same spirit in our hearts. Mr. Mayor, that's the biggest gun you'll ever see.

MAYOR So this is the first spontaneous revolution in the history of man?

CARTY You can explain it; I'm just doin' it.

MAYOR (RISES) You all are making a mockery out of the efforts and 1-22 120

lives of responsible people . . . Black and white . . . who have spent decades building and improving the means to justice. (VffiLDON APPLAUDS) And this country can work for all people if those fringe fanatics like you don't destroy everything with your guns and your insame ravings . . . (RUFUS PUSHES HIM DOWN LIKE A DISOBEYING CHILD)

RUFUS Stop your insane raving.

VffiLDON (COLDLY AND SYSTEMATICALLY) Look, Mayor, we knew your every move, and we've got your family and the families of other top government people under surveillance. Simply, we're going to use you—and other influential white people—to go on television and try and make the cat in the street understand that massive amounts of money is going to have to be spent to avoid a racial holocaust. And you're going to have to be so convincing that they demand you to give our mis sion the top priority in this country's scheme of activity.

MAYOR I know the frustration you feel, when things aren't moving fast enough . . . (ABOUT TO GET ORATORICAL)

RUFUS (LOOKING AT HIS WATCH) Don’t you sense nothing, white man? We’re talking about the next half-hour . . . today . . . now! You've got to go on that TV or all the words you've learned are going to drown in blood, along with the rest of your well-fed ass, mahn!

MAYOR I don't personally have any sixty, billion dollars or anything close to it under my control. And who would I give it to if I had it?

VffiLDON To the Black Independent Party.

MAYOR The what?

CARTY The B.I.P ain't that a bip!

VffiLDON Listen good, you only get one playback. We've coalesced the African Independent League, the Congressional Black Caucus, the underground Black Liberation Army and a whole 1-23 121 lot of do or die Black individual action groups. We’re going to reclaim our independence in this country.

MAYOR You mean secede? That’s preposterous! You organized this?

WELDON Not me, baby-boy. I’m just an organizer at the street level, but somebody did, And we are reclaiming the land built by Black sweat: Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, both Carolinas, and Florida.

MAYOR Are you mad?

CARTY Were y’all mad when y'all took the land; were y'all mad when you made us develop it?

MAYOR Just hypothetically, what's to happen to all the . . .

RUFUS White people?

MAYOR . . . YES. Where are they supposed to go . . . vanish.

WELDON They go the same place that Black people go when you strangle rural development or urban-renewal: someplace else!

MAYOR And what about the technical and medical and industrial expertise that is necessary to . . . make states ... a nation function. Who will do that?

WELDON Well! There are Black people in this country and around the world who can do these things. But even if there weren't the pimps, the whores, the criminals and . . . yes . . . even the junkies will be able to help us learn how to survive

RUFUS But the real secret, Mr. Mayor, is that we don't have to live just like you live. In fact, we will probably be able to show you how to live.

CARTY Like diggin' on the moonlight instead of the moon-rocks. 1-24 122

MAYOR You can't intimidate me or any other public or government official to just reorganize the country on a half-hour TV broadcast.

CARTY You do everything else on TV, goddamit! You elect cocksuckers to rule me, you fuck my pay, you hypnotize people into buying bullshit and you put the world to sleep. Now you can do this!

RUFUS We aren't' askin' you, mahn, we're telling you what you'd better do before the lights go out. I'm not talking to all the white people in this city or this country; I'm talkin' to one white man—YOU—either you do or you die! Check the street, Carty. (CARTY LEAVES)

MAYOR (SWALLOWS A PILL GREEDILY) Wait. Responsible people aren't choosing to go slowly; but we are forced to create avenues of light—and that process is a slow one.

WELDON (TIREDLY) Here he sits, the curse of the country: the liberal imagination—Casper the ghost! It isn't just going fast, buddy, it's going right that most concerns us.

RUFUS (TO PRECIOUS) Get me a little something to eat, baby. I'll be leaving soon: fix something we can take with us.

PRECIOUS (IMPRESSED, ANGRY AND CONFUSED) I don't think we have any­ thing like that here. (SHE GOES TO KITCHENETTE)

RUFUS (NOTICES THE VIAL AS THE MAYOR SWALLOWS ANOTHER PILL) What's that stuff you're taking? (SNATCHES THE VIAL) Bad heart, huh? Too bad, but maybe it won't have to work too much longer, anyway. (TO PRECIOUS) You find any pecks back there?

PRECIOUS (OFF) There isn't much here. Just me!

RUFUS What about the ten dollars I gave you yesterday; didn't you buy some food with that? (TO WELDON) I'll get us something to eat and call Carty to see if everything is ready for the trip. (PULLS OUT HIS WALKIE-TALKIE AND EXITS 1-25 123 INTO THE KITCHENETTE)

MAYOR I need those pills. Could you get them back for me, please?

VffiLDON If I see you about to die too soon.

MAYOR You’re a savage. You're not rational. (BEGINNING TO PANIC) Don't you know that my wife has called the police and they the FBI by now?

VffiLDON They're probably quite busy. We got that old man too.

MAYOR Security of a big-city mayor is similar to that of the President. You won't get away with this!

VffiLDON (BLANDLY) Yeah. Maybe the president found that little Black choir. . . and their parents . . . quite some guests this Sunday morning.

MAYOR Are you telling me that . . .

VffiLDON I'm telling you that Black people are not like Monohan, Aptheker, Billy Graham or the Rolling Stones.

MAYOR Meaning what?

VffiLDON Meaning that there are Black people out there . . . and all over this country . . . ready to level every symbol of repression. And most of those symbols are people.

MAYOR You'll be blowing up yourselves . . . your wives and children along with whatever few whites you get to. Doesn't the prospect of Black children dying bother you?

VffiLDON Has it ever bothered you? There are no Black children in this country, Mayor, just little Black people whose survival has not and still is not guaranteed. 1-26 124 MAYOR The young Black people won't buy your fanaticism . . . they seem to be getting along with young whites, for the most part.

WELDON I see you've swallowed your own bullshit and forgot you were the bull. There are two fifteen year-olds, a boy and a girl, who have wired up your stately mansion with dynamite and are just waiting for the word to . . .

MAYOR How could they; how could they get in? (WELDON LAUGHS) So this is the intimidation in the Black Power philosophy.

WELDON Praise Time magazine. Look man, your housekeeper has a son and daughter, right? Carty's friend tended her for your cocktail party two weeks ago, right? I was one of the replacement Urban-renewal-Spit-Shined-and-Delivered-Knee- grows who lapped up your scotch and checked out your ground plans. (THE MAYOR CLAWS AT HIS JACKET FOR THE MISSING VIAL OF PILLS) If what I'm doing is an exercise in philosophy, you better brush up on your Nietzsche.

MAYOR I need my pills, please.

RUFUS (OFF) Well the plan don't call for that! Tell them to wait, mahn! (VERY LOUD) We agreed to wait until Weldon gave the word; we got to have unity! This is the time, mahn . . . (HE FADES OUT IN GARBLED CONVERSATION)

WELDON We'll be going to the TV station soon . . . you and the other 199 other "white leaders," politicians, money mongers and military heads who have been abducted around the country. (THE MAYOR GOES DOWN HILL FROM HERE) You will instruct the Congress and the House to meet with our party coalition to work out the details of our independence. You ready?

MAYOR The military will stop this fanatic idea . . .

RUFUS (OFF . . . TRYING TO PACIFY THE VOICE AT THE OTHER END) Yes. Carty, tell him we'll kill the whole family if we have to . . . nobody gave a damn about my kid brother either . . . but not now! 1-27 12 5 WELDON That's your family he's talking about . . . your Harriet, your Cindy and your Charles Junior! (THE MAYOR IS HAVING DIFFICULTY BREATHING) And even if we're stopped this time, you and 199 other rich white folks won't know about it. Are you ready? (AN EXPLOSION ROCKS THE BUILDING WITH A VIOLENT NOISE AND MUCH OUTER CHAOS OCCURS, BUILDING FROM THIS POINT UNTIL THE END OF THE ACT)

MAYOR (TOO WEAK TO MOVE) What was that?

WELDON (RUSHING TO THE WINDOW) Rufus, what's going on down there?

RUFUS (RUSHING INTO THE ROOM) They started! They started over on Eighth Avenue; they blew up a subway! (THERE IS GARBLED CONVERSATION FROM THE WALKIE-TALKIE AS HE ATTEMPTS TO LISTEN AND TALK AT THE SAME TIME)

WELDON What do you mean they started? I told you to wait until after we had gone on TV . . . you were supposed to wait until you heard from me! (THE MACHINE CONTINUES TO SPURT ERRATICALLY) I haven't even gotten my orders!

RUFUS Oh, mahn, they started an hour ago! They blew up a section of the East Side Drive . . . and a train went over on the Freeway. (HE TRIES TO REASON WITH AND INTO THE INSTRUMENT) No, mahn, no . . . tell them not to hit the main power plant yet ... we got to get the mayor and all them other folks on TV.

MAYOR (STRUGGLES TO GET TO THE WINDOW) Oh, God, where are the police?

RUFUS (DRAWING HIS GUN ON THE MAYOR) Stay put, or I’ll lighten your load right now! Carty . . . Come-in, Carty. (THERE IS ONLY A CRACKLING SOUND . . .HE SLAMS HIS HAND DOWN ON THE TABLE CAUSING THE GUN TO DISCHARGE PAST THE MAYOR; THINKING HE HAS BEEN SHOT, THE MAYOR SLUMPS ONTO THE SOFA AS PRECIOUS RUSHES IN)

PRECIOUS Oh, Rufus . . . oh, no! (THEY ALL RUSH TO THE MAYOR) 1-28 126

MAYOR (GASPING FOR BREATH) My pills, please give me my pills.

