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4/27 Discussion

One main question I had was, how in the world is this play staged? Reading it makes it sound very confusing, but I can’t picture how it could have actually been staged at all.

What is the reason for the odd stage directions? BJJ is giving a sort of commentary in them – is this commentary meant for the audience at all?

What was the reason for Brer Rabbit? He doesn’t really interact onstage, other than wandering in occasionally to observe what is going on, or to look at the audience. What does the addition of Brer Rabbit do for this play?

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4/27 Discussion

  1. Who is the Playwright supposed to represent in the prologue?
  2. In what ways does Jenkins-Jacob critique theatre in his creation of it? How does this add to our conversation of creating art for the sake of art from In Dahomey?
  3. Is the use of white face in An Octoroon minstrelsy? How is it different and how does this build off of works that we have read before?
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4/27 Discussion Questions

First off, I just want to say that there is so much going on in this play — I’m glad we’ll get to discuss it together. I barely know where to start.

What does the tripling of roles in An Octoroon add to our conversation about identity and encounter within minstrelsy?

With our knowledge about theatre and the uses of drama from our course, what is BJJ trying to say when he writes, “I’m a ‘black playwright.’ I don’ t know exactly what that means.” How does this introduction affect how we treat the play that follows?

A big deal is made  out of the camera and how its relevance to the play doesn’t age well.   Does this say something about modernity and its relationship to the play’s themes? Or maybe the development of theatre?

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4/27 Discussion Questions

What do the bees represent in the Prologue? How does the Prologue work to frame the play and how would the play be different without it? Does Jacob-Jenkin’s use of comedy add to the messages that he is putting forth in the play?

In the fourth act, BJJ and Playwright remark that the fourth act of the play is the most important and holds the most potential. Why did Branden Jacob-Jenkins choose to interrupt the play and derail it in the fourth act if it is supposedly the most important? What comes across in allowing BJJ and the playwright back onto the stage?

As the last text that we are reading, how does this compare to the others and what does it tell us about the Black and Green Atlantic? Where does it fit? What texts are the most similar to it and what are the least?

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Discussion Questions (4/27)

  1. Though Jacobs-Jenkins remains relatively faithful to Boucicault’s work, he distinctly adds more conversation between the slaves in which the slaves speak in a contemporary way. What effect does that addition have?
  2. What is significance between the house slave and field slave dynamic, drawn out in Act 3?
  3. In Act 4, Wahnotee brutally kills McCloskey. Considering that Wahnotee was played by the playwright in red face and McCloskey was played by BJJ in white face, does the play achieve the expectations it sets for the fourth act of a play?
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4/27 Discussion questions

  1. What does the comic relief of Minnie and Dido serve in the play? Do they simply point out the ridiculousness of the plot as the ending suggests or do they serve to point out the absurdity of slavery in general?
  2. The several asides from the playwright also function in a comedic way, but at times they are rather grim like when he remembers he has no therapist and turns to alcohol as his therapy. The darkness depicts the continuation of African American struggle in the modern world, but is layered underneath comedic elements. Why does Jacobs-Jenkins bury serious issues within comedy and is it appropriate to do so?
  3. The “trial” of M’Closky is an intersection of whites, blacks, and a Native American man. Ultimately M’Closky’s punishment is death by the Tomahawk even though George insisted on giving him a fair trial rather than giving into revenge. Was the murder of M’Closky a moral punishment misconstrued by white terms of justice or was his murder truly unjust?
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4/27 Discussion Questions

  1.  How does the inclusion of BJJ and the playwright interjecting the story affect the reception of the story?  In his explanation of Act IV to the audience, does Jacobs-Jenkins suggest that these sorts of works are played out?
  2. How does the use of whiteface tie into our previous mentions of reclaimations of minstrelsy?  Is this genuine colorblind casting, or is Jenkins suggesting something else?
  3. In his desire to make art without analysis of the race problem, does Jacobs-Jenkins’s inclusion of the racialized stereotype imply that racism is nearly inevitable in America, especially in a space with meetings of peoples of different backgrounds like in Terrebonne?
  4. In the slight title shift from “The” to “An,” is this a suggestion from Jenkins that these sorts of stories of oppression have become too common, seen in his frustration with others analyzing his work as tackling the race problem, and that this sort of mistreatment has become so widespread that this tale is just one of many?
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Time and Place in The Commitments

