TEXTUAL TURNINGS Department of English Journal of English and comparative Studies

Narrating Tarell Alvin McCraney's The Brother/ Sister Plays Ebtesam M. M. El Shokrofy Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, Damanhour University, Egypt

Abstract suspense, poetic justice, ending and closure). Second, they identify pure The Brother/Sister Plays is a trilogy narrative or diegetic features that linger in written by the Afro-American playwright drama (narrative agent, storytelling and Tarell Alvin McCraney.The book includes point of view).Third, they clarify that even three plays written in separate (In The Red mimetic features that are totally dramatic and Brown Water, The Brothers Size, (stage directions and metadramatic Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet).They can elements) can be studied as narrative. The be read and acted either separately or present paper attempts to re- read The collectively like many other trilogies. But Brother/Sister Plays from a narratological unlike most plays, The Brother / Sister perspective, selecting four narrative/ Plays bear a lot of narrative levels that ramatic elements – narrator, storytelling, relate them safely to the art of narratology. stage directions and metadrama – to Although it is not widely accepted as a achieve two goals. First, that the mixture narrative form, drama lies at the core of of narration and performance empowers narratological studies. Depending on the both telling and theatricality and changes different definitions and degrees of the purpose of narration and performance narrativity, writers such as Manfred Jahn, from mere entertainment and fascination Monika Fludernik, Seymour Chatman, to tackling serious issues. Second, the Ansgar Nunning and Roy Sommer, to fusion of narrative techniques into mention few examples, try to apply dramatic actions helps the playwright narrative elements to drama. Their steps dramatize the untold stories of West towards a narratology of drama are three. African Cosmology, involving the First, they state the common literary audience in all cases. devices used in both drama and novel (theme, plot, sub-plot, characters, conflict, Keywords: Diegesis, mimesis, narratology

180 VOLUME 1, 2019 TEXTUAL TURNINGS Department of English Journal of English and comparative Studies

Narrating Tarell Alvin McCraney's The Brother/ Sister Plays Ebtesam M. M. El Shokrofy

characters – is first of all a Lacking the narrative persona, drama narrative. Plays and novels was seen by critics as a non-narrative share the common features of a form. Recently however, this proposition chrono-logic of events, a set of has been questioned by many critics such characters, and a setting. as Seymour Chatman, Manfred Jahn, Therefore, at a fundamental Monika Fludernik, Ansgar Nunning and level they are all stories. The Roy Sommer, and many others. The fact that one kind of story is aforementioned critics adopt a transgeneric told (diegesis) and the other approach to drama considering it as an art shown (mimesis) is secondary of narratology. They moreover contend (117). that all elements in the dramatic text such as the plot, characters, setting, stories, To the same effect, Ansgar Nunning space, and stage directions are considered and Roy Sommer add, "Key terms and narrative. They also regard drama as both core concepts like scene, character, narrative and theatrical genre because protagonist, antagonist, dramatic irony, "plays do not just represent narratives (i.e. suspense, comic relief, point of view, a series of events), they also stage perspective structure, monologue, narratives in that, more often than not, dialogue, exposition, sub plot, poetic they make storytelling, i.e. the act of justice, ending, and closure, to name but a telling narratives, theatrical."(Nunning and few, are used in the analysis of both novels Sommer 337). To theorize the narrativity and plays"(338). Monika Fludernik of drama, these critics list the common stresses the point that both drama and literary elements of both drama and novel. novel are narrative forms, but in a different Then, they argue for the narrativity of sense. "What I find much more interesting drama on the five grounds as stated below […] is the way in which drama and novels by Monika Fludernik. Finally, they can be shown to have adopted each other's maintain that even pure dramatic elements techniques. In my view, this argues like stage directions and metadramatic potently for the basic exchangeability of features (prologue, monologue, epilogue, dramatic and narrative strategies in works songs, dreams, direct address to the of art having narrativity…Readers audience, etc.) can be considered narrative. attribute narrativity to both plays and novels in comparable processes of Concerning common features of aesthetic appreciation" ( 366-7). narration and drama, Seymour Chatman, in his book Coming to Terms, states: The narrativity of drama, even the narrativity of totally dramatic techniques To me, any text that presents a such as stage directions and metadrama, is story – a sequence of events also justified by several critics. In her performed or experienced by article, "Narrative and Drama", Monika

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Fludernik summarizes the corner stones of the narrator depends more on his/her narrativity in drama. She distinguishes function than his/her physical presence. between five categories of narrative To the same effect, both Manfred Jahn elements in drama: and Monika Fludernik define the narrator (a) elements that relate to and its function. Manfred Jahn defines the drama 's narrativity, i.e. the narrator as the person "who manages the existence of a fictional world, exposition, who decides what is to be told, of characters, of plot; (b) how it is to be told…and what is to be left elements in the fictional world out. Of course, this is not to deny that a of the play that relate to narrator will often overtly speak or write, narration –messenger reports, establish communicative contact with characters telling one another addressees, defend the tellability of the stories; (c) elements in plays story and comment on its lesson, purpose, that introduce a narrator figure or message" (670). A vivid example is or narratorial frame into the Puck, in Shakespeare's A Midsummer play; (d) elements of plays that Night's Dream, who ends the play with an display a meditational function, epilogue summarizing, commenting, such as prologues and asking the audience about their opinions epilogues or ,if one looks at the and promising them with better dramatic text, stage directions; performances. Drawing on the function of as well as (e) metadramatic the narrator in drama, Monika Fludernik features… (367). comments: "Plays may introduce a narrator persona on stage who functions as For purposes of scope and scale, only a homodiegetic or heterodiegetic narrator four elements from Monika's above figure". Monika illustrates that the quotation will be studied as most homodiegetic narrator can take the applicable to The Brother /Sister Plays. function of the Greek chorus such as plot These elements are; the narrator, summary, action commentary and direct metadrama, stage directions and address to the audience. By addressing the storytelling. Regarding the presence of a audience, the narrator creates an ideal narrator in drama, Seymour Chatman addressee and enables the audience "to see states in different positions in his book, the actors as real people (367-8). Story and Discourse, that the presence of a Discussing the diegetic narrative elements narrative agent is not a must in neither in drama, both Ansgar Nunning and Roy novels nor dramas; even some novels do Sommer add: not employ a narrator. It is up to the author himself to use it or not. Narration mainly Functional characters and the involves a telling through time which can representation of sequences of be achieved without the need of a narrator. events are by no means the Chatman adds that even if there is a only regular elements of drama narrator, it is not necessary for him/her to which can be classified as speak or have a voice at all. The narrator, narrative…The latter include thus, can be either "overt" or "covert". various forms of Chatman also adds that the importance of metalepsis…direct audience address by a narrator character,