WELDON Give them to me. Get some water, Precious, quick. (THE MxAYOR GREEDILY SWALLOWS THE PILL WITHOUT WATER) He didn't get hit, but he'll never make it! (THERE IS A LOUD RAPPING AT THE DOOR)

CARTY (OFF) Open the door. Rufus! Quick, man! (THE DOOR IS OPENED BUT NOT LOCKED BACK) All hell done broke loose. They got three big churches and that big political building . . . all with people in them, I think . . . and what the Brothers aren't doing, the scared people are doing themselves. People are running wild in the streets. Last time Benny called he said those kids overxat the mayor's house were out of contact

MAYOR 'What's happened to my family?

PRECIOUS Rufus, go get Malcom!

RUFUS We have to get this white man to the TV station!

PRECIOUS You go get our baby before you do anything!

RUFUS There isn't time . . . if we don't get this done right now . . . there won't be any point in even having a son! ’CARTY You can't go out there with that man now, Rufus. They've called out the National Guard and the regular Army is headed in I heard.

PRECIOUS I'm going after Malcom, if you won't.

RUFUS Don't walk out that door, Precious! I need you to stay here and guard this white man. (SHE CROSSES TO THE DOOR SLOWLY, AS HE UNCONSCIOUSLY RAISES THE GUN TOWARD HER) If you walk out that door . . . don't come back and don't bring my son with you. THIS IS MY TIME!! (SHE STOPS FOR AN INSTANT, IN 1-29 127 PRECIOUS My son means more to me than your time or your white man. (THE DOOR SLAMS SHUT)

RUFUS (DAZED) My woman left me . . . alone. (FRANTIC) Weldon, go down on the street and get the TV people on the telephone.

WELDON (RESIGNED) For what, Rufus? If the mission is this fucked- up here, what do you think has happened in D.C. and L.A. where control was going to be even more difficult ... go for what?

RUFUS Just do it! You think too goddamned much ... go on! (POINTS THE GUN TOWARD WELDON) Go on, Goddamnit! You go with him, Carty. (CARTY IS RELUCTANT, ALSO) Go on, I said! You can't quit now; we're just gettin* started. THIS IS THE TIME . . . THIS IS IT!! (THE LEAVE . . . CARTY IS RELUCTANT, WELDON IS DISPASSIONATE. RUFUS WARNS THEM) Don't let me have to come lookin' for you! (THEY LEAVE WITHOUT LOOKING BACK. HE RUSHES TO LOCK THE DOOR. HE THEN STANDS WITH HIS BACK AGAINST THE DOOR LOOKING AT THE MAYOR WHO MANAGED TO STAND AS THE OTHERS LEFT. RUFUS SPEAKS WITH ALL THE RAGE THAT ALL THE BLACK MEN IN THE UNIVERSE EVER HAD FOR ALL THE WHITE MEN WHO HAVE, OVER THE CENTURIES, DONE THEIR "WHITE THING.") Now!!!! (THE LIGHTS FLICKER AS WITH A POWER FAILURE . . . THEN GO OUT) ACT II

(RUFUS WALKS SLOWLY FROM THE BACK OF THE HOUSE TO THE STAGE. HE LOOKS EVERYWHERE, BUT CAN ONLY SEE SHADOWS THAT MIX WITH THE LOUD TICKING OF THE CLOCK. HE ACTS OUT A TERRIFYING ORDEAL)

RUFUS (QUIETLY) It happened in an instant. Almost all at once. Like when somebody tells you that your Mamma or your Daddy died. You fill up and bust at the same time. (PAUSE) I saw all those eyes, but they didn’t belong to nobody. They were just eyes that were condemning me. All by themselves . . . just eyes. (PAUSE) I tried to connect the eyes to memories, to places, to love or to hate. It didn’t work. They only multiplied: gleaming, wet and blood red. Con­ demning me and making me very hot. (PLEADING FOR UNDER­ STANDING) They were drawing me closer and closer. The eyes were talking all by themselves: (WHISPERS) telling me to end it all. (PAUSE) Then one pair got quiet. They stopped shining and turned to dust. Then I could turn away ... I didn't see them anymore. But I felt them move through my chest and through my . . . (HE COVERS UP HIS GENITALS) The eyes were loving me; I know that now. (BUCKS HIS EYES) I'm going after the people now . . . but I'll bring my eyes back for you to look into. (HE LEAVES. AGAIN THE TICKING IS HEARD, VERY QUIETLY THIS TIME. PRECIOUS AND CARTY ARE SEATED, NERVOUSLY WAITING. THE BOYS ARE PLAYING CHINESE CHECKERS. GERTA RELUCTANTLY IS DANCING WITH STEVE; HE IS PLENTY HIGH. THERE IS NO MUSIC, SAVE THE MELODY THAT STEVE CARRIES IN HIS HEAD. THE ATMOSPHERE IS ONE OF MOURNING, CRUDELY CONTRASTED BY THE OCCASIONAL LAUGHTER OF THE 30YS AND THE GROTESQUE DANCING)

STEVE (DANCING IN AN IMPROVISING STYLE, MAKING IT DIFFICULT FOR HER TO FOLLOW) What's the matter, Gerta, Baby? Can't you dig the steps I'm laying down.

GERTA (EMBARASSED) Let's quit until Rufus and the rest get home safely.

STEVE (PUSHES HER AWAY) Come here, Precious . . . come dance with the ole mellow jazzman. (SHE SHOWS CONTEMPT FOR HIM) Let's me and you hip Gerta to some sho-nuff dance floor magic. (AN EXPLOSION ROCKS THE APARTMENT AND THE NOISE OF CIVIL DISORDER CONTINUES SPORADICALLY THROUGHOUT) You send for the Luftwaffe, turncoat? II - 2 129

GERTA Must you, Steve; everytime?

STEVE Yes, white-wife-of-ole-mellow-jazzman, I must do it every­ time . . . and even times when you’re not around to know that it’s being done to you. Dig that as a continuing effort!

GERTA Why? ’Why must you snatch little bits and pieces of me? (HE LAUGHS) Why don’t you just devour me all at once and get it over with? (HE MOCKS HER WITH A TEETH RATTLING GESTURE)

PRECIOUS Your sickness goes deeper than that habit . . . ’ole mellow jazzman.*

STEVE (IGNORING PRECIOUS) To swallow you whole, Gerta, baby, would not be a true example of my style. You need each little tug and (ATTEMPTS TO NI3BLE HER EAR) each little bite. (VICIOUSLY) Why else would you keep hanging in there (MAKES A GROSS GESTURE)?

GERTA (POINTS TO HER SON) There is one reason . . . that has nothing to do with you. And I know, whatever else you conjur up in the cloudy skull, you won’t obscure that . . . not even to yourself!

STEVE Touche, bitch! Just as you must, so must I. (HE KISSES HER ROUGHLY UNTIL SHE FINALLY SUBMITS TO THE FULL SHAME OF HIS CALLOUS LOVE GESTURES WHICH SEND THEM REELING AGAINST THE WALL NEAREST THE BOYS. THE WHOLE SCENE HAS BEEN CAREFULLY WATCHED BY RICKY)

MiALCOM I won ... I won! I beat you, Ricky! Hey, Miss Gerta, I beat Ricky with his own Chinee-Checkers.

RICKY (LOOKING PATHETICALLY TO HIS MOTHER AND STEVE) He cheated, mama. He made up some new rules that aren’t even in the game.

STEVE (LAUGHS) I can dig it, Malcom! I can dig it! II - 3 130

MALCOM I didn’t cheat, Steve. Yesterday he made the rules; today I made the rules. (LAUGHS) I jumped all his men and took all the marbles.

PRECIOUS (ABSENTLY) Play fair, Malcom.

GERTA (DIRECTLY TO STEVE) It’s only a game. Sometimes losing is what keeps the game going! . . . especially if you lose to a friend.

RICKY Are you my friend, Malcom?

MALCOM If I still win, okay! (STANDING) If you're trying to sneak back my win, I'm not your friend, okay?

STEVE Hey, Carty, do you dig what Malcom is laying down?

PRECIOUS • (AVOIDING A SCENE) Malcom, you and Ricky go in Daddy's bed­ room and play your game.

MALCOM Aw, Mama, ain't nothin' to do in there. Ain't even no windows to look out. Y'all's bedroom is like a box.

RICKY Let's . . . (SOFTLY) go home, Mama. Just me and you.

GERTA Go on in there, Ricky . . . I'll be back to get you before supper.

PRECIOUS Get, Malcom . . . before I tell your Daddy. (THEY GO INTO THE BEDROOM AND CLOSE THE DOOR)

STEVE (DANCING BY HIMSELF) Did you dig Malcom laying down his young Black thing? CARTY Why don't you go someplace else to float around . . . out of my sight. I've got more important things on my mind than II - 4 131 STEVE How is that possible, ancient slave-man, when you don't have no mind left?

CARTY I've got more left than you . . . after what's been running in your veins.

STEVE We both got an albino gorilla inside us, cocksucker; the only difference being that mine is powder, yours is flesh.

CARTY That's not the only difference. I'm still trying to get mine out, and you’ve made friends with yours.

STEVE Oh, the proud Black man is still struggling. Is that why you’re waiting here with the women and children, lookin' out the window like some knocked-up teenager? (CARTY STARTS FOR HIM BUT STOPS WHEN STEVE PULLS OUT HIS DRUMSTICKS FOR MOCK DEFENSE) Why am I wasting my time? I should be practicing and grooving.

CARTY For what?

STEVE For me. For the pure job of knowin' that I'm the badest drummer in town.

CARTY That's very important to a lot of Black people? You have really changed, ole mellow jazzman! STEVE Everybody wants to march . . . somebody got to play the drum. When the folks change, so will the strokes. (TO GERTA) I'm going to the room and work out for awhile; I'll need a hit soon. (TO CARTY) So long, Brother-man, when you overcome yourself . . . I'll come over. (HE LEAVES HUMMING)

CARTY (CALLING AFTER HIM) Don’t be surprised if your strokes don't fit!

