Appropriate/An Octoroon. As a symbol, the album suffuses the consciousness of both characters and audience. They begin with the repertoire of minstrel shows and the comic roles played by black characters in the early films and television programs that succeeded them, move on to the repertoire of contemporary cultural stereotypes, and conclude with the repertoire of protest: They luvs when we dance, When we guffaws and slaps our thighs lak dis, When we be misprunoudenencing wards wrongs en stuff, When we make our eyes big and rolls em lak dis; When we be hummin in church and wear big hats and be like, Mmmm! The tension slackens slightly in the second half when Jacobs-Jenkins summarises Boucicaults sensational climax. For the details of this argument see Verna A. Zoe and George are alone, and George confesses his love for her. One, simply called BJJ, explains the dilemmas facing a writer of colour whose every word is mined for its racial significance; the other figure, representing Boucicault, is a drunken showman who has no such self-doubt. The effect, according to the stage directions, is supposed to be absolutely nothing less than utter, utter transcendence (310). Instead of performing themselves, they put the (real) audience on display: We watch them. [47] Schneider, Anyway, the Whole Point of This Was to Make You Feel Something.. all the way back to the grave (112). The Graduate Center CUNY Graduate Center An Octoroon, Jacobs-Jenkins's riff on Boucicault's 1859 classic The Octoroon, which had a 2010 workshop at PS122, bows this month at Soho Rep in a production directed by Sarah Benson. Robert Vorlicky Most of the black works we have read that touch on race have been incredibly serious dramas, but Jacobs-Jenkins is able to depict racial issues while still giving the reader a good laugh. The novel explores the idea of "passing" through the racially mixed character of Rhoda Aldgate, a young woman whose aunt informs her that she is one-sixteenth African American. Stacy Wolf, Frank Hentschker, Executive Director [42] Jacobs-Jenkins retains most of Boucicaults main characters and substantial amounts of his dialogue as well as his plot. The play reiterates a lot of themes I've heard before, but does it in a fresh way that's both thoughtful and provoking. Jacobs-Jenkins reframes Boucicault's play using its original characters and plot, speaking much of Boucicault's dialogue, and critiques its portrayal of race using Brechtian devices. The crunch comes when the good-hearted George Peyton has to choose between his love for Zoe, of one-eighth black ancestry, and his need to save the estate by marrying a rich heiress. At this point the play celebrates the history of African-American entertainment from Josephine Baker, channeled by Topsy in her diamond-studded halter top and banana skirt (309), to artists such as Sister Sledge, Beyonc, and others, whose songs may be incorporated here or may have been used throughout the play as in the New York production of Neighbors. He gives it a try but quickly realizes that getting white, male actors of today to play evil slave owners is not an easy task. She is considered to be property by law, but this is also presented as wrong. Orange Tree, RichmondBranden Jacobs-Jenkinss extraordinary play is both an adaptation of a 19th-century melodrama and a dazzling postmodernist critique of it. That b*tch is dying cuz she old as hell." [6] Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, 2nd ed. Zoe and George are not allowed to marry by law, but this is presented as wrong by the text in the way they are described. From the get-go, Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins is cannily exploiting the assumption of false identity that is the starting point for theater, to make us question who is who or who is what. . The most overt of this is Zoe's status as an "Octoroon," a person who is one-eighth black. The Octoroon Themes Racial Identification and Discrimination Set in the pre-Civil War South, The Octoroondeals heavily with racial themes. Appropriate bears many of the generic markers of American family drama. The evil overseer M'Closky (Myers) desires Zoe for himself and plots to re-enslave her to Terrebonne and buy her at a forthcoming creditors' auction. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. [1] [54] Because Jacobs-Jenkins appreciates the works and genres he adapts even at some level the black minstrelsy of Neighbors[55]he encourages audiences similarly to appreciate and to enjoy his own versions of them. In the mid-twentieth century, much of the pioneering work consisted in studies, both practical and theoretical, of the adaptation of novels into film. Jacobs-Jenkinss plays variously demonstrate how adaptation operates creatively in producing new works and also critically and politically, not in this instance by reinterpreting the adapted texts, but by exposing how their damaging and supposedly outdated racial assumptions continue to inform contemporary racial attitudes. Neighbors, Appropriate, and An Octoroon all attest to Jacobs-Jenkinss fascination with genre or old forms as interesting artifacts. But it is his detailed, scholarly knowledge of minstrel shows, American family drama, and nineteenth-century melodrama that enables him to manipulate these forms and the audience responses they typically generate to elicit an archeology of seeing. Jacobs-Jenkinss sensitivity to and command over the forms he appropriates are apparent in the tropes of the plays themselves, in the characters own commentary on the genres they are inhabiting, especially in Neighbors and An Octoroon, and in the playwrights numerous comments in interviews on the generic affiliations of his work. Like stratigraphic layers in archeology, the layering of past and present in Neighbors requires complex seeing. Again, Wahnotee and Paul are presented so sympathetically (especially Wahnotee) that it seems to confirm the author's approval of their feelings and characters. [25], Artists Repertory Theatre, located in Portland, Oregon, was to stage An Octoroon from September 3 to October 1, 2017. (Psst, it could well be Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins himself.). That sense of uncertainty is part of the fun. Franz and River are startled by the waking of a figure on the couch, who turns out to be Rhys, Tonis son, just as Shelley is startled by Dodge, Vinces grandfather, whom she arouses from sleep. As act 1 begins . I think this play is a work of genius. What ensues is an upside down, topsy-turvy world where race and morality are challenged and intensified. While all three plays perform similar kinds of cultural work, in each play Jacobs-Jenkins adapts a different historical form of theatrical entertainment and adopts correspondingly different kinds of innovative adaptive strategies designed to manipulate audiences into a self-conscious recognition of their own complicity in the racial assumptions he excavates. Enjoy live events at insider prices. Pete is Paul's grandfather. [17], The representations of minstrelsy in Neighbors send ambiguousor multilayeredmessages to the plays audiences, who have responded accordingly with embarrassed, confused, and uncertain laughter or have not known whether they should laugh at all. 3 (Fall 2016): 286. After the conclusion of their show the Crows take a curtain call, but that is not the end. An Interview with Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and Lila Neugebauer, Signature Theatre. His comments in interviews on the generic affiliation of Appropriate suggest that Jacobs-Jenkins assumed that audiences would already be sufficiently familiar with American family drama to interpret this plays complex stratigraphy without further pedagogical intervention on his part. [22] Isherwood, Caricatured Commentary.. Neighbors, Appropriate, and An Octoroon are all intrageneric adaptations; that is, they are plays that adapt other plays, or in the case of Neighbors other performances, in the same dramatic genre. Searching him, George finds the letter which resolves the conflict of Terrebonne's future. Franzs desire for redemption is another white response; Nahm reminds us of those not included in the healing ritual.[29] The plays ending suggests that while some personal progress may be possible in healing family rifts, especially for younger members of the family, only time can cleanse the house of its racial past by demolishing it. Stuart Hecht But Jacobs-Jenkinss adaptive strategy in this play is less explicit than it is in Neighbors or An Octoroon, in which he incorporates explanations of the genres or texts he adaptsin the Crow familys comments on their work in Neighbors and in educational addresses to the audience from dramatist BJJ and Dion Boucicault himself in An Octoroonfor the benefit of those who might not be familiar with his sources. The CrowsMammy, Zip Coon, Sambo, Topsy, and Jim Crowplay updated versions of the infamous parts suggested by their names. By layering African-American history onto Greek myth, Richard constructs an alternative archeology of seeing to Topsysand Jacobs-Jenkinssexcavation of the minstrel show that is the plays main focus. BJJ clarifies that in the time of the play, a photograph was a novel/innovative/contemporary way for the plot to be resolved. Subsequent references are indicated in parentheses. 