Audience and the African American Playwright

Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2002 Audience and the African American playwright : an analysis of the importance of audience selection and audience response on the dramaturgies of August Wilson and Ed Bullins Ladrica C. Menson-Furr Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Menson-Furr, Ladrica C., "Audience and the African American playwright : an analysis of the importance of audience selection and audience response on the dramaturgies of August Wilson and Ed Bullins" (2002). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 2467. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2467 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. AUDIENCE AND THE AFRICAN AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHT: AN ANALYSIS OF THE IMPORTANCE OF AUDIENCE SELECTION AND AUDIENCE RESPONSE ON THE DRAMATURGIES OF AUGUST WILSON AND ED BULLINS A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Ladrica C. Menson-Furr B.A., Spelman College, 1993 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1995 May 2002 DEDICATION To Mark, Morgan and Mama (Gwendolyn Menson) ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS So many people have touched my life as I have toiled through this process that I could simply write one sentence saying, “Thank you to all those persons who believed in me, when I did not believe in myself.” However, I wish to attempt to list them all as a way to let them know that their assistance, prayers and support will always be inscribed on my heart. June and John Aldridge; Rebecca Argall; Yolanda, LaRonda and Rochelle Beaver; Annette Beher-Hunt; The Owner, Director and Staff of the Children’s Cottage Preschool; William Demastes; Brenda Deneer; Yolanda M. Ellis; Femi Euba; Verlinda Franklin; Gail Furr; Michael and Barbara Furr; Phyllis Gross; Dolan Hubbard; Stephanie Hall; Mary Hines; Dr. Belinda S. Hodges; Kerrith Jefferson; Father Ira Johnson; Carlotta Jones; Cheryl, Allen, Shaydra, Shallene and De’Jah Joseph; Robert Laney; John Lowe; Preselfannie Whitfield McDaniels; Gwendolyn Menson; Gerald Menson, Jr.; Verner Mitchell (and family); Shana Settles (and Taylor); Shalonda Simoneaux; LaJuan Simpson; The Faculty and Staff of the Department of English, Spelman College (1989- 1993); Patricia Suchy; Clovier Ingram Torry (and family); the faculty and staff of the University of Memphis’ Department of English; Dana Williams; Jeffrey Williams iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION…………………….…….…………………………………………..ii ACKNOWLEDEGMENTS……….…………………………………..…………..iii ABSTRACT………………………………..…………………………………..……..v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: AFRICAN AMERICAN THEATRE: WHOM SHOULD IT ADDRESS? ….……….……………………1 2 WILSON’S AFRICAN AMERICA ……………….……..……….24 3 BULLINS’S BLACK AMERICA….……….……….……….....…69 4 THE CONTROVERSIAL POLITICS OF WILSON/ THE CONTRADICTORY POLITICS OF BULLINS.…………93 5 THE DANGERS OF ONE VOICE, ONE HISTORY…..….….107 6 AUGUST WILSON AND ED BULLINS: THE PLAYS— ANALYSIS AND CRITICAL RECEPTION………….…....….118 . 7 CONCLUSION: SAME SUBJECT, DIFFERENT AUDIENCE…………………………….…………………………..221 REFERENCES……………………………………….…………………………….231 VITA…………………………………………….………………………….….…...239 iv ABSTRACT In this study I discuss the importance of audience selection and response upon the dramaturgies of African American playwrights August Wilson and Ed Bullins. Using the theories and criteria for African American art and theatre as espoused by Alain Locke, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Amiri Baraka, and created by the 1960s and 1970s Black Theatre and Black Aesthetic movements, I discuss the importance of audience selection to Wilson’s dramas, especially given his tremendous success on Broadway. I also explore the claimed lack of importance of audience to Bullins’s dramaturgy, particularly as demonstrated in those plays written during his brief tenure as Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party and those works comprising his twentieth century cycle in which he discusses the lives of members of what he calls the “black underclass.” This study relies on theatre reviews from New York Times theatre critics on both Wilson and Bullins as examples of mainstream audience responses to their works. Moreover, I cite published interviews by both playwrights where they discuss their influences, approaches to drama, and the importance and/or lack of importance of audience to their work. This study concludes with the chapter “Same Subject, Different Audience” in which it is noted that although Wilson and Bullins have both been influenced by Baraka and the Black Theatre/Black Aesthetic movements (also indirectly by the theories of Locke and Du Bois), they v offer differing representations of the African American experience. The reason for these different approaches to the same subject is because Wilson and Bullins create their works for different audiences. While Wilson presents an African America that features the “common folk” of the culture, and (indirectly) protests against racism and segregation, he creates this world for mainstream audience members. Conversely, Bullins explores the dark side of the African American experience in his “black America,” focusing on issues and characters (the other “common folk”—pimps, prostitutes, etc.) that many mainstream American and middle class African Americans theatre patrons wish to ignore. vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE—WHOM SHOULD IT ADDRESS? From its inception, formal African American theatre has struggled with two issues: How should the African American be represented on stage? and to whom should African American drama be focused—the mainstream, white American audience or an African American audience reflective of the culture to which it represents? This latter problem has been one that has perplexed the African American dramatist the most, for he not only desires his craft to be reflective of his desire to present a story dramatically, but he also wishes to attain financial and critical success. In the essay “The Dilemma of The Negro Author,” James Weldon Johnson discusses this quandary that the African American author, in this case a dramatist, finds himself facing: “the Aframerican author faces a special problem which the plain American author knows nothing about—the problem of the double audience” (477). Johnson notes how this audience is more than just a double audience made up of “both [w]hite and black America,” but it is an audience that is “divided” by perspectives and insights. Because of this double and divided audience, Johnson states that the African American writer faces the challenge and/or decision as to which audience to appeal to: The moment a Negro writer takes up his pen or sits down to his typewriter, he is immediately called upon to solve, consciously or unconsciously, this problem of the double audience. To whom shall he address himself, to his own black group or to white America? Many a Negro writer has fallen down, as it were, between these two stools. (477) Although stated in 1928, Johnson’s argument was relevant throughout the twentieth century and remains true today, especially as African American dramatists struggle to have their works received and respected within American mainstream theatre culture. The works of Lorraine Hansberry, Charles Fuller, Amiri Baraka, and Douglas Turner Ward all reflect Johnson’s contention; however, they also demonstrate what can occur once the African American dramatist solves the double audience dilemma and selects the mainstream audience as its focus— commercial success. Framed within W.E.B. Du Bois’s double consciousness theory that the African American has existed as “two warring souls” since and because of slavery, Johnson’s double audience theory reflects the complexity that the African American dramatist confronts as he struggles to create work for art’s sake and for economic benefit. The desire for financial and critical success oftentimes takes precedence over artistic desire; hence, the African American dramatist finds himself appealing to the audience that can ensure that success. Traditionally, this audience has been the mainstream, white American audience. 2 When an African American dramatist makes the choice to follow the more profitable audience, he often finds himself riddled with criticism from his cultural contemporaries that he has “sold out” and sacrificed his true voice for acceptance by white America. Moreover, this dramatist often becomes self-indicting and critical of himself. However, once the choice to appease the mainstream audience is made, the African American dramatist has the opportunity to experience waves of commercial and critical success that his contemporaries can only dream of. This success, though, does come at a price. As Adam Miller offers in “It’s a Long Way to St. Louis: Notes on the Audience for Black Drama,” this success, particularly in “Johnson’s time [the early part of the twentieth century] demanded that the Negro playwright lie about his experience…[for,] most whites were willing to see Negroes presented in images that permitted

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