PRECIOUS Carty, you know Steve doesn't believe or mean what he says. Seems hard to remember him as one of the most militant fellows on the street . . . before that stuff took him over. II - 5 132

GERTA Something else took him over before the drugs did.

CARTY I wonder what it was?

GERTA (DEFENSIVELY) The world makes us change; sometimes we become someone altogether different from what we thought we could become.

PRECIOUS Not being included in the shift of the times is what turns me around!

CARTY One thing I know, it's time Weldon got back. Wonder why he wouldn’t let me go with him?

PRECIOUS I think he had to prove himself that he still had the courage to go back out into the jungle, alone. Perhaps he saw his chances running out to prove his courage to anyone.

.CARTY I've got a few things to prove too, you know. And my chances aren't looking very good either.

PRECIOUS Mr. Carty, you can let the younger men do the fighting . . . any peace you get, you've earned, twiceover.

CARTY Precious, it ain't that easy. I want to fight . . . today's kind of fighting . . . not the kind we did when I was cornin' up. I want to help destroy all those white men (TO GERTA) . . . you know what I mean . . . the ones who done me wrong . . . the ones who held me back. (TO PRECIOUS) But it seems like fate is going to steal from me again.

GERTA Who are the men? (HOPELESSLY) Do you know who they are, really?

CARTY Some of them I do; but there's others too. I guess you're right, Gerta; some of them I won't know. (TO HIMSELF) And it won't matter neither . . . cause they ain’t never stepped forward so I could tell the difference. II - 6 133 GERTA What do you see when I step forward?

CARTY I see Steve . . . and more confusion than I can handle right now.

GERTA ‘ And what do you see, now, Precious?

PRECIOUS Something I never noticed before.

GERTA Is that all I get from you?

PRECIOUS When I understand more I’ll let you know. (QUICKLY) Can’t you call on that thing and find out where Rufus is?

CARTY It’s dead; the one’s outside can't get through.

GERTA (SARDONICALLY) Fits like a glove! Precious, I’m going downstairs to get Steve's hit for him . . . I'll be back for Ricky in a little bit.

CARTY Maybe you’d better take the boy with you now . . . and maybe you’d better not drop back by here. (PAUSE) This is hard to say, 'cause I know you're alright in a lot of ways: but we're down to the siding-up time. You know what I mean?

GERTA (DISPASSIONATELY) Exactly. You mean that there are no human bonds and no-friendship-bonds and no need-bonds unless they are Black. Is that what your freedom is all about? ’Well, is it Precious?

PRECIOUS I never claimed to be able to spell out what happens between us, Gerta. But one thing I do know: my freedom has got to be more than just getting along with wmte folks and pro­ tecting your feelings.

GERTA I'll take Ricky, now. II - 7 134 PRECIOUS It’s your choice . . . the world is still round, far as I’m concerned. (BEFORE GERTA ENTERS THE BEDROOM THE FRONT DOOR IS FLUNG OPEN AND THE MAYOR AND WELDON ARE PUSHED IN BY RUFUS WHO WIELDS A GUN ON BOTH MEN)

PRECIOUS (ELATED AT HIS ARRIVAL BUT CONFUSED 3Y WHAT SHE SEES) Oh, Rufus, baby!

RUFUS (MOTIONING HER AWAY WITH THE GUN) You left me when I needed you; as far as I’m concerned, mahn, you’re still gone. Weldon, get over there by Carty and stay put!

CARTY What's happening Rufus; what's this all about?

RUFUS You stay put too, Carty: I'm not taking any chances now, mahn. (TO THE MAYOR WHO IS IN OBVIOUS PHYSICAL DISTRESS) You sit on the couch Fir. Mayor before you drop dead and rob me from my pleasure. (THE MAYOR SLUMPS ONTO THE SOFA) Now before you all start asking me a bunch of questions, under­ stand this: I don't know what I’m gonna do about the mission, but it's gonna be SOMETHING!

MALCOM ('BURSTING INTO THE ROOM, PULLING UP SHORT OF HIS FATHER AFTER SEEING THE GUN) Daddy, I heard your . . . Daddy, what are you doing with that gun? Daddy you pointing that gun at Mama? (RICKY PEEKS OUT OF THE BEDROOM) Daddy, what’s wrong with you?

■ RUFUS (TO PRECIOUS) I told you to leave the boy outside.

PRECIOUS You must be mad! Leave Malcom outside with all that shooting and craziness out there? Come here, Malcom.

MALCOM (WANTING TO GO TO HIS FATHER) Daddy? (RUFUS STANDS RIGID)

PRECIOUS You'll pay for that, Rufus; you'll pay a big price. (SHE 3ECK0NS MALCOM; HE GOES TO HER)

GERTA Come to Mama, Ricky. (HE STREAKS TO HER SIDE.) II - 8 135

RUFUS Gerta, you and your boy go now!

GERTA You too? Where should we go to make things right for you?

RUFUS I don’t care where you go ... go back to Germany, go to Steve ... go to hell . . . mahn, but just go!

GERTA If I'm going to hell ... I don't need to move. But where are you going?

MAYOR (CAUTIOUSLY) Lady don't push him; he's very . . . very dis­ tracted. Get out of here if you can.

GERTA I've already been where you'd have me go, and I didn't like it there either.

RUFUS Take Malcom and get in that bedroom right now! Out of my sight! (WHEN SHE DOESN'T MOVE HE EXPLODES) Goddamit, mahn, do as I say, before I . . . just do as I say!

PRECIOUS We won't change in there . . . nor will we disappear. (PRECIOUS GOES WITH HER SON, GERTA FOLLOWS THEM WITH RICKY. BOTH WOMEN HAVE THEIR HEADS DOWN; BOTH BOYS ARE TWISTING TO VIEW THE SCENE THEY ARE LEAVING: RICKY IN FEAR, MALCOM IN DISBELIEF)

RUFUS (AS THE DOOR CLOSES) Oh, Goddam! Goddam all the white men that ever was. (HE LOOKS AT THE MAYOR, WALKS SLOWLY TO HIM, AND VERY SIMPLY—AS IF HE WAS AN ANNOYANCE RATHER THAN A THREAT—AND SLAPS HIM, BACKHANDED, ACROSS THE FACE)

MAYOR (AS RUFUS WALKS AWAY, HE SPEAKS CONTEMPTUOUSLY BUT VERY SOFTLY) »Thy you black ...

WELDON (HIS MANNER IS CURIOUSLY RELAXED, ALMOST RELIEVED) Say it loud.

CARTY Rufus, what in holy-hell is going on? What are you going to do? II - 9 136 RUFUS (TRYING HIS WALKIE-TALKIE, KNOWING IT STILL DOESN'T WORK) Mahn, (SIMPLY) everything is all fukked-up. (CARTY STARTS TOWARD HIM) Stay put . . . all of you stay put! (POINTS TO WELDON) Why don't you ask that motherfukka what's going on?

WELDON (TO NO ONE IN PARTICULAR) We didn't work hard enough getting the people past the rage. The beauty wasn't strong enough to support the order.

RUFUS (RUFUS STARTS TO SHOOT WELDON RIGHT THEN, BUT DOESN'T) Carty, out there in those streets, your last chance is slowly sliding down the sewers with the blood and the broken glass. ’Why didn't you do like I told you? ’Why didn't you go with Weldon to call the TV people?

CARTY He told me he wanted to go by himself; he said it was just something he had to do alone. Ain't that what you told me, ’Weldon? (WELDON NODS YES) He told me to come back here with you, Rufus; I told you that when I came back.

RUFUS Why didn't you call the TV people, ’Weldon? What makes you just sit on the goddam stoop and watch? (VEHEMENTLY) 'What did you think you were watching, a goddam movie?

WELDON There is no alibi.

RUFUS Who said anything about a goddam alibi: i want an explanation I want to know what made your blood dry up ... I want you to tell me how you could so easily throw away your mission, mahn, like some half-eaten pattie.

WELDON I guess I owe you that.

RUFUS You don't owe me shit, mahn; I'm takin' all I want from you: I'm takin' your life if I want to. You owe yourself!

CARTY (CAUTIOUSLY) Tell him Weldon. Tell him something. II - 10 137 VffiLDON (OBLIVIOUS TO THE DANGER) I owe my father . . . and I owe all the Black people in whom the rage is too hot.

RUFUS (ANGRILY PLEADING) Mahn, stop all them riddles and tell me why you ... of all people . . . didn’t stick to the mission?

MAYOR 3ecause his sanity returned and yours . . .

RUFUS You don’t exist . . . except when I want you to! (BACK TO HIS REAL CONCERN) Why, Weldon?

VffiLDON (HIS VOICE HAS A CURIOUSLY RHYTHMIC QUALITY) The telephone booth at the corner had been toppled over . . . Some guy came up to me and announced what had happened and what was going to happen ... He announced to me what the mission was . . . He said that the TV stations had been dynamited . . . and the newspaper offices ... He was so matter-of-fact about it all ... He was like David Brinkley in a black leather jacket ... He asked me if I knew that the mayor was going to be "snatched" he called it . . . Then he asked me if I knew about all the "political families" that had been "offed" . . . And I ran into others . . . Everybody knew something that I didn’t know.

MAYOR Are you saying that my family has been . . . ?

RUFUS Shut up!

VffiLDON (TO THE MAYOR) A breakdown in communications: poor timing; vengence through error . . . retribution through chance . . . (THE MAYOR SLUMPS FURTHER, MUTTERING ABOUT THE IM­ POSSIBILITY OF THIS ALL HAPPENING) And then . . . (NOT ADDRESSING HIMSELF TO THOSE PRESENT IN THE LEAST). I saw an old Black woman shot by the police as she was running to get to her apartment ... I tried to help her but she just died, clutching my shirt with those long, black bony fingers . . . one injustice that she couldn’t quite weather . . . I saw my dead brother run through a brick wall and disappear . . . then a young Black girl came running by . . . bent over with her pregnancy . . . she was cursing everybody . . . Black and white alike . . . knowing that there wasn’t anyplace left for her to have her baby . . . II - 11 138 Two wine-heads were crying ... I found out . . . because they had just watched a white woman throw her baby girl out of the window . . . nine stories up. Splat ... I thought . . .and I sat down. (TO ANYONE LISTENING IN THE WORLD) The mission must come from the spirit not the spirit from the mission. . . and I was paralyzed knowing that I learned this too late.

