What does your taste in theatre say about you? The production was critically acclaimed, winning an Obie Award for best new American play in 2014 (a tie with his previous play, Appropriate). Photographs, unsurprisingly, figure in many plays about families. Minnie and Dido realize all the other slaves ran away. Gain full access to show guides, character breakdowns, auditions, monologues and more! Jacobs-Jenkins developed his take on The Octoroon while he was a Dorothy Strelsin Fellow at Soho Rep in the 2009/10 season. Jacobs-Jenkins introduces Jims real feelings. An Octoroon, quite appropriately, ends in the dark. Pete is Paul's grandfather. Even the notion of what makes a play is up for grabs, as this tumultuous piece is both an adaptation of The Octoroon, a popular 19th-century melodrama by Dion Boucicault, and a postmodernist critique of it. f I say that this bizarrely brilliant play is the work of a 32-year-old black American dramatist called. [13] Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Neighbors. The audience is catapulted into a space that plays to their stereotypes and questions our societys relationship to humanity and our history. In act four in place ofor actually in addition toBoucicaults innovative use of the new art form of photography and his spectacular exploding steamboat (offstage in An Octoroon), Jacobs-Jenkins provides for his audience a stunning contemporary sensation: a blown-up photograph of a real-life lynching. The last date is today's A panel of scholars and artists discuss the contemporary relevance and themes of Branden Jenkins-Jacobs play "An Octoroon"Featured panelists are:Dr. Theda Pe. This is Terrebonne, a Louisiana plantation that George Peyton (Myers in whiteface) inherited after the death of his uncle, the Judge. As act 1 begins . Ostensibly 19th-century slaves, their diction is so modern in its wit and inflection, they could easily be transplanted to any stoop in Bedford-Stuyvesant without causing much of a stir. Jacobs-Jenkins himself took on the role of Br'er Rabbit and Captain Ratts.[14]. 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]. "[2] This examination of race as a social construct is also in Appropriate and Neighbors. That, however, is only the bare outline of a work that is infinitely playful and deeply serious and which dazzlingly questions the nature of theatrical illusion. Pete sends Paul to go find a letter that would promise enough money to save Terrebonne. Maurya Wickstrom The same can be said about Wahnotee's love for Paul, a young slave. [5] Jacobs-Jenkinss innovative work makes possible a fresh and experiential interracial discussion of race relations in Americaa discussion that is much needed in the present tense political climate. It is an adaptation of Dion Boucicault's The Octoroon, which premiered in 1859. The dead patriarch has counterparts in Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Beverly in August: Osage County, both of whom are absent (dying or dead) for much of their respective plays. By boasting that he was as good a hunter as the goddess Diana, Agamemnon had the gall to get uppity with the gods (291). 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. Suddenly, the back wall of the stage falls forward, blasting us with a gush of air and revealing a snow-white stage, covered in cotton (design by Mimi Lien). "Branden is like a performer whose material is text," Benson observes. Vivian Oparah and Cassie Clare in An Octoroon. [23] Jacobs-Jenkins quoted in Amy Wegener, About Appropriate, Appropriate. Yet in its current incarnation, An Octoroon feels even richer and more resonant than it did before, both funnier and more profoundly tragic. Complimentary and Deeply Discounted Shows. Old times there, it seems, are not forgotten at all. : a person of one-eighth Black ancestry Word History Etymology octa- + -roon (as in quadroon) First Known Use 1859, in the meaning defined above Time Traveler The first known use of octoroon was in 1859 See more words from the same year Dictionary Entries Near octoroon octopus octoroon octospore See More Nearby Entries Cite this Entry Style This wish to use preexisting material to simultaneously move past these experiences because of the multiple levels of the plays presentation and humor. Richard then conflates Iphigenias willingness to sacrifice herself with what he sees as Melodys defection to the Crows. In scenes added to Boucicaults play Jacobs-Jenkins humanizes Dido, Minnie, and Grace by giving them distinct backgrounds and personalities and voices, desires, and agency of their own. Adaptation is a creative, interpretative, and political act. Like many another melodrama of the period, The Octoroon presents its audi- ence with a dashing hero, a dastardly villain, a bumbling spokesman for goodness, and a woman who almost loses her family home. B J J isnt the only undressed playwright onstage for long. [41] Bottoms suggests that Buried Child is dealing metaphorically with Americas collective tendency to bury the intolerable memories of its bloody history of slavery and genocide, and so forth (The Theatre of Sam Shepard, 176). [14] For the history and content of nineteenth-century minstrel shows see Robert C. Toll, Blacking Up: The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), especially 2557; and Eric Lott, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). Melody, looking different now, meets Jim at the stage door and asks him how he feels, and the actor playing Jim Crow starts to tell her how he really feels (319). 