Playwright's Choice - ten plays recommended by Pearl Cleage

Black Issues Book Review, July, 2001 by Pearl Cleage

The best-selling novelist who made her early reputation as a dramatist in black theater shares her favorite plays in print

Many years ago, I attended the Atlanta premiere of Ntozake Shange's classic play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. I had been reading about the play--reviews, commentaries, passionate praise and angry charges of something called "male bashing." I didn't quite know what to expect, and when I looked around the theater at the almost all white audience, I could tell they didn't know either.

We didn't have to wait long to find out. From the mysterious opening lines, "dark phases of womanhood/of never havin' been a girl/half-notes scattered/without rhythm/no tune" to the heartbreaking final monologue and the hushed amazement when the actress "found god in myself/&i loved her/i loved her fiercely" it was what Ntozake calls "a black girls song" She had a story to tell and the beauty and truth of her writing and the courage and passion of the actresses speaking her words transported me to a place I'd never been before. Ten minutes into the piece, I started weeping in surprise and gratitude and I wept throughout the play. It was like hearing my own voice in seven different bodies and even though I'm sure the people around me thought I had lost my mind, seeing that play changed my life.

That's the power of good theater. It brings us together in one space to share a ritual as ancient as storytelling around the campfire and rewards us, if we surrender to its spell, with a perfect moment where audience, actors and playwright, however briefly, are dreaming the same dream. Unlike any other kind of writing, plays are written to be experienced in a group. Reading a novel or a poem or a collection of essays requires only that you bring home the book, curl up in your favorite chair and begin. It is a solitary process which relies solely on the writer's skill and the reader's imagination to transport us to the story's location and give physical form to the characters.

But to the fiction writer's arsenal of character and vocabulary, plot and point of view, playwrights have the added blessing (or challenge!) of actors, directors, producers, designers and that magical element that is a live audience. Reading a play on the printed page is quite a different experience than going to the theater and, as a playwright, I could probably make a convincing argument that you should hold out until one comes to a theater near you, but I know that's unrealistic. Many of our communities have no live theater at all and, of the ones which do, an even smaller number regularly present work by African American playwrights. Reading plays may be the only way many of us can encounter our playwrights at all and, even if it's not the same experience, there are rewards to be gained from seeking out and reading these works.

For first time play readers, I offer the following suggestions for getting the most out of the experience:

1. Cheat a little. Even if you can't go to the theater, you can get that "live theater" feeling by reading a play aloud with friends. Since stage language is written to be spoken, hearing the play is part of the pleasure. Book clubs are great places to read plays.

2. Start with a play you can see live or on video first. "A Raisin in the Sun" by Lorraine Hansberry and "The Piano Lesson" by August Wilson are widely available at video rental outlets. Seeing the play before you read it will help you to visualize the setting and the characters more easily.

3. One-person shows are great for reading. Usually a collection of monologues in which the actor/author portrays a series of characters, they offer passionate, autobiographical stories and lots of familiar moments when all you can do is shake your head and mutter, "I know that's right."

4. If you're reading aloud, designate a person to read stage directions right along with the dialogue. Many publishers include a preface that gives the plays artistic and production history. Read that, too, and you'll be amazed at how many familiar names did lots of theater before moving into film and television.

5. Finally, read the play in one sitting. Part of the structure of a play reflects the playwright's assumption that people are going to experience the whole work at the same time. By reading it through from start to finish, you honor the demands of the form and get closer to the dramatic arc of the Playwright's ideas.

Now all you have to do is pick a play. Here are ten to get you started.

1. For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange. This groundbreaking work holds up beautifully after twenty-five years. Once you've read it, you'll never forget it.

(For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange; Collier Books/Macmillan Publishing Company, 1977, $5.95, ISBN 0-020-24891-1).

2. A Raisin In the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. Hansberry's hit drama premiered in 1959 and was the first play by a black female playwright produced on Broadway. It's vivid and realistic portrait of the Younger family is as moving as ever.