RUFUS Your heart turned to a piece of shit, that's what really happened: Weldon-Mr. Knowledge-Planner-Super-Know-Everything In-Advance-Chicken-Assed-Non-Man-And-Never-Will-Be-One! You need to learn how to die . . . that's what you need to learn . . . that's what all of you need to learn!

MAYOR (APPEALING TO ANYONE) We must look ahead. We must leave here and see what each of us can do. We can't just give up.

WELDON (SIMPLY) Time has run out, really.

CARTY We must do something, Rufus. Did you get any message while you were out looking for Weldon?

WELDON (SWAYING NOTICEABLY: GETTING DISORIENTED) When the clock begins to spin so terribly fast . . . (BEFORE-THE HANDLESS PENDULUM) slow down . . . when the face is all dots and all numbers and all lines . . . slow down (STARTS WHISTLING)!

MAYOR (TRYING TO SAVE WHAT HE PERCEIVES AS HIS LAST HOPE) Why don't you sit down . . . Sir?

RUFUS (PEERING OUT THE WINDOW, AFTER A PARTICULARLY LOUD VOLLY OUTSIDE) The educated bastid's mind copped out. Ain't that a bitch! Brothers are down there dying, and you turn to an absolute zero!

CARTY Snap out of it, Weldon. (WELDON SHAKES HIS HEAD UP AND DOWN TO CARTY . . . SAYING HE'S IN PERFECT CONTROL . . . WHICH HE ISN'T)

MAYOR (TO RUFUS) You help me get back to city hall safely, and I'll guarantee that your cooperation will work in your behalf . . all of you. (THE OTHERS ARE DEALING WITH EACH OTHER AND II - 12 139

ARE OBLIVIOUS TO KIM) We must ... all of us . . . do our utmost to restore civil order to our city.

WELDON Spinning ... dots . . . lines?

CARTY Maybe we'd better try to salvage what we can. It’s out of control. . . .

MAYOR He appears to be real bad. The longer he’s left in that state, the more difficult it will be for him to break out of it. Let’s get him to a hospital.

RUFUS (SHRIEKING ... HE SEPARATES HIMSELF FROM EVERYONE) Do you stupid bastards realize that my guts is on fire and my head is bubbling so hard that it feels like it’s going to pop right off my neck ... Do you realize that!!

MAYOR Take it easy, Mr. Faulkner. (TO CARTY) Try and calm him down.

CARTY Easy, Rufus. . .

RUFUS And you bastards are still talking about restoring and sal­ vaging. We’re past all that! And this educated piece of shit stands there babbling to himself . . . with no idea of where we go from here. Well I know where we go . . .1 know where we all are going!

CARTY Rufus, get hold of yourself. We got to keep on pushing . . . we ain’t never been quitters. You’re not alone . . . I’m still with you . . . there’s a lot of Brothers still with you. . . We've been together for a long time . . . fourteen years, right here in this building . . .

WELDON (HE CONVULSES AND RUSHES TOWARD RUFUS, ATTEMPTING TO TELL HIM SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT) It turned black ... All of it (SHRIEKS) turned black! (PARTLY IN SURPRISE, PARTLY IN­ TENDING, RUFUS SHOOTS" "HIM IN THE CHEST. HE DIES IN RUFUS' ARMS. RUFUS ALLOWS THE BODY TO DIE COMPLETELY. THEN LET'S IT PASS THROUGH LIKE A SACK OF WORTHLESS DUST) II - 13 140 CARTY (LISTENS FOR A HEARTBEAT) You killed him. Rufus, you killed Weldon!

PRECIOUS (FLINGING THE DOOR OPEN AT THE SHOT) My God, what have you done Rufus? (CARTY RUSHES TO HERD HER BACK INTO THE BEDROOM, AND AS HE- CLOSES HER IN, THE GUN SPEAKS TO HIS BACK, PINNING HIM MOMENTARILY TO THE DOOR; FINALLY HE SLIDES TO THE FLOOR: DEAD).

RUFUS (SURPRISED)' Carty?

MAYOR (ATTEMPTING A CLINICAL CALM) Mr. Faulkner, you’re confused. Let me help you. Come sit here and let's talk this thing out. (HE TURNS AND FIRES ONCE THROUGH THE DOOR)

RUFUS (CALLING TO THE BEDROOM) Don't come out. Stay in there. Stay in there forever! There’s a devil out here. Stay in there where it’s safe.

MAYOR (TALKING FAST) Nothing . . . absolutely nothing is more valuable than the human life . . . whatever rage is in your mind . . . remember that men . . . you . . . especially you are of no value whatsoever unless you are alive. The same goes for all men . . . for me and for you ... no matter what problems we may encounter.

RUFUS Go ahead and talk, Mr. Mayor, go right ahead. (HIS MANNER IS MORE MECHANICAL FROM NOW ON TO THE END) I'm going to take your human life. I might let you finish talking and I might not. . . . Nothing is certain for you anymore . . . But you can begin . . . (HE MAKES HIMSELF COMFORTABLE AS IF TO HEAR A POLITICAL SPEECH . . . ONLY HE OCCASIONALLY TURNS HIS HEAD QUICKLY TO LOOK AT THE DEAD BODIES AND THE BEDROOM DOOR)

MAYOR (AWKWARDLY) No ... no white man wants our "relations" to be as they are now. (CAUTIOUSLY) And no thinking Black man can hope to live in the midst of terror and vengence and senseless killing . . . (RUFUS FIRES THREE SHOTS PAST THE MAYOR'S HEAD AND BEGINS TO CHUCKLE SOFTLY AS THE MAYOR FALLS BACK ONTO THE SOFA.)

RUFUS (HE PUTS THE PISTOL TO THE MAYORS TEMPLE AND PULLS THE TRIGGER II - 14 141 . . . THERE IS A LOUD "CLICK" AS THE GUN IS OUT OF BULLETS. HE THROWS THE GUN AWAY AND PULLS ANOTHER FROM HIS BELT, CARESSES IT, THEN PUTS IT BACK) I think I'll kill you with my bare hands. In the end, we will definitely have personal "relations."

MAYOR .(TRYING A FINAL BRAVADO . . . PATHETICALLY) Okay, Mr. Big Man . . . Bring your son out here . . . why don't you do that . . . and let him see how big and brave his father is? (STANDS) Come on . . . let your son see what you think is necessary to become a man . . .

RUFUS (SMILING) Don't you worry yourself about my son . . . just hope that you've taught your son what you've felt he needed to know.

MAYOR I didn't teach my son to hate and kill.

RUFUS Your father is going to denounce you when you meet him in hell.

MAYOR (SCREAMING) My father didn't teach me to hate and kill either!

RUFUS (TOPPING HlS SCREAM) Then where did you learn, mothafukka!

MAYOR Please . . . we can't go on like this.

RUFUS I know. (MENACINGLY) When did you find out?

MAYOR I don't know . . . maybe today . . . RIGHT NOW!

RUFUS (SMILING . . . QUIETLY) Right now is too late.

MAYOR No . . . no . . .it's never too late.

RUFUS (STILL SMILING . . . STILL QUIETLY) That is why I am going to kill you . . . because you believe that. II - 15 142

MAYOR No . . . you misunderstand ... I didn't mean . . .

RUFUS You willing to try anything?

MAYOR Yes . . . yes ... we must try anything.

RUFUS Do you promise to be as resourceful as we've had to be to survive your madness?

MAYOR I'll do all I can . . . (QUICKLY) I’ll do my very best.

RUFUS (GRABS THE MAYOR AROUND THE NECK IN A VICE-LIKE GRIP) Then get loose! (THE MAYOR STRUGGLES) Get loose and prove that you can let loose! (THE MORE HE STRUGGLES HE LEARNS THAT IT BECOl^S^MORE DIFFICULT TO BREATHE) The more you struggle the harder it gets, doesn't it?

MAYOR (GASPING) Yes . . . yes! Please . . .

RUFUS Nooo . . . Nooooo . . . don't beg . . . that never works. Try rubbing my head, for luck. (TIGHTENS THE GRIP) Even if you don't believe it, you'd better try it. Sometime, Mr. Mayor you have to try anything ... no matter how awkward or silly it makes you feel. (TIGHTENS UP) Nov; rub!

MAYOR (RELUCTANTLY THEN EAGERLY) I can't breathe ... my heart . .

RUFUS Yeah, mahn, I know about your heart ... it pumps blood back wards! You just keep rubbin' on old Rufus' head and maybe your luck will change in time to straighten out your heart problem. (PAUSE) Seems like you're just making my head hotter ... and hotter. (THE DOOR OPENS SLOVZLY AND STEVE ENTERS) Keep rubbin' . . . STEVE If this ain't the freakiest scene I've ever dug! (HE NOTICES THE 30DIES) Did that devil off Carty and the counselor? Choke off all his air, Rufus. (RUFUS IGNORES HIM) II - 16 143 RUFUS Keep rubbin' . . .

STEVE Hey ... I hate to break up your freak-out thing, but I’m looking for Gerta; she was supposed to score a hit for me and I need it now. (SHOUTS) Rufus . . .

RUFUS (THE MAYOR IS ALMOST UNCONSCIOUS) Come on in, Brother, I'll be with you shortly.

STEVE Where's my woman? ... I need my hit.

MAYOR (HEAD FLOPS BACK) Help . . . pills . . . please . . .