In Doyle’s novel The Commitments it is hard to understand the economic state of Ireland and how this impacts the characters in the novel without seeing it. This caused an initial disconnect in my reading, until the history of Ireland and its influence on Doyle’s writing was further explained in class. It is important for readers to understand the constant inflation, high unemployment, and lack of economic growth the Irish were experiencing, which would lead to Jimmy calling the Irish the blacks of Europe.

Contextualizing The Commitments brought entirely new meaning to the connection Jimmy brings to soul music and black identity. Still problematic and lopsided, I can see that it is more about the connection of poverty rather than race. I think this novel is a more extreme example of something written for the people of its time. While the novel is engaging, its full intention cannot be properly understood without the context of time and place. Does Roddy Doyle assume knowledge so that the novel means something different to Irish audiences than other audiences? Can it be a lasting novel, when its context doesn’t make sense within a decade or two later?

 

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Economics, or Race?

I think that our discussion of “The Commitments” this week has been a rather revealing one for the way that I tend to analyze the texts we have been reading this semester. I’ve found that just due to the nature of the course’s objectives, that I come to every piece of literature with the lens of race, and the history of oppression. When I examined “The Commitments” this week, I was not able to see the economic impact in the novel at all. I was immediately drawn to the race aspect of Rabbitte’s comparison of the Irish and African Americans – and everything followed suit from there. Consequently, my examination of how the movie focused so much on the economic standpoint of Ireland was also based on race (though to a lesser extent). I’ve learned this week that I should try to broaden my lens, rather than focusing solely on race and oppression when drawing comparisons between these two cultures.

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Joey “The Lips” as a False Prophet

At first, Joey “The Lips” Fagan seems like the savior of The Commitments. Joey brings a sense of genuine Soul artistry to the group of Irish misfits, being that he claims to have toured in America with professional Soul artists. But when he brings his talent to The Commitments, the reader starts to see that he may not be the genuine Soul artist he claims to be, and rather, is a poser attempting to appropriate black culture. I believe that Doyle intended for the reader to doubt the authenticity of Joey’s character and his music because he does not believe that the Irish and African American experiences are comparable.

Joey acts as a vessel that brings American Soul to Ireland. He is able to transmit the basic tropes of Soul to the band, but does not seem genuine in his performance of the music. He specifically sets boundaries in what the band can perform, describing them as “corners.” He claims these corners are to prevent the band from delving into the realm of Jazz, a music that he believes is too intellectual and against the working man. This is troublesome because Jazz was created by working-class American blacks. He intentionally sets limits on the black music he is able to perform, showing that he worships black music but cannot access it entirely due to his distance from American black culture. Hints that point toward Joey being a wealthy man also lead to this conclusion because they show he is not a member of the working class, and therefore cannot properly connect with the music of the working man. He also seems to believe that he cannot genuinely perform Soul music due to his own lack of blackness.

Joey’s frustration with not being born black penetrates the novel in often uncomfortable ways. He describes some of the greatest Jazz musicians as not genuinely black and even goes as far to say Charlie Parker had “no right to his black skin.” This shows that he believes the ability to genuinely perform black music comes from having black skin, not entirely from musical talent. When the band inevitably breaks up, Joey comes to the conclusion that Soul just wasn’t right for Ireland, revealing that he does not believe non-blacks can have a genuine appreciation of black music. When Joey tells Jimmy that he is going back to America to perform with a dead artist, this implies that he has realized he is nothing more than an appropriator and ultimately cannot live as the great Soul artist he formerly saw himself as.