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prologue, epilogue, asides, high degree of what we have called soliloquies, and parabasis… diegetic narrativity"(339).This is the core verbal summaries of offstage of the narrativity of drama-how to use action, the play within the play, theatre as a means of telling stories or how mise en abyme, narratives far drama is a narrative form on the ground embedded within dramatic of storytelling. In his book, Coming to action, all kinds of metanarrative Terms, Seymour Chatman speaks about comment, stage directions… drama and novel saying that "at a (340-1). fundamental level they are all stories"(117). Ansgar Nunning and Roy Stage directions are crucial when Sommer state that: "The history of drama discussing the narrativity of drama. is also a history of representing narratives Manfred Jahn insists that any dramatic text and communicating them to live is a narrative one from the very beginning. audiences"(332). They add "A play's text must be read and understood as a piece of narrative fiction before it may Storytelling played a central be used as (and possibly turns to) a recipe role both in classical drama and for performance containing "instructions" in the medieval mystery by the playwright"(672). Structurally, as plays…Long before the Chatman states in his book, Coming to emergence of the novel as the Terms "there is no difference between a dominant narrative genre, sentence in a novel like "John left the narrative experiments were a room" and the playwright's instruction to central feature of stage an actor to exit, stage left" (118). Stage plays…More recently, both the directions are, in their own turn, narrative emergence of narrative stage pieces told on stage. Reading stage genres such as the memory directions create another level of narration, plays and the continuing "it can also be analyzed as the author's development of narrative visual 'narration' that is to be realized in media…have focused attention performance thanks to the medial narration on drama as a medium for effected by actors, director, costume fictional storytelling (335-6). designer, and so on" (Fludernik 363). Storytelling is, time and again, the Supporting this view, Claycomb states focus of Tarell Alvin McCraney's theatre. "the dramatic text is not only the story His theatre, which can be easily described narrative we read in it; it is also a frame as a "story theatre," depends more on the narrative that narrates its instructions for idea of telling and narrating stories than representation"(161). performing them. Written as a trilogy- a In drama, narrativity has many levels. device which is more common in novels One of them is the storytelling, which is than drama- the plays draw its fascination considered the main feature of McCraney's from both the continuity and diversity of theatre. It is called intradiegetic level, as stories rather than conflicts and stated by Ansgar Nunning and Roy interactions among characters. In the Sommer." The stories told by characters in following section of the paper, the both novels and plays represent researcher attempts to show how the intradiegetic narratives which can feature a elements of the narrator, metadrama, stage

VOLUME 1, 2019 183 TEXTUAL TURNINGS Department of English Journal of English and comparative Studies directions and storytelling are woven ones…The playscript itself can softly together like a plait in order to add a no longer be treated as a past or sense of narrativity to McCraney's plays. future projection of a theatrical performance;rather,it must be Another level of narrativity in drama is accepted as a "readable the extradiegetic level, best represented in "medium sui generis (674-5). metadramatic epilogues and prologues. The characteristics of the narrator – as In a word, narrativity of drama, as it will discussed by the transgeneric critics - can be discussed in this paper, is a square-like all be applied to the characters in The structure built on four corners- Brother /Sister Plays who both enact and storytelling, a narrator, stage directions comment on the story. Commentaries on and metadramatic elements. When stories are best expressed through discussing theses corners, the narrativity of prologues and epilogues - as their main the plays under study will be clearly function in drama. The point here is that recognized. these prologues and epilogues are To begin with metadrama, McCraney considered, from the transgeneric makes a great use of prologue, epilogue, approach, as narrative sections because monologue and direct address to the they tell stories. "Prologues and choric audience all over the trilogy. In The Red narrations would be typical examples of and Brown Water, both the prologue and extradiegetic narratives"(Nunning and the epilogue use the same words which Sommer 339). Both the prologue and the introduce and conclude Oya's tragic end. epilogue are the most remarkable elements "The men all begin to hum, sad sweet of metadrama used in this trilogy. The hum,…Oya is left center stage…holds her three plays open with a prologue (song, head…sharp breath out…Oya in the dream, speech, etc.), paving the way for air…that girl…sweet smiling…Oya in the and summarizing the actions of the play. air…sad in the eyes…that's what they By the same token, the three plays end say…that's what I know…beautiful with an epilogue concluding the end of the girl"(McCraney 11-14).The epilogue, play and giving more future insights. beside repeating the same words of the Before moving to the application, a prologue, as a kind of unity, laments Oya's summary of the aforementioned theoretical death. "Say she cuts it off. Say that's her section should be provided. At the end of mark. Say he left her there bleeding…she his article, "Narrative Voice and Agency was not crazy. Just sad…on her back like a in Drama", Manfred Jahn concludes that: lake of brown…look like she floating somewhere…sweet sad Oya" ( McCraney Plays have a narrative world (a 126-9). "diegesis"), which is not distinct in principle from any The prologue in The Brothers Size other narrative world. They starts with an opening song: "The light have a story and a plot, and come up on the three men standing even if they do not literally onstage. This is the opening invocation "tell" their story, tellability and and should be repeated for as long as experientiality are dramatic needed to complete the ritual". During the criteria as well as epic song, the three characters- , Oshoosi