RUFUS (TOSSES THE MAYOR ONTO THE SOFA LIKE A RAG DOLL; HE LANDS SEATED WITH HIS HEAD THROWN BACK) Talk to him, Steve; maybe you can understand each other. (HE DRAWS THE OTHER GUN OUT QUIETLY)

STEVE You gone crazy? This cracker is half-dead, and there's a gorilla eating up my guts . . . this ain't no time to be talking!

RUFUS (QUIETLY) I guess you're right, mahn. Come on, your hit is back here in the bedroom . . . (LOOKS BACK AT THE MAYOR . . . SHAKES HIS HEAD IN DISGUST) Let's go get the hit mahn . . . it's time now. (AS THEY GET TO THE DOOR, RUFUS SNATCHES IT OPEN AND PUSHES STEVE IN AND CLOSES THEM BOTH INSIDE. THERE ARE SCREAMS AND PLEAS AND COMMOTION . . . THEN THERE ARE TWO QUICK SHOTS . . . PLEAS FROM PRECIOUS, STEVE AND MALCOM . . . ONE SHOT . . . SCREAMS FROM PRECIOUS . . . THEN TWO QUICK SHOTS. AT EACH SHOT, THE MAYOR CONVULSES AND DIES AS A BIG EXPLOSION FROM OUTSIDE ROCKS THE HOUSE. THE LIGHTS FLICKER AND GO OUT LEAVING THE ROOM DARK EXCEPT FOR THE LIGHT FROM THE HALLWAY SHINING FROM THE OPEN DOOR. AFTER A MOMENT MALCOM SLOWLY WALKS OUT FROM THE BEDROOM . . . NOTICES HIS TOY GUN . . . PICKS IT UP . . NOTICES THE MAYOR . . . WALKS OVER TO KIM AND LOOKS AT HIM CAREFULLY)

MALCOM He dead too. (POINTS THE TOY GUN AT THE MAYOR AND SAYS) Bang! (LOOKS BACK AT THE BEDROOM DOOR THEN WALKS SLOWLY OUT THE DOOR. WE HEAR THE TICKING AND THE SOUNDS OF SPORADIC EXPLOSIONS II - 17 144 AS THE HALL LIGHT FLICKERS AND GOES OUT AT THE END)

BLACKNESS BLACK SERMON ROCK

A Play in One Act 146

The Characters:

Sister Rose An ageless lady preacher in the "Holiness" church; strong in body and voice. Black.

First Deacon About 45, bald and Black.

Second Deacon About 45, not bald and not too Black.

First Brother About 35, Black and slick.

Second Brother About 35, not so Black and not so slick.

Three Sisters of Soul Singers, young or old; or both.

Four Musicians Tambourines, Tenor Sax, Piano and Bass.

Eight Stand-ins, or Male body of Carl; Male body Two Stand-ins and Six of Rufus. The rest a mixture Dummies of male and female characters.

The Time: Black Now.

The Place: A Black Holiness Church 147 PRODUCTION NOTES:.

For this play, as in many Black Churches, the music is an integral and important element of the religious experience.

The Four Musicians are to improvise to create a syncopated rhythm to compliment the shifts of energy and syncopation in the sermon. They are to be apart from the reality of the action—relating to themselves as if they were on a regular gig—but are to be very much a part of the Black totality, the Black spectrum, which is an important fabric to this experience. If and when the play is performed as a two-act piece, the Four Musicians should really "show out," still under the auspices of the director. They should dress not alike; they are, however, Black musicians: relaxed only for the likes of singer-piano player Mose Allison or someone of his ilk.

The Three Sisters of Soul are to be, exclusively, of the Aretha Franklin—Screamer—variety. They should be dressed in long flowing robes.

The Deacons, if they work at all, are men who sell ointments and salves from black suitcases, door-to-door, two or three days a week. They are black, dressed-up, but differently.

The Brothers are professional black ghetto scavengers; drinking is their primary activity. They are philosophers by avocation.

The Stand-ins and/or Dummies are characters from RIDE A BLACK HORSE and TIME TURNS BLACK. Except for the two who must climb into the caskets at the end, the remaining six should be naked or nearly so—especially if dummies or mannequins are used. A color wheel-light should be used within the church, as is the style in this kind of Holiness Church. ACT I (PART ONE)

(THE SCENE IS A SMALL, STORE-FRONT HOLINESS CHURCH. IN THE CONGREGATION ARE THREE SISTERS OF SOUL, TWO DEACONS, TWO BROTHERS AND EIGHT STAND-INS AND/OR DUMMIES. AN IRREGULARLY PAINTED SIGN READING: THE FIRST AND LAST CHURCH OF SOUL KANGS ABOVE TWO COFFINS WHICH OCCUPY A PART OF THE REAR SPACE. IN THE DIMLY LIGHTED ROOM, THERE IS A DIVISION OF ABOUT TWENTY WOODEN, FOLDING CHAIRS WHICH ARE ARRANGED TO RELATE TO THE WHITE-TABLECLOTH-COVERED-ALTAR WHICH ALSO SERVES AS THE ROSTRUM FOR SISTER ROSE.

AS THE LIGHT COLES UP, AND WE HAVE BEEN HEARING HER AND THE MUSIC 3EF0RE SEEING THE CHURCH, SISTER ROSE IS TRAILING OFF FROM A PASSAGE THAT MAKES THE SOUL SISTERS AND THE DEACONS EMIT THEIR APPRECIATORY REMARKS: "Yes, Lawd . . . You Sho’ is Right . . . Thank You Sister, etc." MEANWHILE, SISTER ROSE HAS TAKEN A SIP OF WINE, AS IS HER WONT, FROM BEHIND THE ALTAR; SHE MOPS HER BROW AS THE SOUL SISTERS—UPON HER NON-VERBAL COMMAND—STAND AND BEGIN A CHORUS OF "SPIRIT OF THE DARK." FORTIFIED AND RESTED, SISTER ROSE BEGINS—WHERE­ UPON THE SOUL SISTERS AND THE MUSICIANS STOP ABRUPTLY AND TAKE THEIR SEATS, AS DO THE DEACONS WHO ALWAYS FLANK THE SOUL SISTERS. SHE COMES ON QUIETLY, 3UT BUILDS QUICKLY).

SISTER ROSE Yes, He is our friend . . . (THE FOLLOWING AND SUBSEQUENT PASSAGES OF THE SERMON ARE PUNCTUATED, IN PERFECT CADENCE, BY THE MOANS AND WAILS OF THE SOUL SISTERS AND THE DEACONS AND BY THE IMPROVISING OF THE MUSICIANS, ONLY) He won't ever leave you alone . . .He'll stay by your side when you're sick and tired . . .He'll feed you when you're hungry . . . and give you drink when your soul is dry . . .

FIRST DEACON (LOLLING HIS HEAD, SARDONICALLY) Sometimes he will.

SISTER ROSE (CRISPLY TO THE DEACON) He'll do it all the time . . . (RESUMING THE SERMON’S CADENCE) if you pray to the Lawd . . . You got to repent ... I say you got to. repent . . . and the Lawd will see you through . . . When our Lawd . . . walked along the River Nile ... he didn't feel no pain 'cause the Spirit was there to see him through . . . And it's here . . . Yes, the Spirit is right here to see us all through . . . But you got to fall down on your knees and repent . . . You got to stop yo' wickedness . . . I - 5 149 SECOND DEACON (PERSONALLY TO ONE OF THE SOUL SISTERS) Indeeeeed you do, yes, Lawd!

SISTER ROSE (POINTING OUT EACH PERSON WITH ENSUING DECLAMATIONS OF GUILT) Yes, you got to stop smiting your brother’s face . . . You got to stop carryin' on with your brother’s wife , . . And your sister’s husband . . . And robbin’ your neighbor’s pocket . . . And stealing from your brother’s table . . . And stompin’ on your brother’s mind . . . REARING BACK) You got to love a righteous love . . . love God ... . and stop loving yourself ’cause you’re loving in sin when you do like you do, don't you know! Whew, help me, God.

FIRST BROTHER

(EYES CLOSED) Yeah, help me to some of that loving, Lawd.

SECOND BROTHER (ATTEMPTING TO DISASSOCIATE HIMSELF FROM HIS FRIEND IN LIGHT OF THE OTHERS PRESENT, PARTICULARLY THE DUMMIES) What you really mean is help you get some drink!

FIRST BROTHER (EYES OPEN: JUMPS UP) Why you fukkan' hypocrite!

SISTER ROSE (AT HER HOLIEST) Listen here, Mister, you'd better watch your tongue in the Lawd's House. We're here to send the dead and the dying to the Promised Land . . . but there's trains going the other way, too! And the way you're working on a ticket South!

FIRST BROTHER (REALLY TOO DRUNK TO BE INTIMIDATED) I got a brother in Tallahassee.

SECOND BROTHER (PERTURBED, BUT PROTECTIVE) Sit down. Shut up, 'fore they throw us out. You want to miss communion?

FIRST BROTHER I repent! (SITS, PIOUSLY) ± repent!

DEACONS: (TOGETHER) Sister . . . should we . . .? (FULLY PREPARED TO DO HARM TO THE BROTHERS). 1-6 150 SISTER ROSE (AFTER GETTING A QUICK DRINK DURING THE INTERRUPTION) All of you sit down before you fall down. (SHE MOTIONS TO SOMEONE WHO APPARENTLY HAS NOTIONS OF JOINING THE CONGREGATION ... BUT THEY PASS ON) Come on in, brothers, the Lawd’s door is always open.

FIRST BROTHER Hey, that's a lie. (TO HIS PARTNER) Remember it was locked last night, when we heard all that laughing inside?

SECOND BROTHER (CUFFS HIM) Forgive him, everybody, he's had a lot on his mind lately. (WHISPERING) Nov; cool it!

