How might the evolution of African-American theatre and performance be captured within a single volume? What content would be considered and what lines drawn? Guided by editor Harvey Young, thirteen scholars have responded with an impressive collection of essays that speak to the complexity and intersectionality of African-American theatre. Employing a provocative divide between ‘stereotypes and caricatures’ and ‘honest and recognizably real portrayal[s] of African American cultural and historical experiences’ (p. 5), the authors emphasize the latter. In so doing, they uphold an interest in self-fashioned African-American theatre as advanced by W. E. B. Du Bois, Amiri Baraka, August Wilson and Suzan-Lori Parks, among others.
The volume opens with a timeline of major moments in African-American theatre, beginning with the 1529 arrival of slave ships in North America and ending with Audra MacDonald's 2012 Tony Award for Best Actress for her role in Parks's adaptation of Porgy and Bess. The expanse of this chronology, which also notes contemporaneous world and US events of historical interest, shapes the chapters that follow. Each essay is situated within one of four epochs: ‘antebellum and Reconstruction, the New Negro, the Black Arts Movement, and the post-black’ (p. 6). Taken together, the collection places African-American theatre in conversation with local, national and global developments and articulates the field's interdisciplinarity.
As a result, an inclusive redefinition of African-American theatre and performance emerges. In their essays, Nadine George-Graves, Sandra G. Shannon and Sandra L. Richards demonstrate the ways in which this theatre has the capacity to focus on localized US communities. Additionally, these scholars cite African-American theatre's receptive and invested connection with Africa and the African diaspora. Essays by Douglas A. Jones Jr, Samuel O'Connell and George-Graves focus on often-overlooked topics within the field, such as the ‘coerced performances’ (p. 16) of antebellum slaves, African-American musicals, dance and performance art. Fresh revelations take centre stage in selections authored by Monica White Ndounou, Jonathan Shandell, Soyica Diggs Colbert and Adrienne Macki Braconi, each constituting an intervention in the study of canonical topics such as the Little Negro Theater Movement, the Federal Theatre Project and the Harlem Renaissance, as well as key figures like Alice Childress, Angelina Weld Grimké, Lorraine Hansberry, Langston Hughes and Bert Williams.
New frontiers emerge in Heather Nathans's discussion of theatrical presentations of slave rebellions, Faedra Chatard Carpenter's exploration of ‘dramatic iterations of whiteness’ (p. 175; italics in original), and Harry J. Elam Jr's closing chapter, which examines how ‘[n]ew black meets new form within post-Black theatre’ (p. 275). Elam ends his chapter with a political call-to-action à la August Wilson. Although not readily apparent from its table of contents, the volume also includes important mention of overlooked dramatic voices, lesser-known works by prominent playwrights, and newcomers, including those who address sexuality. For those interested in learning more, a carefully considered bibliography of ‘Further Reading’ is included at the book's end. The anthology offers rewarding and urgently needed insights into the heterogeneous category of ‘African-American theatre’.
