In the Red and Brown Water
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- 6. YOUNG, GIFTED AND BLACK
- 7. AN AFRICAN AMERICAN TIMELINE This history contains major events in the social history of African Americans. It introduces the history that McCraney draws on. 1619
Oya A sorceress and goddess of wind, often symbolising sudden change. She is the primary lover of Shango. There are two versions of Oya which McCraney used: “In the first she is the betrothed of Ogun. But when she went to the festival, she loved the warrior Shango, and they were together for a time. Oya wanted to keep Shango for herself, so she put him in a cemetery. Oshun had to lead Shango through the ghosts, and then Shango fell in love with Oshun.” In the second story Oya is the youngest wife of Ogun. “Oya and Oshun, Ogun’s other wife, meet Shango at a festival. Shango loves Oya the most. But he loves Oshun’s cooking the most, and Oya is saddened by this and thinks Shango’s love is not strong. Oya asks Oshun what to do. Oshun says, ‘He likes asymmetrical things. You should do something not balanced.’ So Oya cut off her ear and put it into the soup.”
Perhaps the best known and most powerful of all the deities. He symbolises a cross roads, presenting options and choices. He has power over fortune and fate, and represents death and fertility. Elegba is known as a childlike trickster - teaching moral lessons through temptation. Ogun Husband to Oya, he is a warrior and presides over fire, hunting, war and politics. He is mighty, but also has the temptation of a warrior who once in power, might use his strength against the community he originally fought for. Mama Moja This character is based on the Orisha Yemoja, a mother goddess. Patron of women, especially pregnant women, some stories state that she was there at the beginning and all life came from her, including other Orisha. Shun Based on the Orisha Oshun, who is the goddess of love, intimacy, beauty and wealth. Married to Shango, she was rival to Oya. Shango He is the god of thunder and lightning. He represents male power and sexuality, alongside dance and entertainment - the life and soul of the party. Oya is his lover. The Egungun Yoruban ancestors can be invoked at festivals through music, dance and drumming. The spirits of ancestors possess the dancers and specialised priests then cleanse the community of their weaknesses - messages, blessings and warnings are then communicated to the community. 5. LOUISIANA 
The Brother/Sister trilogy is located in the fictional town of San Pere, Louisiana. Situated in the southern states, its capital is Baton Rouge, but it is the larger city of New Orleans that is widely acknowledged as being the spiritual centre of the state. Louisiana literally means ‘New France’ and was named when France claimed the land for Louis XIV in 1682. The state was purchased by the USA in 1803 under the terms of the Louisiana Purchase. Louisiana is geographically the third lowest state in the country, the area around New Orleans features swamps, marshes, and bayous [rivers/creeks]. This, combined with its humid subtropical climate, makes the area extremely liable to flooding when hurricanes strike. The most notorious of these was Hurricane Katrina in 2005 which flooded 80% of the city and killed 1,836: it is estimated that two million inhabitants were displaced, many of whom still have not returned. Due to its complex heritage, Louisiana has an ethnically diverse population. Cajuns and Creoles predominate in the southern area of the state (where the Brother/Sister trilogy is located). These terms were established to differentiate between those of old Louisianan ancestry and new Americans relocating to the state in the 1700’s. Cajuns were French Catholics who were forced to relocate to the state after being banished from Nova Scotia in Canada (then called Acadia). White Creoles tend to be of French or Spanish descent, but may also be part German, Italian, Irish, or other European origin. Black Creoles tend to be of African, French, Spanish or Native American descent; they have a history of being alienated by both white Americans and the more recently arrived black immigrants. (McCraney states that the character of Elegba in the Brother/Sister trilogy is of Creole heritage, and actress Cecilia Noble has also chosen to play The Woman Who Reminds You as someone from Creole heritage in the Young Vic production of In the Red and Brown Water.) McCraney was born and raised in the Louisiana projects [an American slang term for social housing] near the Bayou. Although he is keen to stress that the plays celebrate love, friendship, and family, the current socio-political issues of the area clearly form the backdrop to the trilogy. Louisiana ranks sixth in the USA for violent crime (in 1999 it had the highest murder rate in the states), the prison population is rising rapidly with the highest incarceration rate in the nation, and its major cities are experiencing increases in street gang activity. Many attribute these figures to an escalation in drug activity; the state’s location makes it the ideal transportation point for the smuggling of drugs into America before distributing them around the USA. The average earnings per year in Louisiana are $30, 952, ranking it forty first out of the fifty states. However the social problems which exist for McCraney’s characters are not purely limited to Louisiana. 