184 VOLUME 1, 2019 TEXTUAL TURNINGS Department of English Journal of English and comparative Studies and Elegba, keep on repeating the same his mouth doubles over and…". After his lines: "The road is rough…This road is mother awakes him, Marcus' dream is rough and…It's rough and followed by a processional: "The cast hard"(McCraney 137-8). The prologue forms a funeral processional led by Ogun sheds light on the rough and hard road of Size and trailed by Marcus"(McCraney work, freedom and prison taken by Ogun, 247-8).The prologue, thus, sheds light on Oshoosi and Elegba, respectively. Instead the main theme of the play- Marcus' of ending this play with an epilogue like homosexuality as reflected both in his the other two plays of the trilogy, dreams and the death of all male McCraney ends it with a dramatic characters, lamented by Ogun- the hero of monologue. It is one of the longest the trilogy. The epilogue ends the play and monologues in the trilogy.Ogun Size, the trilogy with Marcus telling Ogun about stands, as usual, giving his younger his dreams, which are interpreted this time brother, Oshoosi, some warm-hearted as a sign of Oshoosi's death. The play ends pieces of advice in the following as it begins with "Ogun Size marches a monologue. Besides, he gives him all his funeral processional by himself" ( money in order to escape from the police McCraney 361). and to search for his freedom anywhere In addition to using the prologue and else. This monologue, which goes for epilogue, McCraney uses another twenty-seven lines, reflects time and again metadramatic /narrative device on stage – the play's main concern - brothers bond: direct address to the audience. In The Don't come back. Brother/ Sister Plays, the playwright Don't call here. makes his characters address the audience Don't write… directly reading their own stage directions. When the Law comes here for you… Most playwrights use framing devices to I'm going to deny you… mark the stage directions off the text Don't cry when you hear about it… whether by using italics, brackets, bold Don't think I don't know you… letters or whatever. Tarell Alvin Don't believe it…Hear me… McCraney inserts his stage directions You here with me… instructions within the text without any Always… framing devices making the actors read them as part of their speech. The first play, But you gotta go fore you get caught…" for example, opens with these lines: (McCraney 237). Mama Moja. Mama Moja enters the Ogun Size ends the second play only to space…Where are you going Oya? appear at the beginning of the third, as a part of its prologue. Part three, Marcus or Oya. Gotta go. Track meet. The Secret of Sweet employs a different Mama Moja. No. device as a prologue – a dream. This play Oya . No? is regarded by most critics as a dream Mama Moja. Moja looks at Oya like, play. The play starts with," A dream. The "What I say"? What I say? (McCraney 15). lights come upon Marcus in his bed sleeping and Oshoosi standing in a pool of By the same token, the three plays all water crying gently at first until he covers read in the same way in which characters

VOLUME 1, 2019 185 TEXTUAL TURNINGS Department of English Journal of English and comparative Studies narrate their script." What makes this play that it is being told to us by talented artists narratolgically interesting is that it also who want us to feel for the characters and stages two narrative voices" (Dillen 79) – remember that we have all been to this the voice of the character and the voice of place that they are evoking" ("The the author himself commenting on the Brother/Sister Plays" 5) characters’ actions and behavior. Evoking the place is crucial in this McCraney always repeats the same trilogy where the place – San Pere is comment all over the trilogy. "How could totally fictional. Here, the audience's role he / [she] not?" Narrating stage directions is great for they have to imagine and serves another function in some cases complete the visual picture, as Keir Elam where "the narrator of the stage directions calls it "virtual space"(67). When asked characterizes the behavior of characters in about San Pere, McCraney says, "It's like evaluative terms…, often in a manner that when they asked Alice Walker where the cannot be represented on stage"(Fludernik tribe she wrote for The Color Purple 372). Examples are dreams, sex acts and was:"There is none. I made it up. That Down Law behavior, among many others. world can only come alive onstage. It is Characters' reading their own stage what you make of it in that moment. If directions has two functions. The first is to there are hills in San Pere [as there are in achieve what McCraney himself calls "The The Brothers Size], that's because you said call and response", which, for him, is the so and not because there's some most performative device. David Rooney geographical [reason]"(Brodersen 38). supports this: This setting forms a fourth level of In a device used throughout the narration or as Monika Fludernik calls it trilogy, the characters speak the 'discourse' level: their stage directions, tapping The main questions regarding into a tradition of oral the narratological analysis of storytelling while feeding the drama …touch instead on the rapport between actors and level of what I call the audience, which at times 'discourse' level of drama…In borders on call-and-response. drama, as in film, the setting is During the performance of a visual 'given' and thus need Marcus on the first marathon not be evoked by means of press day, when a character description…It is therefore not asked, "Do you see this necessary to treat the lack of coming? A whole clump of 'description' for settings, or the audience members answered replacement of description by "Mmhmm"(no.p.). visual depiction, as an aspect of Part of the audience's response is to drama's irremediable alterity imagine whatever described on stage and (Fludernik 361). believe what is being told to them. In an This means that description (if there is interview with McCarter Theatre Center, any) adds to the narrativity of drama. McCraney declares:" But above all the Drama is mainly performative in that the story is a story and we should not forget audience sees everything on stage and

186 VOLUME 1, 2019 TEXTUAL TURNINGS Department of English Journal of English and comparative Studies need not to be told. Yet; the dramatic text Believing in the immediate impact of contains many passages of descriptions of theatre, McCraney conveys his message both setting and characters as hints for relying on the power of the theatre. His stage directions. In some cases, description main purpose is to tell untold West is a must where it is not possible to present African stories to great masses of people the whole setting on stage like, for to involve them more in what is being example, the wall in Edward Bond's Lear, narrated. The author himself comments on or the sea in Henric Ibsen The Lady from employing such device saying: the Sea. So, writers and directors depend It is a great practice of mine. on scenic metonymy where few devices The actors never forget that are used to refer to the setting, besides they are actors always, creating description. In other plays, description and theatre, telling stories for an narration are used only instead of actions audience, and that they when there is no need of performance. The themselves must become their most remarkable example is Bernard most vulnerable in order to Shaw's Pygmalion- a vivid example of become that character. Then we using complete narrative sections in the audience will see them at drama. The end of the play is narrated, as their core and begin to watch the playwright means: "The rest of the them move in these story need not be shown in action..."(Shaw extraordinary and sometimes 72). foreign circumstances but Back to stage directions, another understand and relate to them. reason for using spoken stage directions is (Brodersen 19) to create some sort of bond and To convey the sense of theatricality community between the audience and the through telling stories, McCraney depends actors. To such effect, McCraney adds: on the richness and power of telling. He In The Brother/Sister Plays, I uses theatre as a means of remembrance have tried through language, through driving stories from West African content and format, to invigorate cosmology, full of rituals, spirits, Gods, the communal portion of the contradictions, symbols, among many plays. The actors speak stage others. The Brother/Sister Plays is a telling directions that invite the through time. It covers the events of two audience to remember that they or three generations, linked together by are in a theatre and that the history and relationships. This what makes story that is being told is for drama narrative, "Drama is narrative them and to feel free to call and because there exists a 'dramatic respond back. Truly, in a world composition device' that regulates where stories are told in many anachronies, selection and juxtaposition of beautiful and spectacular ways, scenes…"(Fludernik 359). The beautiful the live theatre still has the Oya in part one, In The Red and Brown powerful construct of Water is Ogun's dead lover in part two, communal belief, community" The Brothers Size. The naughty little boy, Brodersen 18). Elegba in part one is Oshossi's best friend in part two and Marcus' father in part

