For Parks, history is. The Foundling Father is just as real as the Founding Father it just depends on who is writing the historical perspective. Parks's play is about black people, yet blackness is never mentioned. How do you feel that Parks' uses language to produce the blackness of her characters?
As you blog about blackness this week, consider Park's "New Black Math" and the myriad of ways that Parks's envisions a black play. Do you see Parks's work as different from and/or similar to other works we have read this semester? If Parks is "''to locate the ancestral burial ground, dig for bones, find bones, hear the bones sing, write it down.'' " (Possession, The America Play 1995), then what do you think is found in The America Play that supplements and/ or subverts existing narratives of Americanness? Why isn't this the African American play?
Suzan-Lori Parks play The America Play is everything she said a black play should be. In New Black Math she states, “A black play does not exist. Every play is a black play. A black play ain’t for you. A black play ain’t about you. A black play is a white play when you read between the lines” (577-578). Reading New Black Math before you read The America Play might help you understand it better. Parks writing through-out the play was strange. The lines jumped around, the spelling was different and the characters referred to things that were made up. For example in Act II Lucy and Brazil say, “Zit him?! Nope. Ssuecho” (174). At the beginning of the play, the Foundling Father lets tourists reenact shooting Abraham Lincoln (played by the Foundling Father) in the head. The audience sees people shooting him over and over again. This reminded me of the saying history repeats itself. Because the words black or blackness is not mentioned through-out the play, it does not mean black people cannot be involved in this part of history. Parks took an infamous time in history when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and added black people to it. Just because it did not actually happen, does not mean it does not exist. I believe Parks was saying that black history can be anything, everything or nothing. It is up to one’s interpretation.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading The America play I was amazed how I felt blackness throughout the play without Parks directly using black themes. On the other hand she mentions in her play that a black play does not exist. This line alone made me question everything we have covered so far in class this semester. A statement coming from such a credible playwright makes you wonder do black plays truly exist. In my opinion I believe black plays DO exist,because they are black that contain material that black audiences can relate to from personal experiences. For example, in the play Fences, Troy experiences racism and other forms that make him feel oppressed. Secondly, her play was extremely indirect which resulted in me having problems understanding her points on several occasions. I find it ironic for a common black grave-digger to become somewhat famous because he looks like Abe Lincoln and allows customers to reenact the the assassination by John Wilkes Booth. This event really makes me contemplate the point she is trying to make by writing about a black man performing as Abe Lincoln. As I tried to see it from her perspective the only educated guess I could come up with is she trying to make the reader see that history maybe repeats itself. And the black man getting shot in the head represents the countless shots African Americans have endured over time. Unfortunately, that was the only thing I could come up with because during this time African Americans were considered even more inferior than what we are perceived today. African American are still fighting for equality during the Abe Lincoln era, so why does Parks use a black man to play Abraham Lincoln.
ReplyDeleteParks New Black Math from her article that we read at the very first week of class reflected a black play that didn’t deal with the oppression of the black/white dynamic, but rather a play about self-definition through the historical memory. The America Play doesn’t need to speak outright about its blackness because to Parks “Blackness is in the eye of the beholder” (lecture notes 3/30), that follows the idea that Black is a set of mind and not based off the “black experience” of oppression. Her ideas of what pertains to blackness in The America Play is based on the thought that all people interpret history differently from their own lives, and that just because blackness is not there doesn’t mean that it is not a black play says Parks, “A black play does not exist. Every play is a black play…. A black play is a white play when you read between the lines” (Parks 577-78). How Parks envisions her black play as something that is more universal that can speak to both young and old, that doesn’t fall back onto the ideas of oppression and slavery like A Soldier’s Play, or even Raisin.