32.5% of Louisiana’s population is African American; this is the second largest percentage in the US, and although it is generally agreed that great progress has been made since the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s, African American youths still encounter greater social and economic deprivation when compared to Caucasian American youths. They consistently gain lower pass rates in education which impacts on their job prospects and salary, consequently it is estimated that 40% of African Americans under the age of sixteen live in poverty and they are two to three times more likely to be unemployed. The incarceration rates amongst African Americans is much higher and many believe this reflects the institutional racism which exists in the American judicial system with blacks receiving more severe sentences - African American men are seven times more likely to be murdered than Caucasian males. Furthermore, 65% grow up in single-parent homes. In In the Red and Brown Water Oya’s father is never mentioned and we never meet the Mother of Elegba’s son. Teenage pregnancy rates are also twice as high then amongst white Americans. This is reflected in the play by Oya’s desire for a baby and Shun’s pleasure in telling Oya she’s pregnant with Shango’s child. 6. YOUNG, GIFTED AND BLACK You also took my spirituals and gone. You put me in Macbeth and Carmen Jones And all kinds of Swing Mikados And in everything but what’s about me – But someday somebody’ll Stand up and talk about me, And write about me – Black and beautiful – And sing about me, And put on plays about me! I reckon it’ll be Me myself! Yes, it’ll be me. (Note on the Commercial Theatre: Langston Hughes, playwright and poet). The past three decades have been the most prolific for black theatre in the USA; writers such as Amiri Baraka, Charles Fuller, and Ntozake Shange have gained international recognition. In order to understand fully the scale of this achievement, it is necessary to consider the history of black theatre in America. As Hughes suggests in his poem above, for the first 150 years of American theatre African Americans did not have their own voice; instead characters were written by white playwrights and played by white actors. Minstrel shows which parodied blacks began to emerge in the 1830’s and were incredibly popular, introducing stereotypes such as Zip Coon (a cocksure urbanite) and Jim Crow (an idle plantation worker). A breakthrough came in 1898 in the form of two black dancers, William Walker and Bert Williams, who introduced the Cake Walk dance phenomenon (which had been developing amongst the black community in the southern states for some time) to the Broadway stage in the musical comedy Clorindy. For the first time in a New York theatre, black and white dancers performed alongside each other. White composer Irving Berlin then transported the syncopated rhythms of ragtime music to the mainstream in his 1914 show Watch Your Step. African American culture in the form of jazz was beginning to infiltrate mainstream America. Soon all the Broadway composers of note - George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart - were using elements of jazz in their productions. Perhaps the musical of the time with most impact, however, was Jerome Kern’s and Oscar Hammerstein’s hit musical Showboat in 1927, which explored a sexual relationship between a black man and a white woman. Opening with black plantation workers singing ‘Cotton Blossom’, a song about the difficulties of their lives, followed by the now classic ‘Ol’ Man River’, which musically was like a spiritual, the audience were very aware that they were watching something new. Meanwhile, alongside the developments in musical theatre on Broadway, the Harlem Renaissance was underway further upstate in Manhattan. Inspired by the publication of The New Negro in 1925, African American artists from all art forms began to rebel against merely imitating white style and form, and instead were using their African heritage to develop a voice of their own. In the immediate aftermath of World War II audiences chose to watch escapist musicals; only Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams seemed to be pushing the boundaries of the genre. Black theatre remained stationary until the 1950’s when a few African American playwrights began again to challenge the depiction of black stereotypes, but the major breakthrough came in 1959 when Lorraine Hansberry opened her play A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway. The title comes