For this post, the Dresser has reached back to a 2017 post
[no longer online] which analyzed Branden Jacobs-Jenkins surreal play “An Octoroon”
as a way to set up a forthcoming feature on Scene4
Magazine about virtual theater on the Internet.
On September 19, 2020, the Dresser attended a socially
distanced performance—the cast was geographically separated—via the platform On
the Stage Streaming of Jacobs-Jenkins’ companion play Appropriate as interestingly produced by New Surry Theatre, which
heretofore was simply a small regional theater located in Blue Hill, Maine.
While the distributed virtual production suffers occasional
frozen transmissions (as all Internet platforms do at this time), the play,
which is about the gathering of a White family after the death of the patriarch
at the ancestral plantation where the father had been living, comes across
reasonably well. There are two more performances September 25 and 26. Be
forewarned—this play runs three hours with two intermissions. The first
intermission looks like a credit run (cast bios)
which my remote “seatmate”
thought was the end of the play. Nonetheless, the production is worth seeing
and has some unusual things going on, like using three actors to play one
character who is seen running through the distributed set.
An Octoroon and Appropriate both premiered Off-Broadway
in 2014 and both were awarded 2014 Obie Awards. If you are unfamiliar with the
playwright, be aware that Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, a 2016 MacArthur Fellow, is an
African American, who has written an award-winning play about racism with a
totally White cast.
Here is the review of An
Octoroon:
An Octoroon—[Box]
Meets <Diamond>
Breaking the Fourth Wall, play within a play, actors playing
dual roles, contemporary and antiquated timeframes as one reality, and a
surreal character are all elements of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins remarkable An Octoroon, a play about race in
America. Jacobs-Jenkins bases his contemporary speaking play on the 1859
melodrama entitled The Octoroon by
Dion Boucicault.
The Dresser, who saw the July 30, 2017 performance of the
Wooly Mammoth production, has seen plenty of theater where the actors
infiltrate the audience, maybe embarrass one or two innocent bone-fide audience
members and then go back to the traditional play plan where the players
interact with one another. Octoroon’s
breach of the Fourth Wall is different. The character BJJ who talks to the
audience first is the stand-in for contemporary playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.
BJJ, played with exceptional plasticity by Jon Hudson Odom, appears on stage
wearing nothing by his briefs.
He first interacts with an audience member whose cell phone
rings (is this an audience plant? The Dresser doesn’t think this matters) and
then briefs his audience on the play
via a session with his female shrink. Odom plays both roles—the nearly naked
depressed BJJ and the sickeningly sunny analyst (the audience only hears her
voice). BJJ makes it clear that he is a black playwright trying to talk about
race in America but he can’t get any white actors to take parts that implicate
white Americans with slavery. The shrink helps him think through how to proceed,
which results in the use of white, black and red makeup to make a black actor a
white man, a white actor a black man, and another white actor a red man (a
Native American). So what Jacobs-Jenkins does is through BJJ’s vulnerability
(i.e. his nearly nakedness) is pull the audience through the Fourth Wall to
make them intimates in the process of how this play is going to be enacted. As
final touch to the opening scene, BJJ turns his back as he prepares to dress
and play the white men roles (George, the good one, and M’Closkey, the bad
one). With his back turned he pulls his briefs into his butt crack and
essentially moons the audience.
Just in case you are wondering, the melodrama involves
trying to save a plantation in financial ruin and its inhabitants from the
clutches of the evil M’Closkey. Among the people affected is a young woman named
Zoe who is the daughter of the newly dead plantation master. Zoe’s genetic
makeup is 1/8 black. She is an octoroon whose status as a free person comes
into question with the forced sale of the plantation.
What makes Jacobs-Jenkins’ play compelling is the discussion
throughout the acts about how this play is being made or how it was made. The
playwright is thorough and never drops the thread about how An Octoroon is or has been constructed. Almost
a legerdemain, Jacobs-Jenkins tacks on a coda after the true end of the play
provides a sensational boat-on-fire scene. The coda features two black women
who have been sold to the river boat captain Ratts (Jobari Parker-Namdar). The
women (played by Erika Rose and Felicia Curry) are looking forward to a new
life away from the plantation not knowing their new home has been incinerated.
But then their conversation turns back on itself with what-if questions and
this mostly comic team turns serious and philosophic as the two deconstruct the
play. Interestingly they perform before a scenery flat positioned close to the
front of the stage duplicating how the old melodrama might have presented this
scene. Scenery flats were positioned close to the front of the stage because
lighting was a problem. Before 1850, night time theater in American was lit mostly
by candlelight; after 1850, theaters began modernizing with gas lamps. What the
positioning of the scenery does, in the Dresser’s mind, is create a sense of
intimacy while also suggesting metaphorically that these characters are on
stage to shine light on the situation.