ReplyDeleteBlackness, as a whole, plays a key role in Suzan-Lori Parks’ play, The America Play. She creates many relations to blackness within the speech of her characters, as well as blackness as a historical event. She believes that, “blackness can exist in non-black places, therefore, it is not defined by whiteness, but is always already a part of it” (NHP Lecture 3/30/10). Parks proves this idea of blackness existing in non-black places by revolving her play around the issues of a black Abraham Lincoln impersonator. “4score and 7 years uhgoh…Of thuh people by thuh people and for thuh people” (Parks 191). Suzan-Lori Parks is using the famous Gettysburg Address, and mixing it with “black lingo”, which forces a connection between Abraham Lincoln (white), to the language of the words (black). Black and white are no longer on separate levels anymore, but are the same. This goes along with Suzan-Lori Parks’ “New Black Math” concept which states that “a black play is every play” (NHP Lecture 3/30/10). She is piecing together history that was defined by white males, with that of black history and culture. This is suggesting that blackness and whiteness are not so “black and white” from each other. They are bonded together as a piece, better yet a reflection of our American history. This truly represents Parks’ belief that blackness is, and has been, a part of whiteness to begin with.
ReplyDeleteA key concept in Susan-Lori Parks’ The America Play is the idea that Blackness “can exist in non-black places” (Lecture 03/30). Park emphasises that “Black experience” is not limited to African-American history, but that it relates to all aspects of history and culture. By naming her play “The America Play” Parks was reminding her readers that her work was not something to be defined “black or white” but was to be interpreted according to the reader. The image of history repeating itself in the play is key to Park’s portrayal of “Blackness” as being defined by the individual. The Foundling Father impersonates Abraham Lincoln every night and “the public was invited to pay a penny [...] and shoot Mr Lincoln” (164). He grants different people the chance to relive a significant moment in history in their own way and interpret it according to their own experience. This symbolises the way that Parks felt all of history and culture should be approached and she further emphasises this point by drawing on the historical events surrounding Lincoln’s death and reinterpreting them with an African-American man at the centre. Parks encourages her audience to disregard whether something is considered to be black or white experience and to recognise that everyone is influenced and affected by the same history in many different ways.
ReplyDelete“Every play is born of the United States of America is a black play because we all exist in the shadow of slavery” (New Black Math 580). This statement is very true, because even when you read a play that is traditionally performed by white people you can still see the same struggles of identity that can be found within the black culture. For instances Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman the character Biff feels so lost and confused about life it’s made him bitter about the fact that he has to conform to what societies view of normal is such as working in a office behind a desk just to make a living. If you put this play side by side next to a play traditionally performed by black people such as August Wilson’s Fences where the character Lyons feels he has to conform to whatever career his father wants for him when all he want to do is play sports, you can see why Suzan-Lori Parks makes this statement. Both characters want to be something that society just won’t allow them to be along with personal problems dealing with their fathers. What Suzan-Lori Parks did in the play The American play was retell a story from a different perspective. African American’s were there through some of the major events in our history but the majority of the time there voices got lost because no one felt they had a right to be heard which is connected to the phrase “A hole in history” their voices are the hole.
ReplyDelete“A Black play aint integrated and don’t want to be.” ( 578 New Black Math) After reading, The America Play, I was rather confused with the point that was trying to be made in the play. I felt like I was reading The Blacks all over again. But after reading the New Black Math I started to think, also what is a black play. There is not one clear definition to what is a black and what is a white play, but Suzan- Lori Parks , I think, does a great job in saying what she thinks it is. The in the play she never really describes blackness in the play or even comes out and says everyone in the play is black. The whole play is very indirect and if I did not read the other piece I would still be lost. What I got from the play ultimately was that everything has black in it. The history of the United States would not have the history if it was the not for the blacks brought over to help turn America into one of the richest countries in the world. The reason why it is not called the African American play is because people would look at it as, oh just something else for only black people to read, but that is the problem this play just like every other play has the same history behind it. This is basically what she says in the Intermission part of New Black Math. This was the part that stood out to me the most because it just made everything clear as day.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading this play, I couldn’t help but think about Erykah Badu’s video that we watched in class. The Foundling Father,a character who strongly resembled Abraham Lincoln, quit his job being a gravedigger and began doing re-enactments of how Lincoln’s final moments, allowing people to pay money to choose a weapon to kill him with so they get somewhat of an actual experience. I liked how Erykah used this idea in today’s society. She gave her audience a chance to get a firsthand experience of JFK’s assassination. In a way it both stories allow their audiences to assess how history used to be and it gives them a chance to interpret history in a different way than they might have before. I also liked how in Badu’s video, the audience has a chance to feel as those who were around JFK when he was assassinated. When you hear the sound of a gunshot and Badu goes down, you kind of get a feel of how it was back then, especially once the camera pans around, searching for the shooter.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know if I’m alone here, but I felt that some of the dialogue of The America Play was difficult to read at times. Sentences were fragmented or did not contain punctuation where appropriate and therefore sometimes I had to read a passage a few times before understanding it. Parks used language to portray her black characters, such as “zit” for “is it” (page 174) and “thuh” instead of “the” (174) and also, “uh” instead of “a” (page 174). I can’t say that I would assume the story was about black people if I didn’t previously know however, because the transformed words used could also be portraying lower education or a particular region in a certain time period. I suppose many people would assume the story is about black people but I don’t think the play went over and beyond to be obvious about that, which I believe is good. That is one reason that I think the title is appropriate instead of being named the African American Play because it is a play about Americans, regardless of race. It is a particular viewpoint from an American and represents one story, where race and ethnicity do not have to be the main focus. Instead it is an American story, not just an African American story.
