20 YEARS AGO (1981).(Wooster Group deconstructs the play Our Town)(Brief Article)

American Theatre, October, 2001

The Wooster Group opens Route 1 and 9 (The Last Act) to a flurry of protests. The play combines videotaped excerpts of Thornton Wilder's Our Town with a vaudeville routine by African-American comedian Dewey "Pigmeat" Markham. While loudspeakers broadcast two women ordering fried chicken, Ron Vawter (and other cast members) appear in blackface. Some critics are scandalized, but others support the Wooster Group's attempt to deconstruct the racism imbedded in texts like Our Town. The New York State Council of the Arts rescinds 43 percent of the company's funding.

Charles Fuller's A Soldier's Play opens at New York's Negro Ensemble Company, starring a young Denzel Washington.