From Freakshow to Sitcom: Metatheatrical (Dis)Continuities in Contemporary African American Plays

This article explores how the representation of Black bodies in experimental African American theater has changed in the last decade by comparing Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview (2018) to Suzan-Lori Parks’s Venus (1995). Firstly, it identifies how both plays incorporate Joanne Tompkins’ three categories of postcolonial metatheater, i.e., counter-discourse, allegory and mimicry, by means of established metatheatrical strategies such as the play within the play or direct audience address. Secondly, it examines how the plays evoke the structures of other popular (media) genres by drawing on Irina O. Rajewsky’s concept of intermedial reference. As a working hypothesis, the article posits that both plays use postcolonial metatheater but with a different dramaturgical effect to implicate the audience in the dynamics of the white gaze and to interrogate the lasting impact of popular (media) genres in framing Black bodies.

Jaar van publicatie:2021

Trefwoorden:African American metatheater, intermediality, Jackie Sibblies Drury, postcolonial metatheater, Suzan-Lori Parks

Toegankelijkheid:Open