Amiri can deliver his newspapers

Student Sample *List your name—Mary Benoit *List course and section—Theatre XXX-XX *List my name—Dr. E. Brown-Guillory

Performance Review of Dutchman by Amiri Baraka

Theatre must be engaging or it fails! The latest play produced by the TSU Theatre Program was Dutchman, written by Amiri Baraka and directed by Thomas Meloncon. I attended the production on Sunday, February 11, 2018, in the Ollington Smith Playhouse. The one-act play focuses on two central characters, Lula (played by Deserea Noriega) and Clay (played by Anthony August), as they banter on a New York subway. One central message in the play is that black men and women must fight for the cause (civil rights) or be destroyed by it. The point that the playwright seems to be making is that the Clays of the world—those who are smug and think they are better than poor, uneducated blacks—must be destroyed and who better to do it than the whites they emulate.

They play takes the audience back to the 1960s during a time of racial tension in America. The opening of the play shows Clay, a black man, on the subway reading a newspaper before Lula, a white woman, also gets on the train. Lula immediately proceeds to flirt with Clay. She has full control over the conversation and eventually begins questioning Clay’s self- image as an African American, middle-class man, seemingly telling him he is emulating white men. Clay finally has enough of Lula’s antics and flies into a tirade before slapping her. Eventually, Lula orchestrates a coup; she murders Clay and has help from passengers to throw him off of the train. While the

ending is interesting, I would have made some changes had I written this play. First, I would provide more background on the character Lula. I would make it clearer that she represents white racism in America and that if challenged racism will manifest itself even in people that seem friendly. In addition to developing characters more, I would change the plot significantly. Instead of Lula stabbing Clay, I would have the passengers become become a lynch mob and assist Lula in lynching to underscore the thousands of lynchings that occurred between the 1870 and 1950s. Finally, I would polish Lula’s diction and allow her to use more snake imagery, since she enters eating an apple, and we are to assume she is the devil or is Eve come to tempt Adam/Clay.

The production included two fine actors. Lula, played by Deserea Noriega, as a

representation of temptation and America, does a good job in portraying the embodiment of racism. While I did enjoy Anthony August’s performance in the role of Clay, the script did not allow Clay to accurately tell the story of a black man who has self-image issues. Though the plot seems not credible, Anthony August in the leading role does an outstanding job of portraying Baraka’s image of a black male with identity issues and Deserea Noriega in her portrayal of Lula is very skilled and talented.

Not only was I under impressed by the script, I was also not impressed by the

design. There was nothing special about the set to put the audience in the subway with the actors. The large amounts of graffiti were distracting and unrealistic because it looked forced. It was a one-act play so there were no scene changes, but I saw no change in lights to add emphasis or mood. For example, when Clay delivers his monologue, manipulation of the lights could have helped portray that shift in control. I would suggest that TSU invest in technical assistance in the production of its plays.

Theatre should help us deal with our own personal issues by showing how the characters on stage handle challenges. Dutchman is a relevant play because racism looms large in societies around the world. The racism mirrored in this play was familiar, and one take away for me is that we must strive to be our authentic selves and not try to copy cultures, which is why Baraka kills off Clay. Baraka is telling his audience to take pride in your own culture. On a final note, the show as a whole was lackluster and I had a difficult time remaining engaged. On a scale of one to five, with one being the lowest, I would give the play a score of two. Unfortunately, I would not recommend this play for the simple fact that it was not memorable.