ReplyDeleteBlackness reverberates throughout American society whether there is a person of Africa descent present or not. Suzan- Lori Parks makes this very clear in New Black Math, “ A black play does not exist. Every play is a black play.(577) A black play is of the people by the people and for the people.” (576) This is to the point that Black literature is not meant to be directed exclusively toward the Black population, however has a place and right to be embraced by all. The use of lines from the constitution, which was meant to include all people, however when it was written was directed and written with white males in mind is expressive, because Parks is definitely being inclusive rather than exclusive. Suzan- Lori Parks writing style within The America Play is complex, yet it flows with the use of repetition. At the beginning we see the Foundling Father repeating the act of getting shot in the theatre. I relate her repetitive style to Ntozake Shange. Who utilized a repetitive loose dialogue, in some instances she also used a language that was uniquely her own.
ReplyDeleteIn class we discussed that while reading Suzan-Lori Parks’ plays “you can’t look for the literal” but instead must “look for the pieces” (lecture 3/30). Just like Brazil and the Foundling Father, we as readers of The America Play become diggers of our own; plumbing Parks’ text for clues as to how she interrogates both the role of history and black subjectivity. For Parks, history is not a static, infallible object that one could display in the “Great Hall of Wonders” (Parks 198), but is instead open to question and reinterpretation. Parks questions and reinterprets American history, especially the myth and cultural memory surrounding Abraham Lincoln, by pointing up the mutable contingency of history that she highlights through footnotes to the character’s lines such as: “Possibly the words of Mary Todd Lincoln after the death of her husband” (Parks 160). Just as Parks reminds us of the flawed nature of history with her powerful use of the word “possibly” here, she employs repetition and the use of echoes throughout the play. Brazil tells his mother, “Ffyou dont hear his whispers he wuduhnt here” (Parks 178). Parks’ use of whispers, echoes, fragments and as we called them in class, “pieces,” remind us that the dead are never gone and the past is never over. Parks wrote in her essay, “New Black Math”: “Every play that is born of the united states of america is a black play because we all exist in the shadow of slavery” (Parks essay 580). Just as Lucy and Brazil dig to find their Foundling Father, so must we as readers and as Americans living in the long, cold shadow of slavery dig into “The Great Hole of History” (Parks 159) to discover the many pieces and fragments of history, myth, and memory that can collectively give voice to the untold Black voices of the American past and in the process create new Black subjectivities for the contemporary moment and beyond.
ReplyDeleteBlackness becomes an important topic to think about while reading Suzan-Lori Parks’ The America Play because the play is about blackness without directly speaking about the topic. In lecture it was said that parks believed that “blackness can exist in non-black places” (Lecture 3-30). The name America Play shows that the subject of the play is not directly white nor black it just is. America is the land of the free where al people are equal and Parks raises questions of equality and blackness within her work. What stood out to me as being very important to take notice too was the usage of Abraham Lincoln throughout the play. Parks uses a black man to be an Abe Lincoln impersonator which I think expresses blackness well. Abraham Lincoln is known as the man who freed the slaves therefore to have a black man dress and repeat Lincoln’s words but in a different speaking dialect connects whiteness and blackness because it is white words with black language. The usage of history to make a point is interesting as Lori writes about the assassination of Lincoln. Allowing to be falsely shot as a form of entertainment is very interesting and I think Parks uses this idea so that people recognize that history is never dead. Blackness can also be seen through this because Park’s want people to remember the past so that there is a better future.
