African American THEATER
Over the last two weeks we have been spending our time discussing “African American Theatre” the artists who have made substantial impacts to the genre and the to the culture at large and how we view these values, issues, histories, and social conflicts today as we reflect on the past. We have been doing this with the vehicle of the Theatre, the compelling stories and dynamic characters of our recent Black American History that have sprung from the roots, remembering’s and re-telling’s of what actually happened in our past and how we as a society wrestled with it then and today.
This week you have watchedDutchman. Again we are looking at playwrights who are challenging our view of the past and how the struggle for certain races to succeed and to rise in a white dominated world view are hampered and faltered not only by modern society, the social norms and decorum or code of conduct of the day, but also by the personal struggle and need for self identity in the face of a very rooted value system that had been lived in and ascribed to since reconstruction.
Now that you have done the reading and are able to reflect over the past two weeks, I would like you to wrestle with this quote from Notes on Dutchman.
“Baraka challenges the black community to produce art that portrays the human condition, and provides The Dutchman as a paradigm”………”It must be produced from the legitimate emotional resources of the soul in the world. It can never be produced by evading these resources”
1. What is the human condition that Baraka speaks to?
2. How is the SYMBOL of the Dutchman and the train that the play takes place in provide a “PARADIGM” for more effective storytelling?
3. How do we understand the human condition (as Baraka sees it) in a better way? Do you…? Why or why not?
4. What are “legitimate emotional resources of the soul” and what does Baraka mean when he says this? Do you agree with his stance? Why or why not?
Now, as we look at this topic through the lens of our present day and 2016, how do you feel we are doing as a society in providing entertainment and the telling of stories (Theatre, film, T.V.) about civil rights generally, black history, and how we have progresses as a society since the first time that Dutchman or A Raisin in the Sun first made an impact on the American public and body-politic?
PLEASE REVIEW THE MATERIAL AND FILM FOR A SECOND VIEWING IF YOU WISH.
PLEASE TYPE OUT YOUR ANSWERS IN A THOUGHTFUL AND COGENT WAY.
THIS SHOULD ONE FULL PAGE MINIMUM FOR YOUR WORK.
DOUBLE SPACE.
……………………Answer preview…………………..
What is the human condition that Baraka speaks to? In the play, The Dutchman, the character Amiri Baraka urges the black American writers to rise out of the mediocrity of producing high art and produce art that reflects the human experience and the emotional predicament of man as he exists. Also they should portray man as he exists in the defined world of his being. Amiri Baraka urges the black writers to produce art that portrays this by using the Dutchman as paradigm
How is the SYMBOL of the Dutchman and the train that the play takes place in provide a “PARADIGM” for more effective storytelling? Baraka uses his struggle and experience to convey a message out to the world. This is evident as early as the title, the Dutchman provides a strong connotation of a slave ship, and this title try’s to bring out the theme of slavery in the modern times. Baraka argues that Africanism does exist in the Negro culture but in time it has been translated and transmuted by the American experience. In the train clay engages in a flirtatious conversation with a white woman named Lula who boards a subway train, he tries to deny staring at her with lust. In the conversation clay reveals his insecurities about his race, social status and his masculine prowess…………………………………………….
APA
482 words