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. Subsequent references are indicated in parentheses. Strange as it seems, a work based on a terminally dated play from more than 150 years ago may turn out to be this decades most eloquent theatrical statement on race in America today. A theater and a slave plantation in Louisiana, College/University, Diverse Cast, Ensemble Cast, Mature Audiences, Regional Theatre, Front Of House at Prince of Wales Theatre. The numerous comic episodes, however, involving Pete, Dido, Minnie, and Grace, scenes in which Jacobs-Jenkins induces the audience to laugh at slavery almost before they are aware, produce more subtly disquietingbecause more questionableeffects. [19], Dobama Theater in Cleveland Heights, Ohio presented An Octoroon from October 21, 2016 to November 13, 2016, directed by Nathan Motta[20], The first West Coast premiere of An Octoroon was held at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, directed by Eric Ting with Sydney Morton in the title role. The Octoroon Themes Racial Identification and Discrimination Set in the pre-Civil War South, The Octoroondeals heavily with racial themes. We watch each other (319). It's a strenuous and daring display of theatricality that goes far beyond issues of race in. In this finale Jacobs-Jenkins deprives his audience of their collectivity and requires them to question their own individual reactions to his play. Unlike historical excavations, which lead archeologists ever deeper into the past, in Neighbors Jacobs-Jenkins excavates upwards into the present, reaching his deepest layer in the feelings of a putative contemporary actor beneath those of a reluctant performer beneath those of a minstrel character. Just because the law forbids or permits something doesn't mean the law is morally right or just. More significant than these echoes is the familiar symbolic equation of the family home with America. As in Neighbors, The second date is today's In between these striking bookends Jacobs-Jenkins follows his predecessors in his chosen genre from ONeill to Letts in depictingsometimes with an exaggeration so subtle that it barely puts a dent in the ostensible realism of his presentationfamily secrets, unhappy marriages, sibling rivalry, and conflicts between parents and children fueled by drugs or alcohol. Through Brechtian elements such as direct address, Jacobs-Jenkins explores "the idea that you could feel something and then be aware that youre feeling it". The image of Franz holding the sodden remains of the photos of dead black people laminated onto Shepards image of Tilden holding the remains of the dead baby elicits especially clearly what Jacobs-Jenkins calls an archeology of seeing. The meaning of this moment in Appropriate lies in the stratigraphy, and especially in the gap between layers that provides space for interpretation. [6], An Octoroon had a workshop production at Performance Space 122 from June 19 July 3, 2010, featuring Travis York, Karl Allen, Chris Manley, Ben Beckley, Gabe Levey, Jake Hart, Margaret Flanagan, Amber Gray, Mary Wiseman, LaToya Lewis, Kim Gainer, and Sasheer Zamata. Your email is never published nor shared. [27] The familys various responses are white, Kee-Yoon Nahm explains, because they are the reactions of people who can in no way share in the experiences documented by the photos. At the beginning the incessant chatter of cicadas fills and sweeps the theater in pulsing pitch-black waves (13), assaulting the audiences senses in an almost Artaudian manner for what seems like an unbearably long time; at the end alternating darkness and light represent the passing of many years as the house falls apart and the cicadas fall silent. In the plays final sequence, representing an indeterminate period of time marked by stylized blackouts followed immediately by the lights coming up again, the audience bears witness as the house, established by now as a representation of America, is casually inhabited by various strangers and literally falls apart. Locating 'Dixie' in Newspaper Discourse and Theatrical Performance in Toronto, 1880s-1920s Jan 2018 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. Zoe calls Dido Mammy, and she puts on a mammy character as they argue. That never was me! (111). Study Guide! publication online or last modification online. George photographs Dora with his camera while she and Zoe plot to make George marry her. in Ben Brantley, A Squabbling Family Kept in the Dark, New York Times, 16 March 2014. http:www.nytimes.com/2014/03/17/theater/in-appropriate-branden-jacobs-Jenkins-subverts-tradition.html?