VOLUME 1, 2019 187 TEXTUAL TURNINGS Department of English Journal of English and comparative Studies three, Marcus or The Secret of Sweet. Oya's end when she cuts off her ear and 's unborn baby in part one is the gives it to Shangoo as a remembrance of heroine Osha of the third. her love, “Oya enters. Holding her hand to her head… Oya bleeds down her right The presence of characters telling hand” (McCraney 123-4) The same color stories on stage is enough to account for echoes Elegba's dream about Oya's the narrativity of drama. "All drama, in bleeding and floating in a pool. fact, needs to have characters on stage, and from this minimal requirement narrativity The colors red and brown referred to in is immediately assured"(Fludernik 360). the title of the play reflect McCraney's McCraney has peopled his stage with more fascination with the bayou, "The two than sixteen characters; each tells his / her portions of the earth meet in the Gulf of story. The stories told in McCraney's Mexico, and that gulf is a rich and fecund trilogy are all driven from Western African place. It's got old nasty stories about cosmology, as he himself states: conquistadors and pirates, and French and Spanish and African blood mixed there to I lived in the other make this incredible hodgepodge. When America; the America that you go to the bayou, it's this sort of doesn't always get depicted in reddish-brown water "(Rubin 8). the cinema. The America that Generally, as David Rooney states: we are told to pretend isn't "images of water run in a lyrical vein there. And in an attempt to through the interconnected plays, which create theatre that told untold draw on West African myth to tell down stories, that gave voice to home stories rich in cultural specificity, another half of America, I salty humor and portentous created The Brother/Sister dreams"(no.p.). Plays…I began to investigate how to use ancient myths, This mixture of water and dreams stories, to tell urban ones. I lingers deeply in the trilogy. In The Red found that the stories are all and Brown Water. Elegba visits Mama still there (Brodersen 18-19). Moja to beg some candy or some money to buy candy. When Mama Moja refuses to These Yoruba stories rest on a triangle give him any, he stays to tell her his of three corners- symbols, dreams and dreams: images. Symbols cover a wide range of colors, places, names, among many others. It's always about the water, my From its title, the first play, In the Red and dream. Near it or around it. Brown Water, is full of symbols. "The Sometimes I stand in the high color red for many Yoruba represents the tide and I can't breathe but I supreme presence of color… [which] has a can breathe. And I walk on the direct relationship to the Yoruba bottom on the floor of the (or Osun), one of the wives of the water and they's these people powerful thunder god Shango, who when walk alongside me but they all she died fell to the river and became the bones and they click the bone divinity of the rivers", as Harry Elam people…top of water is remarks (187). The red color refers also to Oya…Oya girl floating on top

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of the water…but from her legs They passed it down to blood coming down and it's us…Passed down from slavery, making the pond red…brown say the slave owners get pissed skin in the red water…And I if they find out they slaves got wake up sweating on my face gay love. That means less wet. Low down, like that water, children; less slaves… Imagine between my legs, wet... it: how they got "down" back (McCraney 22-4). then? Round here niggas think they got it hard on the "down The power of telling speaks for itself low"…Master tie and tether the here. The use of vivid images of water, lovers in front of e'rybody… colors and bones involve the audience in when the wounds right he run both the narrative and the description and down get some sugar.Prolly arouse their suspense and anxiety to listen pour it on so it sting not as bad to what Moja is going to say next. Elegba as salt but it get sticky. Melt in himself knows that these dreams are meant the singing Southern sun. to be messages, but he does not understand Sweetness draw all the bugs them, "I dream with messages I can't read and infection to the yet…Need some help with. I know they sores…Sweetness harder to messages, just don't know who they to, wash (McCraney 257-8). where they from, how to get them there" (McCraney 22). Storytelling gains another function here- telling about black people, generally. When asked about the interpretations McCraney himself states that he writes of these dreams, Mama Moja replies that such narratives because of the lack of both Oya and Elegba become mature "stories about men of color, especially enough, but she gets sure of Oya's tragic poor men of color, that have to do with end. The dream also refers to Elegba's intimate relationships"(Rubin 7). homosexuality (as referred to in the Down Low) –something that will be inherited by A vivid example of intimate his son Marcus in part three. Elegba does relationships about black people is that one give his baby the name Marc because both taking place between Oya and Shango. of them have the same black line of little Despite being both blacks, Shango always black marks on their right thigh, as he tells reminds Oya of her dark skin. In one Oya, "Same marks. The ones like nobody situation, he teases her saying," I like you ever seen. Right here on me and my baby. most of the time …Cept you be acting all You ever know something dark – skinned" (McCraney 46). In another yours"(McCraney, 101). Later on, at the situation, he addresses her saying: same scene, Oya reflects sadly upon Shango. I rarely look at dark girls like that, having no babies, "I want my own mark. I but you black and phyne. So I couldn't wanna look down and see myself mirrored help it. back to me"(105). Marcus is upset with the people calling him 'sweet'. He asks his Oya . Huh? friend Shaunta Iyun about its meaning. Shaunta answers:

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Shango. Nah don't get all like that. Why Besides intimate relationships of the dark women always got to get mad so black people, McCraney tells stories about quick? their suffering, especially with regard to the law. The three characters in The Oya. We can't change color, like the Brothers Size have recalled the bad yellow girls when they blush. So we get treatment of the police man: mad quick so you can see it in our face (McCraney 33-4). Oshoosi Size. Anytime he sees another black man in Town he The narration prepares the audience for acts like he got to chase him Oya's tragic end. Shango will leave her at out. the end of the play for the sake of the fair Shun who will give birth to his daughter, Elegba: Sheriff act like he the only nigga Osha, the heroine of Marcus. The use of can be seen in the town. white and black colors, here, alludes time Oshoosi Size: He ask you questions too and again to McCraney’s concern with the Og? issues of blacks. By giving such examples, McCraney crystalizes that discrimination Ogun Size: Man you know he treat becomes no longer a persistent issue everybody like We guilty till proven between the whites and the blacks, but innocent. among the black people themselves. Both Elegba: Cept them white folks (McCraney Shango and Oya are black lovers, but 186-7). Shango will marry the fair Shun preferring her to the black Oya. For the same reasons, Oba is worried about her son, Marcus. She rebukes and For sorrow, Oya's love for Shangoo warns him: "Shut up! Sitting round here blinds her to the deeper and more true love walking the streets like your daddy! You of Ogun.Ogun tries time and again to draw wanna know about your daddy he used to her attention, but in vain. He once tells her walk around too and look what happened about the difference between him and to him. Dead and in the ground. You want Shangoo: that do you?" (McCraney 314). Oba's He just a nasty old man been orders to her son not to search for his dead looking at you since you was a father, "I don't know what all the Sudden little girl. But I been loving you got you on this search to find out your always. I been in love with father…Some things are better buried. your light and your sad eyes. Some things left better Unsaid…Pick your And I got this home inside me I face up off the floor, baby, and let's go" know I do…My outside seem (McCraney 263), reminds the audience like it's fragile but in here a big with Gertrude's words to Hamlet, "Good man that will wrap you in love, Hamlet, cast thy knighted colour off. And Oya. You come home with let thine eye look like a friend on Ogun. Just come home. You let Denmark. Do not for ever with thy vailed me take care of you for a while. lids seek for thy noble father in the I'll make it all right. I'll make it dust"(Shakespeare 21). Such similarity okay (McCraney 71). serves McCraney's notion of theatre as remembrance- that actors are telling

190 VOLUME 1, 2019 TEXTUAL TURNINGS Department of English Journal of English and comparative Studies stories all the time realizing that they are this dream is your brother, Ogun…And he in a theatre space. tell me to say, remind you, ask my brother…Ask my brother Ogun" Marcus opens with a dream where (McCraney 359). The dream means "Oshoosi Size standing in a pool of water Oshoosi's death because these words are crying gently at first until he covers his the same farewell words uttered earlier by mouth, doubles over, and…"(McCraney, Ogun when seeing his brother off. 247). Oshoosi's crying represents his sadness and regret about leaving his elder Narratologically, dreams serve as the brother, Ogun. On a wider sense, the play's mediation which is "presented in the dream foresees Oshoosi's death. Marcus' "the reflector mode" rather than in the other dreams are also about water. His "teller mode": instead of being explicitly repeated dream is about someone who told by a narrator character, the play's always speaks to him in the rain, but he story is offered from the reflector does not understand him. "The presence of character's perspective"(Dillen 74). The water in [Marcus'] vision symbolically dreamer, here, is a generative narrator binds [him] to the importance of water as a since his subconscious that generates the regenerative force within African and actions of the play. This is a sixth level of African American rituals of conversion", narration, that of the space. In such scenes Harry Elam states (189). When Marcus where there are visions, ghosts of the dead asks old for an interpretation of his or memories, the author employs a dual dreams, she answers him that he resembles space where the two worlds exist together his dead father in having dreams that on stage - reality and fantasy (Dillen 81). always come true. The man who is calling The dreams interpreted by Moja, him is his father and the rain is a coming Elegua and Ogun, are viewed from storm. African folktales. When Marcus asks Stormy dreams about his father, about different subjects - his father, homosexuality and love of water shatter sexuality, dreams, etc., he is always Marcus' being. In a very sad dramatic answered that it is "Folks before your monologue that runs for fifty-four lines, time" (McCraney 294). These folks are Marcus stands addressing the audience transferred and respected over generations. about his torturous dreams, "It's nice out African folks believe that the dead always here, you think? The Bayou. Maybe it's tell the truth. All Marcus' dreams about the magic out here. I always thought dead Oshoosi come true, especially that of so…Magic. "Secret of sight". More like the storm which is said to evoke Katrina the…more like the secret of sweet…And Hurricanes (Brodersen 39). Another those who keep talking bout me saying example is Ogun's dead mother who has things to me Man even my own dreams appeared looking at both her sons and the won't let me…these the times You wish water. Aunt Elegua tells Ogun, "Your for a daddy…" (McCraney 299). Marcus mama would have been disappointed in runs for Elegua, as Macbeth does with the you …Letting your brother go like that. witches, to tell him more about the future, Yemoja would have hated you failing her but Elegua has left to avoid the coming Ogun"(McCraney 214). All over his storm, as Ogun tells him. Marcus tells narration, McCraney uses the verb "say" Ogun about his new frightening dream: "In time and again, not only for telling, but