from Harlem, another poem by Langston Hughes, and questions: “What happens to a dream deferred? /Does it dry up/ Like a raisin in the sun? / Or does it explode?” Depicting a black family moving into a white area, the play was nominated for four Tony Awards, including Best Play, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Direction (Lloyd Richards, the first black director on Broadway). The Young Vic revived the play in 2005. When an interviewer proclaimed: “This is not really a Negro play, it could be about anybody; it’s a play about people!” Hansberry responded: “Well, I hadn’t noticed the contradiction because I was under the impression that Negroes are people.” Hansberry died five years later at the age of 34; the title of this chapter, ‘Young, Gifted and Black’, was the play she was working on. Despite having written only two and a half plays, her acceptance by white Broadway audiences had a great impact on the direction of African American theatre, as during the 1960’s hundreds of black community and university theatre companies began to emerge. Throughout the country the civil rights movement began to gather momentum, climaxing with the Civil Rights Act in 1964. Black theatre was becoming more blatantly politicised, led by Amiri Baraka who had previously discarded his ‘slave name’ of LeRoi Jones. His play Dutchman ferociously attacked American racism, shocking the public. The establishment of the Negro Ensemble Company created a huge force in American theatre, devoted to creating theatre for and by black people. Then in 1970 Charles Gordone became the first African American writer to win a Pulitzer Prize for No Place to be Somebody – a play about a black racketeer surrounded by white gangsters. By the middle of the decade black community theatre began to loose popularity however, and aside from the black musicals such as The Wiz and Bubbling Brown Sugar which appeared on Broadway, there was not much activity. It was not until the 1980’s that this changed with the emergence of playwright August Wilson. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom was only the second African American work to play on Broadway, twenty five years after A Raisin in the Sun. However, Wilson was not advocating political transformation - he just wanted to depict accurately everyday life for black Americans. His hugely ambitious Pittsburgh 10-play circle (of which Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom was the first part) explores each decade in the twentieth century from an African American perspective, the most famous being Fences, the sixth in the series, which garnered many awards. The plays continue to influence young African American writers, and are still performed worldwide, the final play Radio Golf opening this month at London’s Tricycle Theatre. Wilson was the best known contemporary African American playwright at the end of the last century, and it is generally agreed that as yet no individual writer has taken his place. However, with several productions opening on both sides of the Atlantic throughout the autumn and still under 30 years old, McCraney could easily become the next August Wilson. 7. AN AFRICAN AMERICAN TIMELINE This history contains major events in the social history of African Americans. It introduces the history that McCraney draws on. 1619 The first Africans arrive in the American Colonies. 1664 First law prohibiting marriage between English women and black men enacted in Maryland; other colonies pass similar laws. 1777 Vermont becomes the first American colony to abolish slavery. Other Northern states followed over the next two decades. 1807 Congress bans the slave trade. 1823 King Shotaway, by James Brown, first known play by a black playwright. 1827 Freedom's Journal, the first black newspaper, is published in New York. Slavery abolished in New York State. 1834 Slavery abolished in the British Empire. 1858 The Escape, by William Wells Brown, the first play by a black American to be published. 1863 Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln frees the slaves of the Confederate states in rebellion against the Union. 1870 The Fifteenth Amendment guarantees the right to vote to all men of all races (women do not get the vote until 1920). 1875 Civil Rights Bill gives African Americans the right to equal treatment in inns, public transportation, etc. 1881 Segregation of Public Transport begins in Tennessee and this trend spreads through 13 states over the next 30 years. 1882 More than 1200 reported lynchings of African Americans. 1896 The doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ upheld by the Supreme Court. The ruling initiates the age of Jim Crow legislation, a nickname for all segregation laws based on a character from the black-faced minstrel shows. 1896-1906 800 reported lynchings of African Americans. 1900 Census – US Population: 76,994,575, Black Population: 8,833,944 (11.6%). 1901 Booker T Washington, educator and reformer becomes the first black man to be invited to dine at the White House. 