1 (Fall 2018). But this is not all. Besides, it was being almost entirely recast for the new production, and there was concern that the original chemistry might evaporate. Possession, The America Play and Other Works (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1995), 4. Boucicault puts his audience on a thrilling emotional roller-coaster for its own sake as is typical of melodrama; Jacobs-Jenkins abruptly alternates not only pathos with laughter and laughter with horror but also emotional engagement with critical detachment to produce in his contemporary audience a Brechtian self-consciousness about their own and other spectators reactions. Transcript. Subsequent references are indicated in parentheses. This led Jacobs-Jenkins to see doubles and pairs in Boucicault's play, through relationships between characters e.g. There was excitement when it was announced that Theater for a New Audience would be restaging Ms. Bensons Soho Rep production, but also a certain apprehension. Just because the law forbids or permits something doesn't mean the law is morally right or just. His prologue perfectly shows how Jacobs-Jenkins feels trapped by his works being put into a different box because he is a black playwright although he [doesnt] know exactly what that means, and he just wants to create works to tell human stories, not necessarily always dealing with the race issue in America. [23] Jacobs-Jenkins quoted in Amy Wegener, About Appropriate, Appropriate. [52] For his own political purposes, in An Octoroon he adapts not only his source play and the melodramatic genre in which it is written but also the swiftly changing responses that genre typically elicits, allowing, as Rosa Schneider notes, a twenty-first-century audience to feel some of the same effects as their nineteenth-century counterparts.[53]. ZOE played by an octoroon actress, a white actress, a quadroon actress, a biracial actress, a multi-racial actress, or an actress of color who can pass as an octoroon. This point goes all the way back to our early readings of Gilroy and theory, so Jacobs-Jenkins uses these well known texts as his foundation for An Octoroon, while also moving drastically past these notions. Club members can see a different show every night of the week. [10] Jane Barnette, Adapturgy: The Dramaturgs Art and Theatrical Adaptation (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2018), 55, 62. . Subsequent references are indicated in parentheses. Where Boucicault cleverly uses a photograph of the real murderer of Paul to prevent a miscarriage of justice, Jacobs-Jenkins has to go further to produce a similarly sensational effect for his contemporary audience. The actor who plays BJJ - in this case, the astonishing Ken Nwosu - goes on to don whiteface and appear as both the heroic George and the villainous M'Closky. Reviewer Chase Quinn observed that the audience at Soho Rep was in an unceasing state of anxiety, as each audience member was left to negotiate for him or herself when and how much to laugh. [44] Lisa Merrill and Theresa Saxon, Replaying and Rediscovering The Octoroon, Theatre Journal 69, no. In this respect her role anticipates that of the authorial figure BJJ in An Octoroon, who teaches his audience about melodrama. [10] Simultaneous tak[ing] in implies the audiences experiential engagement with what they see and hear; consideration of separate layers (as in archeology) requires Brechtian critical distance and analysis. [22] Jacobs-Jenkinss final direction for Topsy, And maybe it ends with her masturbating with a banana. Our summaries and analyses are written by experts, and your questions are answered by real teachers. Kevin Trainor as the bombastic Boucicault, Vivian Oparah and Emmanuella Cole as a pair of closely bonded slaves, Celeste Dodwell as a cracked Southern belle and Iola Evans as the eponymous heroine are all first rate. The Octoroon was a controversial play on both sides of the slavery debate when it debuted, as both abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates believed the play took the other camp's side. In this finale Jacobs-Jenkins deprives his audience of their collectivity and requires them to question their own individual reactions to his play. Both the white hero, George, and the white villain, MClosky, are played by the same black actor in whiteface. The evening starts with a confrontation between the two authors. Ed. It uses satire and archival re-creation, jolting anachronisms and subliminally seductive music (performed by the cellist Lester St. Louis) to try to get at its horrible, elusive center: the imponderably far-reaching legacy of American slavery. Neighbors, Appropriate, and An Octoroon enable the multiple-layered seeing that Jacobs-Jenkins is talking about because they require comparative viewing across the adapted and adaptive works themselves and across the cultures or historical periods that produced them. [11] Jacobs-Jenkins grew up in a home full of black memorabilia such as mammy dolls and Colored Only signs, according to Laura Collins-Hughes in Provocative Play Sees the Faces Behind the Blackface, The Boston Globe, 16 January 2011. http://archive.