There is a lot of meat on the bones of this play but the
Dresser will add just these two additional things about a play with great
acting, fluid directing (kudos to Director Nataki Garrett), and engaging sets
and costumes—the fight scene between George and M’Closkey (remember: both roles
are played by Jon Hudson Odom) revivals Cirque du Soleil contortionists. And
what about the larger-than-life rabbit who walks through many of the scenes?
The Dresser thinks the rabbit is Br’er Rabbit from the Uncle Remus tales—the
trickster using his wit to thumb his nose at authority and to bend the rules as
he sees fit. The rabbit is another stand-in for the playwright.
Henry Crawford’s “When [Box] Met <Diamond>” is a poem
within a poem and it touches on the issues of slavery and enlightenment
allowing an opportunity for a dialectic with Jacobs-Jenkins’ play An Octoroon. The Dresser presents
Crawford’s poem and then a playful interchange between Crawford’s first poem of
“When [Box] Met <Diamond>” and the Dresser’s ascribed nervous thoughts
about first entering into “An Octoroon”—would the Dresser as audience be
manipulated by the playwright and forced to watch something that tries her
patience?
[I hope this is not another free verse poem.]
Before there were war
planes [Oh no!] there was
going down in flames
[it is.] Before there was
[What, repetition?] Greek
tragedy
[And another lame enjambment.] there was
Greek slavery [I’m
a person too, you know.]
Before there were
<hey you> courts
[I think I deserve a better poem than this.] there were
courtiers <you,
in the box> Before there were cities
<i see you> there
were rivers [You don’t know how long]
Before there were
rights [I’ve been trapped here.]
there were privileges
<i know what it’s like to feel trapped>
[Tell me before he starts again.] Before there were pistols
[Oh crap!] there were
shots [He got it off.]
<i used to be a
prisoner in a narrative poem>
Before there were
lawyers there were [You?] laws
<god yes, but I found a way out> Before there was the big
[How did you leave?] there
was the big bang
<take my hand> [I don’t think this will work.]
Before there were
knives <now, just take my hand>
[Oh, this won’t work.] there
was <just hold on>
[Yes, I can feel it.] cutting
loose. <me too> Before
there was the
Renaissance [Say it diamond!] there
was
the Age of
Enlightenment <we’re outta
here>
Before there were
prisons, there were sentences.
by Henry Crawford
from American Software
“When [Box] Met <Diamond>” copyright © 2017 by Henry
Crawford
WHEN
[BOX] MET <DIAMOND> {First Poem}
[I hope this is not another free verse poem.]
[Oh no!]
[it is.]
[What, repetition?]
[And another lame enjambment.]
[I’m a person too,
you know.]
<hey you>
[I think I deserve a better poem than this.]
<you, in the box>
<i see you> [You don’t know how long]
[I’ve been trapped
here.]
<i know what it’s like to feel trapped>
[Tell me before he starts again.]
[Oh crap!] [He got it off.]
<i used to be a
prisoner in a narrative poem>
[You?]
<god yes, but I found a way out>
[How did you leave?]
<take my hand> [I don’t think this will work.]
<now, just take my hand>
[Oh, this won’t work.] <just hold on>
[Yes, I can feel it.].
<me too>
[Say it diamond!]
<we’re outta here>
WHEN
[BOX] MET <DIAMOND> {First Poem with comments from the Dresser}
[I hope this is not another free verse poem.]
The Dresser: I hope An
Octoroon is not another self-conscious play that messes with the audience.
[Oh no!]
[it is.]
[What, repetition?]
[And another lame enjambment.]
[I’m a person too,
you know.]
<hey you>
[I think I deserve a better poem than this.]
The Dresser: The audience deserves a better play than one
messing with the audience.
<you, in the box>
<i see you> [You don’t know how long]
[I’ve been trapped
here.]
<i know what it’s like to feel trapped>
[Tell me before he starts again.]
[Oh crap!] [He got it off.]
The Dresser: I have seen naked actors on stage but somehow a
male character wearing briefs seemed more unsettling than a completely naked
body. What was the meaning of this state of
undress?
<i used to be a
prisoner in a narrative poem>
[You?]
<god yes, but I found a way out>
[How did you leave?]
<take my hand> [I don’t think this will work.]
<now, just take my hand>
[Oh, this won’t work.] <just hold on>
[Yes, I can feel it.].
<me too>
[Say it diamond!]
<we’re outta here>
The Dresser: Quite frankly when BJJ began the exchange with
his shrink, I thought I and the audience were in for a long and tedious night
of theater. I was completely surprised that the shrink could lead the
despairing black playwright out of his funk with grease paint.
Now, Dear Reader, the Dresser will step back and allow you
to see the parallels of the second poem in “When [Box] Met <Diamond>.”