1910 The City Council of Baltimore approves the first city ordinance designating the boundaries of black and white neighbourhoods. This ordinance was followed by similar ones in nine other cities. 1913 Woodrow Wilson's administration begins segregating blacks and whites in government departments. 1915 Klu Klux Klan established and the organisation spreads quickly, reaching its height in the 1920s, when it has an estimated 4 million members. African Americans from the Southern states begin to move to northern industrial centres looking for relief from racism and seeking better jobs and schools. In 1890 85% of the black population lived in the South. By 1960 that number had been reduced to 42%. 1917 Race riots in Houston lead to the hanging of 13 black soldiers. 1918 World War I ends. Official records indicate that 370,000 black soldiers and 1,400 black commissioned officers participated, more than half of them in the European Theatre. 1920 Harlem Renaissance begins, a remarkable period of creativity for black writers, poets and artists. 1921 A federal anti-lynching bill is unsuccessful the same year as 51 African Americans are known to have been lynched. 1925 Malcolm Little (later Malcolm X) born on 19 May in Omaha, Nebraska. 40,000 Klu Klux Klan members parade in Washington. 1929 Martin Luther King, Jr born on 15 January in Atlanta. The stock market crashes on 19 October, beginning the Great Depression; by 1937, 26% of black males are unemployed. 1931 In Scottsboro, Alabama nine black youths are accused of raping two white women on a freight train. The blatant injustice of the case outrages the public throughout the 1930s. 1941 United States enters World War II. President Roosevelt, responding to pressure from black leaders, issues an Executive Order forbidding racial and religious discrimination in war industries, governmental training programs, and governmental industries. 1944 United Negro College Fund is founded by Frederick D Patterson, President of Tuskegee University. The fund goes on to become America’s oldest and most successful African American higher education assistance organisation. 1945 End of World War II. A total of 1,154,720 black Americans were inducted or drafted into the armed services during the war. Brooklyn Dodgers sign Jackie Robinson, the first black man to play major league baseball. 1946 Supreme Court bans segregation on interstate bus travel. 1947 Widespread violence against black Americans, especially returning soldiers. 1952 In the 1950s, school segregation was widely accepted and law in most southern states. The Supreme Court heard a number of school-segregation cases and decided unanimously in 1954 that segregation was unconstitutional. University of Tennessee admits first black student. 1953 The movement of black families into Trumbull Park housing project in Chicago, 4 August, triggers virtually continuous riot lasting more than three years. School integration begins in Washington and Baltimore. Defence Department announces elimination of all segregated regiments in the armed forces. Rosa Parks, a 43 year old Black seamstress, is arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, deprives the bus company of 65% of its income, and results in a $500 for Martin Luther. The Supreme Court decides that bus segregation violates the constitution. 1956 Home of Martin Luther King is bombed on 30 January. First black student admitted to the University of Alabama and after a riot she is expelled. 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage, the biggest civil rights demonstration to date, held in Washington. The desegregation of Little Rock Central High School leads to a mob of 1,000 townspeople preventing the nine black students remaining at school. President Eisenhower orders 1,000 paratroopers and 10,000 National Guardsmen to Little Rock, and in September, Central High School is desegregated.
Student protest marches spread; white police forces and white civilians respond with violence. By March, more than 1,000 are arrested. 1961 Thirteen Freedom Riders take a bus trip through the South as part of a campaign to end the segregation of bus terminals. In May, the bus is bombed and burned. Robert F Kennedy sends four hundred federal marshals to Montgomery to keep order. Hundreds of protesters, including Martin Luther King, are arrested and beaten. University of Mississippi Riot. President Kennedy orders Federal Marshals to escort James Meredith, the first black student to enrol at the University of Mississippi, to campus. A riot breaks out and before the National Guard can arrive to reinforce the marshals, two students are killed. Martin Luther King is jailed in Albany, Georgia.
Extensive sit-ins take place in Birmingham, Alabama, one of the most severely segregated cities. Martin Luther Kings lead a protest march in Birmingham and are met with policemen and dogs. Martin Luther King and two other ministers are arrested.