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2011/01/16/neighbors_exposes_racial_history_on_stage/ (accessed 5 December 2016). But Jacobs-Jenkins finds a good balance between drama and comedy, which shows that he can maneuver previous ideas set by racial thinking to fit his own style while still being respectful to his predecessors. BJJ stops the action of the play. This use of make-up reverses the nineteenth-century theatres casting of white actors in blackface to play the enslaved characters and comments ironically on racist stereotypes and the theatrical convention that perpetuated them. The plantation is in dire financial straits, but could be saved if George were to marry Dora (Zo Winters), a wealthy young heiress from a neighboring estate. It is an adaptation of Dion Boucicault's The Octoroon, which premiered in 1859. American Next Wave: Four Contemporary Plays from HighTide Festival Theatre. [24] Jacobs-Jenkins quoted in Margaret Gray, Spotlight Shines Brighter on Appropriate Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Los Angeles Times, 24 September 2015. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-ca-cm-branden-jacobs-jenkins-20150927-story.html (accessed 27 April 2017). [1] Jeff Lunden, One Playwrights Obligation To Confront Race And Identity In The US, All Things Considered, National Public Radio, 16 February 2015. Thats race as a subject that no one can get a comfortable hold on. Paulwith the mailbagsstops to take a photo of himself with Georges camera. Jacobs-Jenkins is speaking here of Everybody (2017), his adaptation of the medieval morality play Everyman. 2 (2015). He has written an American family drama about blackness in America that has no black characters in it but in which their absence pervades and powers the play. Though Toni denies this accusation and is shocked when later Rhys refers to Rachael as the Jew bitch, her own unreflecting anti-Semitism is apparent when she thoughtlessly says that she is not some kind of shylock (77, 34). As an object, the album is constantly presented to the audiences view and its unseen contents to their imagination. In "An Octoroon," the projection of a lynching photograph grounds this playfully postmodern riff on Dion Boucicault's "The Octoroon" in historical horror. Zoe heads out to the slave quarters to ask Dido for poison. Most notably with its racially swapped casting, Jacobs-Jenkins uses this practice as a means to show that race is somewhat arbitrary and a social construct. Richard, however, blames the sacrifice not on the gods (standing in for white people in his mind) but on the demands of Agamemnons uncouth, country-ass soldiers with no self-control, sitting in the port raping women and drinking all the time and aint got no jobs and dont talk Greek good (292)clearly, for Richard, a version of the Crows. Eventually, Zoe takes the poison and runs off. 1 - The Rocky Horror Show The detailed variations on this theme multiply into dizziness. Brer Rabbits gaze is designed to ensure that spectators take note of their own and each others responses to racist stereotypes presented as comic. While the text that Appropriate adapts is the genre of American family drama as a whole, Buried Child, itself a veritable patchwork of allusions to well-known family plays, will, in fact, prove to be the most significant single analog for Jacobs-Jenkinss play.[33]. Infinitely playful Ken Nwosu and Kevin Trainor in An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. It is an adaptation of Dion Boucicault's The Octoroon, which premiered in 1859. Minnie comforts Dido and they look forward to their new lives on Captain Ratts boat. In her 1994 essay Possession, she argues that it is necessary to dig for bones in order to locate and recreate unrecorded African-American history. The superimposition of hero and villain upon one another suggests that the moral difference between them is less clear-cut than melodramatic stereotypes would have it and illustrates, as Lisa Merill and Theresa Saxon note, the uncomfortable similarity between desire to own, master, or marry Zoe. 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