VOLUME 1, 2019 191 TEXTUAL TURNINGS Department of English Journal of English and comparative Studies also for ensuring the importance of what is inability to act in accordance with his being told orally. Most folks revolve mother's will and his failure to protect his around family reunion, respect and love. brother: At the very beginning of the trilogy, Mama You was stealing from Moja rebukes Lil.Legba about calling her collection in a crap game. aloud, "What I told you about hollering fa Everybody like, "he only nine" me huh? Screaming my name like "If you would have been a that!"(McCraney 19). Near the very end of better role model for him the trilogy, when Marcus once interrupts Ogun, he wouldn't acted like old Elegua, she tells him, "I know Osha this" "If I would've …If I…one raised you better than to keep cutting off image of my mama in my elders"(269). mind, …She standing near the Storytelling is used, thus, to weave oral water, my mama standing out traditions on stage. These traditions are looking out, looking out the frequently represented in The Brothers gulf …I burned my chance at Size. Together with Elegba - Oshoosi's anything so that I didn't leave friend and Marcus' father- Ogun and you behind… But no matter Oshossi Size present a wonderful play what I did…I thought you were about the brothers’ bond, as Holder puts it: gonna be okay somehow you "The story is based on the brother bond on would slip through and fuck the mythology of West Africa's Yoruba up… (McCraney, 213-14). culture, tales passed down from generation Ogun keeps repeating the word "fuck to generation, utilizing roughhewn poetry up" for thirty times till Oshoosi stops him. and pulsating rhythms to explore and The second situation is the confrontation identify the roots of familial love and between the two brothers in which Ogun devotion when faced with the reality of confesses that he has done his best to loss and the ever-present gleam of protect his brother and blames Oshoosi for temptation" (no.p.). not responding. Oshoosi, in turn, confesses From a narratological point of view, his mistakes saying it was out of his hand. any text should have a plot in order to be The third situation is Elegba's confession narrative. It is the plot-oriented narrative that however hard he tries, he cannot level. "As for purely textual narrative, replace Ogun –the brother. McCraney narrativity consists in the evocation of a opens The Brothers Size with a proverb fictional world focusing on one or several about friendship and brotherhood: "A man human (or quasi-human) consciousness that hath friends must show himself whose experience of that world is the topic friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh of the narrative. Most dramatic narratives closer than a brother"(McCraney 136). In have a prominent plot functions, as do a very touching monologue that runs for most novels"(Fludernik 366). Thus, the forty-four lines, Elegba tells Ogun about plot of The Brothers Size rests on three Oshoosi's suffering in prison and how dramatic / narrative situations to show much he missed Ogun: friendship/brotherhood relations. The first And one night, he …call for is Ogun's sadness over his failure to be a you…one night he just says, "I role model for his younger brother, his

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want my brother. Someone call nothing he can do about it! my brother…"This grown man (McCraney 197-9) this man Crying for his Telling dreams on stage shows self- brother…Sobbing into the reflexivity through the characters' search night, "Og come for Shoosi for freedom and identity. The two dreams now…"…He make us all miss above are self-explained. They echo such our brothers, the ones we ain't brotherly bond that is threatened with the neva even have…The guards outsider Elegba, who, here, symbolizes the stop like a funeral coming search for freedom in the open world. The down the halls in respect of this Brothers Size is about "The intangible man mourning the loss of his quest for freedom in a society still racist at brother…I can't never be his its core, a world that all too often drags the brother like you his brother. weak and vulnerable into a tangled web of Never…can't I stop you from bad decisions and inherited misfortune being his brother. (McCraney from which many will never 210-12) escape"(Holder no.p). Elegba's search for Accordingly, dreams are used to freedom is echoed in his son's continuous express such brotherly bond. This bond is search for him. Like Saber in Naguib threatened by Elegba who pushes Oshoosi Mahfouz's The Search, Marcus spends his away from his elder brother. The two life searching for his father. He asks brothers dream of each other. In act one, everyone about his father -his habits, scene five, "Oshoosi Size is sleeping, that attitudes, manners, etc. "McCraney night, dreaming. And in his dream is his tenderly exploring the desire of black brother Ogun. Oshoosi can hear him, in Americans to affirm their identity and this dream, working…and in his dream, reconnect with their cultural roots via enters Elegba too. Singing a sweet Marcus' hunger to know more about his song"(McCraney 170). Elegba reminds late father"(Rooney no.p.). Oshoosi of his help and support when they This search is always mingled with the are in prison together. By the same token, image of the window as a gate of entering in act two, scene one, or/and departure. The image of the Ogun Size is sleeping. window is used three times in the trilogy. Dreaming. And in his dream is The first occurs in The Brothers Size, act his brother Oshoosi and his two, scene three, when Elegba insists on friend Legba…His brother interfering in the brothers' life, especially Oshoosi and Legba are bound Oshoosi. The text reads: "Elegba standing together. And they seem to the next morning; outside at Oshoosi's want to part ways, to separate, window…Ogun Size enters. He sees but they can't…Ogun wants to Elegba at his brother's tell his brother to call him window"(McCraney 207). Ogun tries hard …But it's too late…Ogun's to dissuade Elegba from his brother's way, dream ends and Elegba is but in vain. Elegba appears for the second dragging his brother Oshoosi time in act two, scene five. The two along with him and there isn't brothers have been happy singing together till Elegba appears. "Elegba appears at the

VOLUME 1, 2019 193 TEXTUAL TURNINGS Department of English Journal of English and comparative Studies window, like a glimmer of moonlight… Oshun is the of love, Oshoosi sees it. How could he not? He fertility, and erotic power. She stops singing" (McCraney 233). Elegba's has a double personality: as a appearance means the end of happiness. river goddess found in fresh Directly after, Oshoosi departs with water, she moves with grace Elegba, leaving his brother alone. Another and fluidity and can heal departure is expressed by the use of closed wounds with a cool splash; but windows at the end of Marcus. "Marcus as a spirit of unpredictable stands on Elegua's porch wanting to knock passion she can be easily but her windows are all boarded- angered. She is the image of a up"(McCraney 358). Marcus has come to powerful woman in Yoruba tell Elegua about his dream, but she has society and is sometimes left to avoid the coming storm. It is the characterized as a confident epilogue that ends the trilogy as well as market woman who drives hard Marcus' dreams. bargains (42). Besides dreams, the author uses Having failed to give Shango a baby, symbolic names enhancing his telling of Oya cuts off her ear and gives it to him as Yoruba themes. "Practiced in various a token of love. "I do this in remembrance forms by millions today, Yoruba religious of you …I wished I could make a part of traditions embrace a rich pantheon of me to give you but I had to take what's , or spirits, whose life forces already there…just give you what I got" animate and inspire their followers. Like (McCraney 123-4). The ear that used to be Greek and Roman gods, each orisha a sign of love when caressed earlier by corresponds to a particular element of life, Shango turns semiologically through such as war, marriage, or justice". In The 'metonymic deviation', as Keir Elam calls Red and Brown Water, McCraney depends it (28), to a tragic sign of pain and on a set of symbolic names to highlight the sacrifice. Oya's sacrifice starts earlier in tragic end of Oya. The name Oya refers to the play when she prefers the sexy Shango "The Niger River, wind and storms, one of to the loving, romantic Ogun. Aunt Elegba Shango's wives". Shango himself refers to herself notices it: "I know what you're like the "Orisha of thunderbolt, dispenser of under Ogun Size. But it ain't nothing like justice" ("The Brother/Sister Plays" 14). that lightning from Shangoo, To Zachary Moull, Shango is "Violent, eh?"(McCraney 85). Ogun suffers from quick to anger, and associated with virility. stuttering, something that Oya pities him He was a human king famous for his for, at the very beginning of the play, bravery and his womanizing"(43). "You hurt my heart. When you stutter like that…I know. It's like I know you…What Oya's tragedy lies in her failure to be you want to say and sometimes when it neither a world runner nor a mother. She is halts up like that when the words stuck in deprived of having a baby to keep your chest, when they could come out so Shangoo for herself, while Shun – sweet I just…I get sad for you…that's all " Shango's other girlfriend does. Shun or . Shango, Ogun's rival, is used to tease Oshun refers to "The Oshun River, the him," I see you trying to woo the ladies most beautiful of Shango's wives" Still which yo half-out words" (McCraney (Mckelvey 13). Zachary Moull adds:

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31-2). Out of Shango's teasing, Oya's pity those accused of crimes or and his own insistence and love for Oya, imprisoned. Over the course of Ogun is totally cured at the end of act one. The Brother/Sister Plays, "For the rest of my life. I won't skip Oshoosi Size frequently runs another word. Another breath. Won't into trouble with the law (43). interrupt myself, you let me talk to Actually, a great deal of Oshoosi's you…Let's go inside. We can talk quiet in problems with the law is due to his there. Come inside with me. We talk about playboy friend Elegba. The name Elegba starting something. Making a family one refers to the "messenger who makes day"(McCraney 72). connections between the divine and human Unfortunately, this day never comes. spheres possible. He is a go-between, a Oya dies because of Shango's neglect and communicator and interpreter". In Ogun remains single for the rest of his life. Marcus, Elegba leaves his son Marcus for All over the play, Ogun does nothing but his wife Oba, to raise him alone. "In work. "Ogun is the orisha of iron, fire, and patriarchal Yoruba society, she [Oba] was war, and in The Brothers Size, he the model of a dutiful wife who bore manifests in the character of Ogun Size, silently the betrayals of her husband" who works with metal and fire in his auto (Moull 41-42). repair shop". Unlike his brother Ogun, Symbols are used, thus, as a means of Oshoosi is "The orisha of hunting and both narrating Yoruba mythology on stage scouting, the patron of people who seek, and creating a sense of unity among the especially those who seek justice – a three plays. Much emphasis is placed also fitting association for a man seeking new on the unities of place and time as life after his incarceration"(Coldurn 6). common factors in the trilogy. Tarell This is partly true of Oshoosi. Oshoosi's Alvin McCraney uses the same place in refusal to follow his brother's steps as an the three plays. It is San Pere; Louisiana. auto repair businessman reflects his deep Most critics agree that such place is desire for freedom and for leading a totally fictional. David Rooney states: "The plays different life from that of his brother. The depict life in the projects in the fictitious more he searches for freedom, the more community of San Pere, where narrow Oshoosi endangers himself. Zachary prospects, poverty and crime are the norm, Moull is versed in expressing it: and where folks are always braced for Oshoosi is the bow-and-arrow tragedy"(no. p). Like August Wilson, who carrying Orisha of the hunt… nearly sets his trilogy in San Pere, According to a Santeria myth, McCraney does , and although the place is he mistakenly killed his own the same in the three plays, "San Pere mother after she borrowed a changes in every play, and it's important to beautiful bird he had caught; us that it does that "(Brodersen 38). thinking the bird stolen, he Time is also the same in McCraney's fired into the air and trilogy. It is the 'Distant Present'. commanded the arrow to pierce McCraney himself comments on using the heart of the thief. It did. such technique saying: "If you tell a story The grief-stricken Oshoosi you are already telling it in the past tense. became a repentant god dear to

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It is already happened. So it is in the is set in the Victorian age, yet the audience distance. But you're telling it right now, so are introduced to radio sets, headphones, it is, therefore the present"(Brodersen earphones, factories and railways. 38).The narrativity here lies in the Contradictions cover a wide area of "narrativisation of drama in which the topics as well as the mixture of tenses. The events, though historically past, are use of both the old and the new is a vivid translated into the present of the example of contradictions. McCraney (narrative) performance"(Fludernik 371). declares: Using this mixture of the past and the present is one of McCraney's techniques of These stories are complex, not employing contradictions. He inserts hints good versus evil, but good and about wars in Iraq and the Middle East evil at the same time. Life is when narrating African Gods and spirits. good, but so is death. Radiantly Talking about Shango's death, Shaunta beautiful is bad, but so too is declares," Shango was such a hero, you ugly …I began to investigate know? Going off to fight that fight in how to use ancient myths , Iraq…They say that fighting in the Middle stories, to tell urban ones …So East ain't neva gon stop…"(McCraney I began taking old stories from 283). To this effect, David Rooney adds: the canon of the Yoruba and splicing them , placing them The three plays are set in the down in a mythological 'distant present' and appear to Housing Project in the South cover three or four decades. (Brodersen 19). However, time is abstract and porous here, an aspect echoed According to McCraney, thus, the in the freehand deployment of combination of old stories with pop-culture references. For mythological backdrops adds to the power instance, neighbors party to a of the story as it made them “feel both old Beyoncé song in chronological and new, as if they stood on an ancient opener "In The Red and Brown history but were exploring the here and Water", while high-schoolers now (Brodersen 19). lip-sync to 1970s big-band Besides, contradictions are shown disco in the closing part, clearly in some character types as "Marcus: or the Secret of portrayed by McCraney. Talking about the Sweet"(no.p.). complex character of Elegba, Ogun Although McCraney's main concern is to confesses that "Like every man we all got tell about ancient African stories, he never the ability of being a lot"(McCraney 302). gives the audience the sense of the past. The character of Marcus is the best The audience are always relating what example. He bears a lot of contradictions. happens on stage to their own lives, In an interview, McCraney comments: enacted before them, through the I always found that interesting continuous references to current events. because I've always felt like Playwrights always use such anachronism I've had duplicitousness about as a means of linking the past events with myself …Marcus is a play that the present. Edward Bond's Early Morning