Civil Rights bill signed by President Johnson. Malcolm X founds the Organization for Afro-American Unity. Race riots in Harlem, Brooklyn, Rochester, Jersey City, Philadelphia. Martin Luther King receives Nobel Peace Prize.
arrested. Malcolm X assassinated. Outraged over the killing of a demonstrator by a state trooper in Alabama, the black community try to hold a march led by Martin Luther King. When Governor Wallace refuses to allow the march, Martin Luther King goes to Washington to speak with President Johnson, delaying the demonstration. However, the people of Selma cannot wait and they begin the march on Sunday. When the marchers reach the city line a posse of state troopers order them to disperse, but the troopers do not wait for their warning to be headed. They immediately attack the crowd of people who have bowed their heads in prayer. Using tear gas and batons, the troopers chase the demonstrators to a black housing project, where they continue to beat the demonstrators as well as residents who have not been at the march. Bloody Sunday receives national attention, and numerous marches were organised in response. President Johnson gives a rousing speech to congress concerning civil rights as a result of Bloody Sunday, and passed the Voting Rights Act within that same year.
Huey Newton and Bobby Seale formed the Black Panther Party in Oakland. Thurgood Marshall becomes the first black man appointed to the Supreme Court. 75 major riots during the year. 1968 Kerner Commission Report states that white racism is the fundamental cause of the riots in the cities. Martin Luther King announces in March plans for Poor People's Campaign in Washington, scheduled for 20 April but he is assassinated in Memphis on 4 April. Riots ensue throughout the country. 1972 Landmark case - Gates v. Collier – in which four inmates of the Mississippi State Penitentiary sued the superintendent of the jail. The Federal Judge ordered an immediate end to all unconstitutional conditions and practices. Racial segregation of inmates was abolished. 1977 Robert Chambliss, a member of the KKK, is convicted of the 1963 bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Alabama. 1980 Tarell Alvin McCraney is born. 8. BIBLIOGRAPHY As McCraney is an emerging writer, very little material has been written about him. However, there are several interviews online which give an insight into his life and work. ‘Building on Traditions’, an article in the Metro Newspaper, London, 07/10/08. http://www.metro.co.uk/metrolife/article.html?Tarell_Alvin_McCraney_is_building_on_traditions&in_article_id=340723&in_page_id=260&in_a_source= ‘Out of the Hoods’, an article in the Sunday Times Culture Magazine. London, 05/10/08. http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/theatre/article4867641.ece Carole Woodis interviews McCraney for the Young Vic, 2007. http://www.youngvic.org/about-young-vic/news/interview-with-tarell-alvin-mccraney McCraney answers ten questions for the New Statesman, London, 2007. http://www.newstatesman.com/theatre/2007/10/artists-tackle-existential Afua Korang interviews McCraney for Pride Magazine, London www.atc-online.com/images/productionDoc/download.php?f=bonusmat.pdf Tom Atkins interviews McCraney for www.whatsonstage.com in 2007 http://www.whatsonstage.com/index.php?pg=207&story=E8821194805596 Uchenna Izundu interviews McCraney for ‘Africa Beyond’ (BBC online) http://www.bbc.co.uk/africabeyond/africanarts/20343.shtml Article on The Brothers Size, written by McCraney in a mixture of verse and prose. http://www.broadway.com/Tarell-Alvin-McCraney-How-to-Endure-Imposterphobia/broadway_news/555332 Interviews with the creative team of the Young Vic’s production of The Brothers Size. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EyEGej_9Wyc Radio interview with McCraney for Grown Folks Radio, USA. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CWidkC1bRso Interview with McCraney for the McCarter Theatre, Princetown, USA which produced The Brothers Size in 2007. http://www.mccarter.org/education/brothers-size/html/3.html Article featuring quotes by McCraney for the Alliance Theatre, Atlanta, USA. http://www.alliancetheatre.org/performance.aspx?id=3194 Directory: sites -> default -> files -> documents documents -> North Mankato Taylor Library documents -> - documents -> Cbp and Trade Automated Interface Requirements Appendix: pga december 22, 2015 documents -> Ace abi catair customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements documents -> Ace abi catair customs and Trade Automated Interface Requirements documents -> Mobile audio/video recording systems documents -> The south australian government gazette documents -> All public acts appearing in this gazette are to be considered official, and obeyed as such documents -> Union interparlementaire inter-parliamentary union documents -> Plymouth University Academic Partnerships Cornwall College Camborne Programme Quality Handbook for Download 203.67 Kb. Share with your friends:
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