SISTER ROSE (GETTING HERSELF MOST SERIOUS) Let us continue with the Lawd’s work. We have here (MOTIONING TO THE CASKETS) two poor Brothers, who lost in the battle for freedom. The knew . . . yes, they learned, Lawd . . . that the black man’s burden is a heavy yoke . . . yes it is! Let us search ...... for our deepest repentance in their names.

FIRST BROTHER Are them stiffs up there?

SISTER ROSE (FUMBLING FOR A SCRAP OF PAPER WITH THE NAMES OF THE DECEASED; FAILING, SHE WHISPERS TO THE SERIOUS DEACON) What are their names? I can't find the paper.

VOICE OF CARL (OFF) (RECORDED AND DISTORTED IN A DEATH-CACKLE) Everybody knows my name. Everybody knows who I am. (EVERYONE IS ASTONISHED EXCEPT SISTER ROSE WHO TAKES THIS IN STRIDE: SINCE SHE'S HAD A FEW DRINKS, SHE UNDERSTANDS THAT THE LAWD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS ... THE MORE ONE DRINKS, THE MORE MYSTERIOUS HIS WAYS.) SISTER ROSE (BRACING HERSELF FOR SOME SERIOUS PREACHING) Let us continue. We have here, before the Lawd and His appointed messengers, two departed Black Brothers . . . who accidentally walked upon the Grim Reaper . . . fighting for the freedom of all Black Men.

VOICE OF RUFUS (OFF) (RECORDED AND DISTORTED IN A DEATH-CACKLE; THE WEST INDIAN DIALECT INTACT) Accident my ass, mahn; I knew I was goin' down and so did you bastids who sat back and watched. 1-7 151 (AGAIN ASTONISHMENT BY ALL BUT SISTER ROSE).

FIRST BROTHER Key, Sister, I wouldn’t mess with them cats from the islands; they’s known to carry a butcher knife.

SECOND BROTHER Keep quiet; don’t interfere with something you don’t know nothin’ about.

FIRST DEACON (POINTING TO THE CURTAINED OFF BACK ROOM) Should I go back there and see what’s happening? (WHISPERING TO SISTER ROSE) Who’s back there, Sister?

SISTER ROSE (HAVING FOUND THE SCRAP OF PAPER WITH THE NAMES OF THE DECEASED). Let us ask the Lawd for the mercy of our poor departed brothers, Carl and Rufus. Let there be an angel of mercy to rescue them from the fires below.

VOICE OF RUFUS (OFF) Don’t protect me, you bitch ... I earned my shot at the Devil . . . now let me go. I want to know if he’s as bad as them white men was.

FIRST BROTHER Those cats from the islands is even weird after they’re dead. I ain’t never going to mess with none of them no more!

VOICE OF CARL (OFF) Ask . . . ask the . . . Ask God to forgive those who are living as I lived. Let them make the right choices.

FIRST BROTHER ;(TO HIS FRIEND) Nov/ that cat is copping a sensible plea [before going to meet the man.

SECOND DEACON ¡(STANDING) Sister Rose . . . shall I throw them out?

SECOND BROTHER He don’t mean to cause no trouble, brother (CUFFING- HIS FRIEND). He’s just thirsty and irritable . . . just like me and (MOCKINGLY) You!

SISTER ROSE (HAVING NOW SHOWED A MILD PERPLEXITY TO THE RECURRENCE OF THE VOICES, ESPECIALLY RUFUS'; SHE ASSUMES CONTROL MOTIONING TO THE ENTIRE CONGREGATION TO RISE. ALL RISE EXCEPT THE EIGHT 1-8 152 STAND-IN AND/OR DUMMIES: OBVIOUSLY) You can all sort of* assist me as we prepare the role call of sins and beg the Lawd for their forgiveness. (NOTICING THE SEATED DUMMIES: WITH CONSTERNATION) Of course the Lawd don’t beg nobody! (SHE MOTIONS TO THE SOUL SISTERS AND THE MUSICIAN^ WO MUST SCRAMBLE FOR THEIR INSTRUMENTS, SINCE THEY WERE DOING SOME­ THING ELSE! PLAY DIVISION

(When performed in conjunction with either long play) I - 10 154 (PART.TWG)

(ALL EXCEPT SISTER ROSE LAUNCH INTO "SPIRIT IN THE DARK" . . . SISTER ROSE IS BUSY COPPING A LONG DRINK OF WINE— TO THE NOTICE AND DISSATISFACTION OF THE FIRST BROTHER. WHEN SHE FINISHES, SHE CUTS THEM OFF FROM THE SINGING, ABRUPTLY!)

SISTER ROSE (BEGINNING TO WORK OUT) Brothers and Sisters . . .

FIRST BROTHER (JAWS REALLY TIGHT ABOUT THAT WINE) Hey, how long is this going to take, Sister; I’m thirsty too? (HIS COMPANION QUIETS HIM)

SISTExR ROSE (IGNORING HIM AND LEAFING THROUGH THE BIBLE, LOOKING FOxR A PARTICULAR PASSAGE; IMPROVISING AS SHE SEARCHES, BEGINNING HER CHANT) According to the first verse in the book of . . . (SEARCHING) As the Lawd says in the Scripture . . . (LEAFING THROUGH IN VAIN)

SECOND DEACON Can I help you find the place, Sister?

SISTER ROSE (STILL TRYING) Naw! (FINALLY SHE SLAMS THE BOOK SHUT) The Lawd helps those who help themselves.

VOICE OF RUFUS (OFF) Sheeeeeeit!!

SISTER ROSE (NOT BREAKING STRIDE) The best Scriptures are the ones that come from the soul . . . (SHE IS SUPPORTED HERE AND THROUGH­ OUT WITH MUSICAL IMPROVISATION AND THE APPROPRIATE CONGRE­ GATIONAL RESPONSES THAT ARE CHARACTERISTIC OF AND VITAL TO THE MEANING AND IMPACT OF A SERMON SUCH AS THIS). He didn’t call me to read from the Bible ... He called me to speak the truth . . . The truth about all you sinners . . . And your names aren’t in the Lawd’s Book . . . You’re too sinful to be in the Good Book . . . All but these two gone Black Brothers are too sinful to be mentioned in the Good Book . . . They have earned their places in the Lawd’s Book . . . letum in . . . letum in . . . LETUM IN!

FIRST BROTHER Come on, Arthur Lee, let’s try that church down the street; this Sister don’t seem to understand . . . (SNATCHED DOWN I - 11 155 BY HIS FRIEND)

SISTER ROSS (MILDLY PERTURBED AT THE INTERRUPTION) Yes, I know . . . and the Lawd knows when you come to His house to make a mockery over the dead . . .

VOICE OF CARL (OFF) Vie made a mockery of the living.

SISTER ROSE (FOR THE FIRST TIME, SHE ADDRESSES HERSELF TO THE VOICES, WHO SEEM—IN THIS INSTANCE—TO SUPPORT HER) He can see . . . Yes he can see when you’re tired of listening to the truth . . . yes Lawd . . . and would rather be out in the streets sinning ...

VOICE OF RUFUS (OFF) Fighting, mahn, fighting in the streets. Sinning is being here . . . psyching yourself out on them million sins of Cola Duck!*

(*ANY LOCAL, INEXPENSIVE RED WINE; CHOSEN FOR ITS SOULFUL NAME RATHER THAN ITS TASTE . . . WHICH AIN'T BAD.)

SECOND DEACON (BUSINESSLIKE) Sister Rosetta? (OBVIOUSLY ANGERED BY THE VOICE OF RUFUS) Has this service been paid for? (MOTIONS TOWARD THE DUMMIES) Did they pay up?

SISTER ROSE (ADDRESSING HERSELF TO THE DUMMIES FOR THE FIRST TIME) You told me you paid the Deacon! (TO THE OTHER DEACON) Did they tighten you up? (HE NODS NEGATIVELY; SHE TURNS BACK TO THE DUMMIES)- I see what's going down now . . . you all are trying to pull a fast one on . . . on the Lawd. (HANDS ON HER HIPS, IN A NITTY-GRITTY CURSING OUT TIME FASHION) Well, the Lawd don't stand for no nonsense, when it comes to taking care of business ... if you know what I mean. Whoever is supposed to be paying for this service, raise your hand fast . . . And the Lawd ain't jiving! (NO RESPONSE FROM THE DUMMIES, OBVIOUSLY) Get the persuader, Deacon, and get them dues! (THE FIRST DEACON RhlREATS BEHIND THE CURTAIN, THE SOUL SISTERS STAND WITH CLENCHED FISTS, THIS TWO BROTHERS ARE GETTING AWAY FROM THE DUMMIES AND THE SECOND DEACON BEGINS TO APPROACH THE DUMMIES . . . SORT OF WAITING FOR THE FIRST DEACON TO APPEAR WITH THE PERSUADER. WHEN THE FIRST BEACON APPEARS, THE SECOND DEACON STRIDES CONFIDENTLY UP BEHIND ONE DUI-lIY AND SHAKES HIM BY THE SHOULDERS, WHEREUPON THE DUMMY'S HEAD FALLS OFF. EVERYBODY STIFFENS UP: REAL TIGHT! 1-12 156

EVEN THE MUSICIANS GET, FROM THIS POINT ON, INVOLVED IN THE BLACK SERMON ROCK.)

VOICE OF CARL (OFF) It is going to happen!

VOICE OF RUFUS (OFF) It already happened, mahn!

FIRST BROTHER Oh, Goddam!

SECOND BROTHER He means oh, God!

SECOND DEACON (FRIGHTENED) Sister Rosetta, what is this? What should I do?

VOICE OF RUFUS (OFF) You might stop asking that winehead dream merchant to tell you what to do . . . for openers!

SISTER ROSE (RETALIATING) Not here in the Lawd’s house, not even from the dead will such words be spoken.

VOICE OF CARL (OFF) There is no sacred place in which to retreat from the rush. The rush is coming, and you must know the road . . . some road . . . any road. (IN ANGUISH) If you don’t build the road, you won’t see the turn . . .

