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Copyright by Marcus Emil McQuirter 2012 The Dissertation Committee for Marcus Emil McQuirter Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation HEARING VOICES IN THE DARK: DEPLOYING BLACK SONICITY AS A STRATEGY IN DRAMATIC PERFORMANCE Committee: Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, Supervisor Paul Bonin Pam Christian Stephen Gerald Meta DuEwa Jones HEARING VOICES IN THE DARK: DEPLOYING BLACK SONICITY AS A STRATEGY IN DRAMATIC PERFORMANCE by Marcus Emil McQuirter, BFA; MA Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2012 Dedication To the love of my life, Brandy Nicole McQuirter. To my children Ezra Jacob McQuirter, Hannah Grace McQuirter, and Kaia Simone McQuirter. Acknowledgements First I want to thank my wife Brandy Nicole McQuirter for her patience when I was intolerable and her support when I was uncertain. From the beginning, she opened my heart to the world through her love, her intelligence, and her artistry. My intellectual pursuits are an extension of this inspiration in ways I fear I may never fully repay. Thank you. I also want to extend a special thanks to my family. I could not have finished this project without their support, especially that of all four of my parents, Kermit and Evelyn Walker, and James and Sue McQuirter. I have been blessed to have them in my life, and am truly thankful for their faith, love, and support. Words cannot express my gratitude to Professor Omi Osun Joni L. Jones for her intellect, guidance, and wisdom. This project has benefitted from her intellectual clarity, artistic insight, scholastic rigor, and professionalism. As an advisor and a teacher, she has provided me with vital nuance, perspective, and direction. I would also like to thank my committee members Stephen Gerald, Meta DuEwa Jones, Pam Christian, and Paul Bonin for their mentoring and commitment to this dissertation. Their reflections have roused new directions for the research beyond the current project . I am tremendously grateful to the University of Texas, the College of Fine Arts, and the Performance as Public Practice program for its support during my time at the university. I also owe a special thanks to my colleagues in the PPP program for crafting stimulating new scholarship. I am indebted to The Warfield Center of African and African American Studies both for its support of this research project, but also for its investment in scholarship surrounding Black performance. The nature of my work and my research have taken me into the wider Austin community, so I also want to thank members of the arts and educational communities beyond the University. I want to thank Lyman Grant, Shelby Brammer, the faculty, staff, and students at Austin Community College for their commitment to artistic excellence, v artist training, and arts entertainment. I would like to send a special thank you to Charlotte Gullick for her help with citations and reference formatting. And I am thankful to Lisa Byrd, and the continuing work of ProArts Collective to bring African American performance to audiences in central Texas. These many individuals and institution have provided me with the financial, academic, intellectual, artistic, and emotional support to see this project into its present form. I celebrate the submission of this dissertation as an accomplishment for all those mentioned and the many more I lack space to include. vi HEARING VOICES IN THE DARK: DEPLOYING BLACK SONICITY AS A STRATEGY IN DRAMATIC PERFORMANCE Marcus Emil McQuirter, Ph.D The University of Texas at Austin, 2012 Supervisor: Omi Osun Joni L. Jones Despite the apparent hegemony of vision in racial categorization, historically vocality has borne the brunt of as much racial presumption as physical appearance. This project explores ideas about Blackness, and how the voice in performance engenders conversations on racial authenticity within the United States. Broadly, the work examines how ―sounding Black‖ functions within dramatic performance, and how wider concerns of racial identity adhere to a performer‘s vocal choices. The contextualization of racialized sound presented in this project begins with an historical overview of how a ―Blackness of tongue‖ has been framed in U.S. theatrical performance from the early 1800s through the 1960s. It then addresses the dynamics of voice and racial authenticity through two performance case studies: August Wilson‘s The Piano Lesson and Adrienne Kennedy‘s Funnyhouse of a Negro. These cases will be used to explore how issues of racial authenticity thrive in the space between vocal sound production and perception. As case studies based on specific productions of these two plays, text, directorial choices, and the vocal characteristics of the actors themselves occupy equal space at the center of each analysis. At a deeper level, this research seeks an understanding of the cultural vii assumptions that support the idea of a uniquely Black vocal sound, and what that sound purchases within American societies. In addressing both the phonological and the interpretive qualities of these performances, the central research concerns of this project attempt to pinpoint with more accuracy how voice, fore-grounded in performance, triggers different sets of assumptions that have been commonly identified as a significant component of Blackness viii Table of Contents List of Tables ................................................................................................... xiii List of Figures .................................................................................................. xiv PROLOGUE 1 CHAPTER 1, THE VOICE OF GOD 7 Racial Formation Theory ............................................................................ 9 The Elusive Signifier ....................................................................... 12 Imagined Communities .................................................................... 14 Black Sonicity .......................................................................................... 17 This Blackness of Tongue ................................................................ 18 Defining Black Sonicity ................................................................... 24 Prosodic modeling ........................................................................... 30 Sonic Miscegenation ................................................................................. 33 Miscegenation .................................................................................. 36 Theater Of Cruelty ........................................................................... 40 Structure ................................................................................................... 46 CHAPTER 2, AUDIO BLACKFACE AND BLACK CLASSICISM 48 Audio Blackface ....................................................................................... 48 The Minstrel Tradition ..................................................................... 49 ix ―Amos ‗n‘ Andy‖ ............................................................................. 51 Black Classicism ...................................................................................... 58 ―Because White People Are Looking At You‖ ................................. 58 The Spirituals ................................................................................... 63 Song is the Voice ............................................................................. 68 CHAPTER 3, NEW NEGRO AND BLACK ARTS VOCAL THEORY 71 New Negro Sound: Responding to the Minstrel Image/Echo ..................... 71 Folk Drama & Musicals ................................................................... 80 Black Minstrelsy .............................................................................. 81 ―Like Tightening Violin Strings‖ .................................................... 88 Characteristics of Negro Expression: ―Let 'em search‖ ..................... 91 Black Arts Vocal Theory .......................................................................... 93 Sing New Songs; Purify Old Ones: The Black Aesthetic .................. 95 Black Arts Vocal Theory‘s Aesthetic Legacy ..................................102 CHAPTER 4, THE SECOND TRADITION: BLACK SONICITY AND VOICE IN AUGUST WILSON‟S THE PIANO LESSON 107 The Piano Lesson ....................................................................................107 Production History ..........................................................................108 The teleplay ....................................................................................109 Scripting Dialogue ..........................................................................110 x Blues Aesthetic ........................................................................................113 Poetics of the Quotidian ..................................................................113 Devoiced Final Consonants ....................................................116 Level patterns .........................................................................122 Diphthongization of Medial Rhotic Sounds ............................124 Scripting the Ineffable .....................................................................126 The Web of Black Sound: Musical and Sermonic Presences ....................130 ―No Sugar in My Coffee‖ ................................................................132
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