-r=o (accessed 12 August 2015). [10] Vallejo Gantner, artistic director of PS 122 along with theatre critics Elisabeth Vincentelli and Adam Feldman, argued that although it was not unethical to publish the email, it may not have been "nice" to publish it. Pete, George, and Dora acquaint themselves when Zoe enters to meet George. with Siobhan OFlynn (London and New York: Routledge, 2013), 170. 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. [55] See Collins-Hughes, Provocative Play Sees the Faces Behind the Blackface, and note 11 above. Similarly, Ben Horner (in blackface) gives committed performances in the dual roles of Uncle Tom-esque Pete and adorable slave boy Paul. . [7] Often transmotivation, transfocalization, and transvalorization work together. eNotes Editorial. But even if your response is an emphatic "No", you should still check out this superb play that employs black, white, and redface in unexpected ways while reclaiming a lost gem of the American stage. Since Boucicault will be playing an American Indian, he slaps on redface. Orange Tree, RichmondBranden Jacobs-Jenkinss extraordinary play is both an adaptation of a 19th-century melodrama and a dazzling postmodernist critique of it. BJJ clarifies that in the time of the play, a photograph was a novel/innovative/contemporary way for the plot to be resolved. Directed by Sarah Benson, in a style that perfectly matches its mutating content, An Octoroon is a shrewdly awkward riff on Dion Boucicaults The Octoroon (notice the change in article), a 19th-century chestnut about illicit interracial love. [9] Prior to the first performance, Alexis Soloski for The Village Voice published an email from cast member Karl Allen who wrote, "the play has transformed from an engaging piece of contemporary theatre directed by Gavin Quinn to a piece of crap that wouldn't hold a candle to some of the community theater I did in high school". The latter is so sickeningly sweet and endearingly dumb, especially with his Indian sidekick Wahnotee (Wolohan in redface), he could have his own family television series circa 1955 (think antebellum Lassie). Richard is horrified by the Crow familys moving in next door. The unseen album, telling its symbolic story of a long line of corpses (112), of incest and infanticide, prefigures the more shocking album of lynchings and dead black bodies that mesmerizes the Lafayette family in Appropriate. The womens fantasy, however, will prove ephemeral. The effect, according to the stage directions, is supposed to be absolutely nothing less than utter, utter transcendence (310). So B J J puts on whiteface, the better to portray both the hero (the idealistic young heir to a plantation) and villain (a wicked, lust-ridden, newly rich overseer). Jump-start your essay with our outlining tool to make sure you have all the main points of your essay covered. Research Playwrights, Librettists, Composers and Lyricists. It all culminates in a thrillingly ridiculous duel with himself (ingeniously choreographed by J. David Brimmer). [44] The Native American Wahnotee is played by a white actor in redface. While the minstrel show provides the bedrock of his dramatic archeology, Jacobs-Jenkins also exposes the later cultural and political stereotypes of blackness that have been layered onto the tropes of minstrelsy. An Octoroon is "this decade's most eloquent theatrical statement on race in America today." - The New York Times Performance Dates & Times Thursday, September 28, at 7:30 p.m. Friday, September 29, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, September 30, at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, September 30, at 8 p.m. Sunday, October 1, at 2:30 p.m. BJJ stops the action of the play. His most recent play, Appropriate, is about a white family that discovers an album of lynching photos while cleaning out a deceased patriarch's home. in Lunden, One Playwrights Obligation.. Boucicault portrayed Wahnotee, and in his play Jacobs-Jenkins explores the connection between a person and their identity as artist. The album is deeply embedded in the action of the play as the characters try to figure out what it means and what to do with it. think were related! (250). This strategy is most apparent in his depiction of the enslaved female characters, who are little more than comic props in The Octoroon. [40] The photo album in Appropriate, by contrast, belies the apparent absence of blackness in the play by embodying and giving it an explosive motivating power that forces the white characters to confront a legacy of racism that they prefer not to acknowledge. 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. More literally educational are Richards lectures on Greek tragedy, which can be seen as his form of performance, or his interludes. Instead of performing themselves, they put the (real) audience on display: We watch them. [34] Tracy Letts, August: Osage County (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2008), 12324. Appropriate opens with the initially unexplained arrival of Franz and River jumping through a window into a very disorderly living room cluttered with old and new furniture as cicadas hum in the background (15). 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