ReplyDeleteIn The America Play by Suzan-Lori Parks, Brazil says “Thuh great black hole in thuh great head.” (Parks, 199). This line is not only representative of the American Theatre community but also of the American Society as a whole. “Thuh great black hole” is representative of how African American culture is excluded or ridiculed in ‘mainstream’ society. This exclusion or ridicule does create a void in society. If instead of exclusion and ridicule, society was accepting it would help create a stronger and more enriched community. Perhaps even start to fix or heal “thuh great head” or mainstream America.
ReplyDeleteParks also uses the Great Hole of History as the setting of the show. This helps allow the audience to see that there are different histories depending on how a person interprets them. There are also different histories that exist in the same spot or name. An example of this would be in Erykah Badu’s video 'Window Seat' was filmed at the John F. Kennedy assassination site and she removed her clothes to make a statement about the subjugation of American American women by society. For Badu she saw Kennedy as a free thinker and that was the reason that he got shot. So by her making this protest and being a freethinker in her music video she reenacts Kennedy’s shooting giving her interpretation of this part of history.
“He digged the hole and whole held him.” The America play consists of consistent inconsistencies that may thwart a reader to give up and put it down. You can assume many readers did, but what about the ones who shall I say “kept digging.” This digging quote appears a few times throughout the text but initially some may or may not catch on or again shall I say dig on. However I think Suzan-Lori Parks was pretty blatantly obvious throughout the text about what she meant by this quote. On page 177 Brazil questions the remarks from Lucy about Bram Price. She encourages Brazil’s curiosity when she says, “For 19 years I have kept Brams secret in my bosom. Youre thuh first tuh know. Hhh! Dig on. Dig on.” Brazil responds, “Dig on.” In our discussion in class Thursday Tom Medved said it best when he reflected on this thought. “What if we the audiences are the metaphorical diggers and Suzan is uncovering the layers of dirt that withhold important information?” I agree metaphorically speaking for someone to dig is to uncover or unveil information that is once hidden. The secrets of the dead are buried but to uncover them one must dig. The Great man as Suzan recalls mimics this figure of Lincoln. As digger is he himself an artifact uncovered of what is now buried because Lincoln is way before his time? In my opinion is was great but arduous reading.
ReplyDeleteIn contrast to what Parks says in the play, I do believe that blacks plays do exist. A play in which there are situations and circumstances that a black audience can understand and relate to is what I understand a black play to be. In The Dutchman, blackness is revealed through the language that Lula uses toward Clay. The repetition of questions referring to why he is not acting black, and why are you trying to be white in your suit and clean cut hair, seems to be representing questions that a lot of white were asking of that time. It is only in Clay’s final speech to Lula that he owns his blackness and stands up for himself and his decisions. In Fences, the discrimination that Troy encounters in both sports and his job have affected everyday people who are in the audience. If a black audience member can say ‘yes, that happened to me too!’, after hearing Troy wonder why he has not been promoted to be a truck driver and instead, is stuck in the collector’s position, then it has become a black play. In A Raisin in the Sun, the Youngers’ have finally been able to buy a house. The house happens to be in a white neighborhood, and although they are able and have purchased the home like everyone else on their street, they are still confronted by the white member of the welcoming committee and asked to sell their home back to them. The racisim and discrimination that occur in these pieces are relatable to the audience, this confirming that it is a black play. Many of them evoke the same feelings that Suzan-Lori Parks describes a black play to be in her article “New Black Math”.
ReplyDeleteWho gets to write history is huge. The America Play reminds us that "history" is nowhere close to the whole story of what actually happened in America, or anywhere else. This play reminds us that there are still many many voiceless people out there whose contributions to history are forgotten. Another point is that not all history is perceived the same to everyone. This is a major part of The America Play and is a huge thing for a playwright to undertake. The work is flawless in its reminder to the people that they will not be silinced.
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