SISTER ROSE (SOLEMNLY) Oh, members, the Lawd is working in one of his most mysterious ways for us this evening.

VOICE OF RUFUS (OFF) It ain’t got half as mysterious as it's gon' get, mahn. Because even when you know the road, and even when you know where the turns are cornin' up, mahn, your enemies and your friends too, mahn, are going to put up new signs.

SISTER ROSE (A BIT AFRAID, NOW, BUT DETERMINED TO REGAIN CONTROL AND EITHER FINISH OR DISMISS THIS SERMON) Deacon, (LOOKING WITH TREPIDATION AT THE HEADLESS DUMMY) see if one of them other, uh, people, want to pay to have this sermon finished. (ALMOST HOPEFUL) Otherwise, instruct them to arrange to have these caskets out of here before time for the next service I - 13 157 for that (TOUCHES HER BREAST, AGAIN) other brother.

FIRST DEACON (WITH THE PERSUADER) I'll take care of business, Sister Rosetta; don't you worry. (AS HE TOUCHES THE NEXT DUMMY, IT'S HEAD ROLLS OFF, TOO) God Almighty!

SISTER ROSE (UNASHAMEDLY AND OPENLY COPPING A LONG SLUG OF WINE FOR STRENGTH; SHE MOTIONS TO THE DEACON TO TOUCH THE REST OF THE DUMMIES) Take care of business, Deacon!

FIRST DEACON (EXTENDING THE PERSUADER, CAUTIOUSLY . . . TOUCHING THE FOUR DUMMIES, QUICKLY; THEIR HEADS ROLL OFF) Sister Rose, (HE JUMPS BACK AND DROPS-THE PERSUADER) these ain’t people, is they?

SISTER ROSE (TAKING ANOTHER LONG DRINK FOR COURAGE, SHE WALKS—WITH A SLIGHT LEVITY—AROUND TO FACE THE REMAINING TWO DUB2ES) The Lawd gives His appointed messengers the strength to drive all evil from His house. I’m warning you, with all the glory and power of God Almighty and Sister Rose too . .

VOICE OF CARL (OFF) If you don’t get yourself together, you're going to lose your mind!

VOICE OF RUFUS (OFF) if you don't get yourself together, you're going to loose your head! (AT THIS MOMENT, THE TWO REMAINING STAND-IN DUMMIES RISE—SCARING HELL OUT OF EVERYONE IN THE CHURCH- WALK OVER TO THE CASKETS AND CLIMB IN—CLOSING THE LIDS AFTER THEM. THE LIGHTS FLICKER, SERIE SOUNDS OF MADNESS, CHAOS, AND DEATH FILL THE ROOM. AS THE SOUNDS DIE OUT, THE CASKETS ARE REOPENED FROM WITHIN AND WE ARE ADMONISHED ALONG WITH THE PEOPLE IN SISTER ROSE'S CHURCH)

VOICES OF CARL AND RUFUS GET YOURSELVES TOGETHER AND ROCK MY SPIRIT! . (THE CASKETS ARE LEFT OPEN . . . WITH TOPS RAISED)

(IMMEDIATELY, ALL EXCEPT SISTER ROSE, FALL UPON THEIR KNEES AND JOIN THE KWLING MUSICIANS—EVEN THE PIANO PLAYER AND DRUMMER—IN A WILD VERSION OF: "SPIRIT IN THE DARK." THE LIGHTS, WHICH HAVE BEEN FLICKERING, C-0 OUT COMPLETELY, AND THEY STOP PLAYING AND STOP SINGING, ABRUPTLY. WE SEE THE GHOSTLY LUMINOUS GREEN BODIES OF THE SIX HEADLESS DUMMIES FOR A MOMENT. THEN SISTER ROSE—EVER ON TOP OF THESE MYSTER 1-14 158

IOUS MOMENTS—GOES TO THE ALTAR AND LIGHTS THE TWO LARGE CANDLES THAT FLANK THE ALTAR. SHE BEGINS TO PRAY-PREACH- COMMUNICATE AS THE OTHERS TAKE SEATS, EXCEPT FOR THE MUSICIANS WHO ARE PREPARING THEMSELVES FOR THE IMPROVISATIONAL PLEASURES THAT AWAIT THEM)

SISTER ROSE (IN THE SANCTIFIED CADENCE) In this sinful city . . . where people have forgotten how to love ... in the right way . . . sick are left alone to cry at night . . . where dreams turn to nightmares . . . and the name of God is seldom seen . . . Forgive the dead Brothers and redeeeeeeeeeeeeem the living ... Do it, Lawd! (WARMING UP) In the city where these brothers had to wander about among the scum of the earth. Say it, Lawd . . . In a city where the brothers can be beaten and killed like dogs . . . Give the dead pennance and the living redemption ... (TO THE MUSICIANS) Take it, Brothers!

(A ONE MINUTE IMPROVISATION)

Oh, Lawd, do one good thing here for these dead brothers! Now, I don't know too much about them, Lawd . . . But they must have been good Brothers . . . ’Cause they done brought -the Spirit into this the Lawd’s House . . . Yes they did . . . Because they had to live in this wicked world . . . ’With these wicked people ... So shine forth your light and pick out the sinners . . . Yes, Lawd . . . Pick out the sinners who didn't love them ... Or the ones who loved them in the wrong way . . . Because that’s what the people in the world are doing . . . Yeah . . . They’s lovin' in the wrooooooong waaaaaaaaay! . . . And the sinners know it . . . Yes they do . . . and if they don’t know it, Lawd, they're not trying to find out . . . No they’re not! (TO MUSICIANS) Take it, Brothers!

(A ONE MINUTE IMPROVISATION)

So let the just be rewarded ... in the Promised Land . . . (OMINOUSLY) And let the sinners walk alone in the Devil's Cave . . . Do it. Lawd . . . Save the Brothers and the Sisters . . . And the baby boys and baby girls . . . Save the Doctor . . . and the Lawyer . . . and the Indian Chief . . . Lawd . . . Save the big man . . . and the little man . . . But most of allllllll, Lawd . . . Save the man who strives to be a man . . . And send the cowards to the Devil's Cave! (7Q THE MUSICIANS) Tell 'em 'bout it, Brothers!

(A ONE MINUTE IMPROVISATION) 1-15 159 Oh, Lawd, I got the Spirit! (SHE STARTS TOWARD THE CASKETS AND 3ECK0NS FOR ALL TO FOLLOW HER; EXCEPT FOR THE MUSICIANS WHO CONTINUE TO PLAY, ALL FOLLOW HER IN A PROCESSION AROUND THE CASKETS) Follow me and follow the Lawd! Say goodbye to the Brothers for the last time . . . (THE LIGHTS BEC-iN TO DIM, SLOWLY) Say goodbye, everybody, ’cause you might be next! . . . Hold hands children . . . (SHE ADMONISHES THE AUDIENCE AS WELL AS THOSE IN THE CHURCH) LET US ALL HOLD HANDS IN THE LAWD'S HOUSE! We got some souls to rock . . . and if your soul needs rockin' . . . may the Lawd let you rock it with us . . . (SHE LEADS THE GROUP—WHOMEVER THE GROUP MIGHT BE—IN A SWINGING, ORGIASTIC RENDITION OF "SPIRIT IN THE DARK" AT THE DIMMING OF THE

LIGHTS . . . OUT.

THE SONG CONTINUES FOR AS LONG AS "THE GROUP" WANTS TO ROCK THEIR SOULS, OR AS CHARACTERS MARCH—SINGLE FILE—AROUND THE CASKETS DURING ANY CURTAIN CALLS.)

BLACKNESS APPENDIX

Production notes

Following are some production suggestions and notions

that may be helpful. They are to be discreetly regarded by

imaginative production people.

Ideally, the plays should be performed in one day, with appropriate breaks in the action to enhance dramatic impact and to permit necessary body functions to be attended to. Chittlin's, feet, ribs, fried-bird, cole-slaw, tata-pie and the like, might be prepackaged to sell (or give) to the spectators as an appropriate nourishment for the viewing of these plays. Or, perspective spectators could be encouraged and invited—in the tradition of ancient Africans and

Greeks—to bring their platters of nourishment to the theatre with them.

If the plays are not performed as a trilogy, may I suggest that the play "Black Sermon Rock" accompany either of the two longer plays: as an opener, or as an after-piece, or divided to surround either long play, depending on the artistic approaches of the director.

I would encourage using the same actors in all three plays. Particularly, it seems, the major roles would be enhanced if played as a trilogy by capable actors in one day. 161 Finally, if "Black Sermon Rock" is ever played as a single piece, it could be performed in two acts: simply, the second act a replaying of the first. However, the rate of the replaying should be noticeably more polyrhythmic.

The musical accompaniment should, therefore, become in­ creasingly dominant. Also, tambourines, black handkerchiefs and black-fans should be offered to each spectator upon returning for the second act, or replaying. As a final touch of the Black Essence, the air-conditioning should be turned off and the heat turned-on, no matter what the season: get the house as hot as possible. The replaying should be a hot, swinging, soul-session.

Have the rescue squad standing by and let the Black

Spirit take you where you want to go! BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Books

Abramson, Doris E. Negro Playwrights in the American Theatre: 1925-1959. New York: Columbia University Press, 19b9. Aristotle. Poetics. Translated by Samuel H. Butcher. Roslyn, N. Y.: V/alter J. Black, Inc.

Beardsley, Monroe C. Aesthetics: From Classical Greece to the Present. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1966,

Bullins, Ed., ed. New Plays From the Black Theatre. New York: Bantom Books, Inc., 1969.

Chenault, John. Blue Blackness. Cincinnati, Ohio: Youth Opportunity, Inc., 1969.

Clark, Barrett H., ed. European Theories of the Drama. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1965.

Cleage, Albert 3., Jr. "The Black Messiah." The War Within: Violence or Non-violence in the 31ack Revolution! Edited by James Robert Ross. New York: Sheed and Ward, I97I. Couch, William J., ed. New Black Playwrights. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State 'University Press, 1968.