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says, "Well, I may be gay, but I told in many different ways using various also see dreams that tell the literary genres, but McCraney chooses future". How magical is that? theatre for such end because he believes in You can be more than just one the power of theatre, its ability to attract thing. You can be a pillar in great numbers of audience and its direct your community but also be and effective role in conveying messages. something they disdain…I McCraney, thus, contributes to change the always found that interesting view to theatre from a mere means of because I've always felt like entertainment to addressing serious issues. I've had a duplicitousness about myself"(Rubin 16-7). Theoretically, the plays have been studied from a transgeneric perspective – McCraney's last words about mixing an approach that argues strongly for the different elements together for the best narrativity of drama on the ground of effect are in fact the best to end this paper using many different narrative levels - with. This tendency to mix different plot, character, space, time, setting, elements in his daily life habits– eating, storytelling, stage directions and drinking, listening to music, wearing metadrama. All these levels are applied clothes, among many others, is manifested equally to the three plays of the trilogy, in McCraney’s work. McCraney weaves but for purposes of scope and scale, only both narrative and dramatic elements in his four levels are applied in detail as masterpiece, The Bother/Sister Plays in a examples. These levels are the narrator, unique way in order to narrate old African storytelling, stage directions and stories in a dramatic way. Rich and metadrama. By weaving these elements powerful stories about African cosmology, together, McCraney manages to set up myth, folktales, spirits, gods, love, narrative experiments on stage similar to symbols, dreams, and familial relations are those in fiction. rarely presented on stage. Stories can be

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Works Cited Brodersen, Elizabeth, editor. "Words on Plays. Insight into the Play, the Playwright and the Production”. Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet". American Conservatory Theatre. (A.C.T.) Koret, 2010, pp.1-44 Chatman, Seymour. Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Cornell University Press, 1978. ... Seymour. Coming to Terms. The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film. Cornell University Press, 1990. Claycomb, Ryan. "Here's How You Produce This Play: Towards a Narratology of Dramatic Texts". Narrative. Volume 21, Number 2, May 2013, pp.159-179. Ohio University Press. doi.org/10.1353/nar.2013.0007 Colburn, Kimberly. "The Brothers Size". Forman Series. Actors Theatre Brown, 2015, pp.6-7 Dillen, Wout. "Stretching the Boundaries of Narrativity on Stage: A Narratological Analysis of Paula Vogel's The Baltimore Waltz and Hot 'N' Throbbing". Style, Vol.47, no.1.2013, pp.69-86. Penn State University Press. www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/style.47.1.69. Accessed 22 Jan. 2018 Elam, Jr, Harry. The Past as Present in the Drama of August Wilson. The University of Michigan Press, 2004. Elam, Keir. The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. London, 1980, Methuen, Fludernik, Monika. "Narrative and Drama". Theorizing Narrativity. De Gruyter. ProQuest.EBook 2008, pp.355-383.central. bookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aucegypt/on 14 Nove. 2017. Accessed 20 Jan. 2018 Holder, Travis. "The Brothers Size". The Fountain Theatre, 2014 Hughes, Carrie. "On Tarell Alvin McCraney's Trilogy". The Brother/Sister Plays. McCarter Theatre Center's. Produced with The Public Theatre in New York. www.mccarter.org.Princeton,2009, pp.8-13 Accessed 20 Jan. 2018 Jahn, Manfred. "Narrative Voice and Agency in Drama: Aspects of a Narratology of Drama". New Literary History. John Hopkins University Press Vol.32, no.3, summer, 2001, pp.659-679.DOI: doi.org/10.1353/nlh.2001.0037.Accessed on 22 Nov.2017.AUC . Accessed 12 Jan. 2018 McCraney, Alvin Tarell. The Brother / Sister Plays. Theatre Communication Group. 2010. Mckelvey, Patrick." Tarell Alvin McCraney's Influences". The Brother/Sister Plays, McCarter Theatre Center.Co-produced with The Public Theatre in New York, 2009, pp.13-16.www.mccarter.org. Accessed 10 Jan. 2018

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Moull, Zachary."African Echoes". Words on Plays. Insight into the Play, the Playwright and the Production. Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet. American Conservatory Theatre (A.C.T.), 2010, pp.40-3. Nunning, Ansgar and Roy Sommer." Diegetic and Mimetic Narrativity: Some Further Steps towards a Narratology of Drama". Theorizing Narrativity.De Gruyter. ProQuest Ebookcentral, 2008, pp. 31-354 ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aucegypt/on 14 Nov., 2017. Accessed 20 Jan. 2018 Paller, Michael. "Two- Spirit". Words on Plays. Insight into the Play, the Playwright and the Production. Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet. American Conservatory Theatre. (A.C.T.) Koret, 2010, pp. 35-37 Pier, John, and Jose Angel Garcia Landa.Theorizing Narrativity. De Gruyter. ProQuest EBookentral.ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/aucegypt/ 2008, accessed 14 Nov., 2017 Rooney, David. "Play Draw on West African Myth to tell Down- Home Stories Rich in Cultural Specificity".@ Variety .Twitter,2009 Rubin, Dan." American Bayou. An Interview with Playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney". Words on Plays. Insight into the Play, the Playwright and the Production. Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet. American Conservatory Theatre. (A.C.T.) Koret, 2010, pp.5-17. Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. York Press, 1992 Shaw, George Bernard. Pygmalion. York Press, 2002. "The Brother/Sister Plays". McCarter Theatre Center. Co-produced with The Public Theatre in New York, 2009, pp.1-43.www.mccarter.org. Accessed 14 Dec. 2017.

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