Crane, R. S. The Languages of Criticism and the Structure of Poetry. Canaoa: University of Toronto Press, 1953.

Dent, Thomas C., Richard Schechner and Gilbert Moses, ed. The Free Southern Theatre by the Free Southern Theatre New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1969.

Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. New York: Double day and Company, Inc., 1961.

Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Charles Markmann. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1967. 163

Frazier, E. Franklin. The Negro in the United States. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1957.

Grier, William H. and Price M. Cobbs. 31ack Rage. New York: Sasic Books, Inc., I960.

Hegel, G. W. F. The Phenomenology of Mind. Translated by J. B. Bailie. 2nd ed. London: Allen and Unwin, 1949. Hill, Herbert, ed. Anger and Beyond: The Negro Writer in the United States'. New York: Harper and Row, 1966.

Hill, Roy L. Rhetoric of Racial Revolt. Denver, Colorado: Golden Bell Press, 1964.

Hyman, Stanley Edgar. The Armed Vision: A Study in the Methods of Modern Literary Criticism. New York: Vintage 3ooks,1955.

Jones, LeRoi. Blues People: Negro Music in White America. New York: William Morrow and Co., Inc., 1963.

______. Home: Social Essays. New York: William Morrow and Co., Inc., 1966.

. Black Music. New York: William Morrow and Co., ------Inc7,"lW.”--

Langer, Susanne K. Philosophy.in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of~~Reason, Rite, and Art. New York: the New American Library, 1951.

Lomax, Louis. The Negro Revolt. New York: The New American Library of World Literature, 1963.

Mitchell, Loften. Black Drama. New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1967. Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy and the Genealogy of Morals. Translated by Francis Coiffing. New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1956.

Pettigrew, Thomas F. A Profile of the Negro American. New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc.", 1964.

Plato. Phaedo. Translated by 3. Jowett. Roslyn, N. Y.: Walter J. Black, Inc. 164 Riley, Clayton. Introduction to Black Quartet: Four New Black Plays by Ben Caldwell, Ronald Milner, Ed Bullins and LeRoi Jones. New York: New American Library, 1970.

Robinson, Armstead L., Craig C. Foster and Donald H. Ogilvie, ed. Black Studies in the University. New York: Ba nt am Books, Inc ., 1969 .—————

Seymour, L. G. and John Edward Hardy, ed. Images of the Negro in American Literature. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1906.

Silberman, Charles E. Crisis in Black and White. New York: Random House, 1964.

Trilling, Lionel. The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society! New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1953.

II. Periodicals

Bain, Myrna. "Everybody's Protest Play." National Review (March, 1965), 249-50.

Chapman, John. "Baldwin's 'Blues for Mr. Charlie' Impassioned But Disorganized." New York Drama Critics' Review (April, 1964), 276.

Ciardi, John. "Black Man in America." Saturday Review (July, 1963), 13.

Clurman, Harold. "Three at Cherry Lane." Nation (April, 1964), 383-84.

______. "Theatre." Nation (March, 1968), 420-21.

C-assner, John. "Broadway in Review." The Educational Theatre Journal (October, 1964), 2s9. Gilman, Richard. "White Standards and Negro Writing." New Republic, CLXVIII (March, i960), 25-30.

Gussow, Mel. "The New Playwrights: Commitments." Newsweek (May, 1968), 114-15.

Karris, Leonard. "Baldwin's 'Blues' Powerful." New York Drama Critics* Review (April, 1964), 277. 165 Hatch, Robert. "’The Baptism.'" Nation (April, 1964), 384.

Hewes, Henry. "A Change of Tune." Saturday Review (May, 1964), 36.

______. "Crossing Lines." Saturday Review, Vol. 48 (January, 1965), 46.

"The Gospel Untruth." Saturday Review, Vol. 4$ (May, 1965), 49.

______. "Harlem on My Mind." Saturday Review, Vol. 52 (February, 1969), 29.

Howard, Richard. Poetry (March, 1964), 403.

Hughes, Langston, LeRoi Jones, and John A. Williams. "Pro­ blems of the Negro Writer." Saturday Review (April, 1963) , 19-21, 40.

Isaacs, Harold R. "Blackness and Whiteness." Encounter, XXI (August, 1963), 8-21.

Kerr, Walter. "Kerr on ’Blues for Mr. Charlie,’" New York Drama Critics’ Review (April, 1964), 277-78.

King, Woodie, Jr. "Black Theatre: Present Condition." TDR: The Drama Review, Vol. 12 (Summer, 1968), iT7=w:------McClain, John. "Bitterness and Anger." New York Drama Critics' Review (April, 1964), 1761

Miller, Adam David. "It's a Long Way to St. Louis: Notes on the Audience for Black Drama." TDR: The Drama Review, Vol. 12 (Summer, 1968), 147-150.

Neal, Larry. "The Black Arts Movement." TDR: The Drama Review, Vol. 12 (Summer, 1968), 29-39.

Oliver, Edith. "Bang! Pow! Nope!" New Yorker (December, 1964) , 50-52.

O'Neal, John. "Motion in the Ocean." TDR: The Drama Review, Vol. 12 (Summer, 1968), 70-77.

"Poetic Justice." Newsweek, Vol. 71 (January, 1968), 24.

Schechner, Richard. "White on Black." TDR: The Drama Review, Vol. 12 (Summer, 1968), 25-27. 166

Velde, Paul. "Pursued by the Furies." Commonweal, Vol. 88 (June, 1968), 440-41.

III. Plays

Ahmad, Dorothy. Papa’s Daughter. TDR: The Drama Review, Vol. 12 (Summer“r968'),'"'l39::T43^

Baldwin, James. Blues for Mister Charlie. New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1964.

Bullins, Sd. Clara’s Ole Man. TDR: The Drama Review, Vol. 12 (Summer, 1968), l59-l7l.

______. Goin*a 3uffalo in New Black Playwrights. Edited by William Couch, Jr. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, pp. 155-216.

Caldwell, Ben. Riot Sale or Dollar Psyche Fake Out; Top Secret or A Few Million After B.C.; the Job; Mission Accomplished. TDR: The Drama Review, Vol. 12 (Summer, 1968), 40-5^

Elder, Lonne. Ceremonies in Dark Old Men in New Black Play­ wrights" Edited by William Couch, Jr. Louisiana State University Press, pp. 71-154.

Garrett, Jimmy. And We Own the Night. TDR: The Drama Review, Vol”. 12 (Summer, 1968), 62-69.

Genet, Jean. The Blacks: A Clown Show. Translated by Bernard Frechtman. New York: Grove Press, Inc., I960.

Jones, LeRoi. Dutchman and The Slave: Two Plays. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1964.

. The Baptism and The Toilet. New York: Grove Press, ------IncTTTW;------. Home on the Range. TDR: The Drama Review, Vol. 12 (Summer,1968), I06-III. . Police. TDR: The Drama Review, Vol. 12 (Summer, ------1968')7'TT2-ir3:

Kennedy, Adrienne. A Rat’s Mass. New Black Playwrights. Edited by William Couch, Jrl Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, pp. 61-69. 167

Mackley, William Wellington. Family Meeting in New Black Playwrights. Edited by William Couch, Jr. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, pp. 217- 254. Marvin X. Take Care of Business. TDR: The Drama Review, Vol. 12 (Summer, 1968), 85-92’

Milner, Ronald. The Monster. TDR: The Drama Review, Vol. 12 (Summer, 1968), 94-105.

Sanchez, Sonia. The Bronx is Next. TDR: The Drama Review, Vol. 12 (Summer, 1968), 78-83.

Stokes, Herbert. The Uncle Toms. TDR: The Drama Review, Vol. 12 (Summer, 1968), 58-60.”

Ward, Douglas Turner. Happy Ending in New Black Playwrights. Edited by William Couch, Jr. 3aton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 3-23. ______. Day of Absence in New Black Playwrights. Edited by William Couch, Jr. 3aton Rouge; Louisiana University Press, pp. 25-59.

White, Joseph. Old Judge Mose' is Dead. TDR: The Drama Review, Vol. 12 (Summer, 1968), 1$1-156.

IV. Unpublished Materials

Blitgen, Sister Mary John Carol, BVM. "Voices of Protest: An Analysis of the Negro Protest Plays of the 1963- 1964 Broadway and 0ff-3roadway Season." (Unpublished Master’s thesis, University of Kansas, 1966).

Buchanon, Singer Alfred. "A Study of the Attitudes of the Writers of the Negro Press Toward the Depiction of the Negro in Plays and Films, 1930-1965." (Unpublished Doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1968).

o ollins, Nancy Boyland. "The Image of the Negro as Presented in 1906-67 Television." (Unpublished Master’s thesis, Purdue University, 1968).

Crumpler, Gloria Thomas. "The Negro in the American Theatre and Drama From 1950 to 1956." (Unpublished Master’s thesis, Tennessee A & I State University, Nashville, 1957). 168

Kicklin, Fannie Ella Frazier. "The American Negro Playwright, 1920-196W (Unpublished Doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1965.)

Jocamin, Y. Ben. "The Sermon of the M.F." Paper delivered at Bowling Green State University, 3owling Green, Ohio, February 10, 1971. (Permission granted).

Lawson, Hilda Josephone. ."The Negro in American Drama." (Unpublished Doctoral thesis, University of Illinois, Urbana, 1939).

Millner, Althea Ann. "The Negro in American Drama." (Unpublished Master’s thesis, The University of Oklahoma, 1956.)

Searcy, Sarra Lee. "Aesthetic Qualities Found in Certain Negro Dramas." (Unpublished Master’s thesis, Ohio State University, Columbus, 1950).

Sumpter, Clyde G. "Militating for Change: A Study of the Black Revolutionary Theatre in the U.S.” (Unpub­ lished Doctoral dissertation, University of Kansas, 1969).