African American Theater Essays

Harriet Beecher Stowe published a novel called “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” in the year 1857. Selling over 300,000 copies in one year, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” had made an enormous impact on the people who read it. According to the textbook, “Much of its emotional impact came from its portrayal of slavery as a threat to the family and the Cult

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was by no means a factual book. In fact, most, if not all of the events were completely made up. How then can a completely fictional book change the lives of so many? It comes from the power of Stowe’s rhetoric in conjunction with her target audience. Stowe was a white Christian female. She believed slavery was completely wrong and wanted to make a change. But how could she? She was a woman after all and during that time period women simply did not effect change through politics. According to Susan Harris, a respected Stowe researcher, “The men are not evil, but they are involved in the public world” (Harris). However influencing politics was the only way things were going to change and Stowe knew this. She henceforth targeted the white Christian mothers because they in turn could influence their men to make changes in the male dominant society of politics. A perfect method by which to achieve a change in slavery laws indirectly. Stowe especially used the power of sentimentalism to connect with her audience. She did not need facts or evidence, all she needed to effect change in the hearts of the women was a general feel for the subject. The women of that day were very sensitive and yet very powerful in the home. Stowe capitalized on this by using the Christ figures of Tom and Eva and their experiences during the slavery era to evoke a feeling of compassion for them in her audience. By using more emotion and targeting the human aspect of

The national black theater was founded by was founded in 1968 by Dr. Barbara Ann Teer, an award winning, visionary artist and entrepreneur. She passed away when she was 46 years, July 21, 2008 in Harlem NY. She was a teacher to many young and old actors and actresses. Barbara Ann stared in 3 films during the 1960's to the 1970's and was known for her acting during that time. One of her many goals was to build cultural centers where Africans American can enjoy being free, open and black.

Built in 1855 the Longstreet Theater on Greene Street at the University of South Carolina is one of its oldest buildings. Completed two years later than predicted, it was supposed to be a college hall. However, it was first used as a military hospital during the civil war, and then as an arsenal and armory, before being remodeled into a theater house in 1976. Resembling a Roman temple, the theater has four stories; one of which is underground, with access to the surface by an elevator. The theater room is circular, with a “theater in the round” stage that allows the audience to get a full view of what is happening. Nevertheless, in some situations the stage is made into a temporary “thrust stage” according to need. Moreover, the room was dark

The historiography on Uncle Tom's cabin highlights the value of work by antislavery groups, but it is important to think that the author was permissive by pro-slavery, who noticed the success of the novel and the multiplication of byproducts of the work (such as the progressive publication of reviews and the constant performing role plays in theatres and minstrels). So many responses to the novel and the author began to appear in the country since 1852 (Rosenson,

In” Uncle Tom's Cabin,” Harriet Beecher Stowe defines slavery as inhumane and unjust, in her book she provides real life stories of how faith, sacrifice, and cruelty, come together to demonstrate a real life vision of the terrible systems of slavery and how they affected many people.

According to Donald Bogle, the characterization of “A Tom” is someone who is: “chased harassed, hounded, flogged, enslaved, and insulted, they keep the faith, n’er turn against their white massas, and remain hearty” (Bogle 5). Early incarnations of The Tom were often white men in blackface on minstrel stages, who dressed up in tattered clothing and put on a receding and grayed hairline. These actors were on stage “shucking and jiving” singing songs in broken English. In her book titled Uncle Tom Mania: Slavery Minstrelsy, and Transatlantic Culture in the 1850’s Sarah Meer discusses how the Tom was divisive in nature, intended to be

Hi, I am Caroline Koby. I am a Sophomore undergraduate student at Ball State University and today I’ll be talking about the lack of representation of racial minorities in theatre. I will also discuss who is affected by this

Having a Christian compassion for black people, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin; a novel that was “destined to become the most influential novel ever written by an American” (Reynolds, 2011). In Articulating Uncle Tom’s Cabin, O’Loughlin writes, “The popularity of Uncle Tom’s Cabin is not to be measured merely by book sales, but by the influence of Uncle Tom’s Cabin on American culture, and, as important, the influence of American culture on subsequent representations of Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (O’Loughlin, 2000). At the height of the antislavery movement, the novel emerged and had a profound impact on American society. In the north, middle, working-class whites changed their views on slavery, the book inspired many theatrical productions, known as “Uncle Tom Shows”, movies and merchandise and, “concerns about race, gender, class, and issues of nationhood were brought together and coordinated” (O’Loughlin, 2000). Uncle Tom’s Cabin’s popularity relied on, not only on book production technology but, on the consumer who bought related Uncle Tom’s Cabin merchandise and went to see restagings of the book. However, in the south, many southerners claimed the book did not accurately portray slavery, some southern states banned Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and southern slave owners criticized the

The book Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a well known anti-slavery novel, which is written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Stowe depicts the distress and tragic fates of the slaves, in which they live in the lower class; they do not have their own freedom; and they have to be loyal to their owner. Stowe delineantes a number of characters in the novel, such as kind and religious man Uncle Tom; intelligent and courageous George Harries; and the adorable naughty slave kid Topsy and so on. Nevertheless, I like the girl Eva the most as she regards every person equally and acts innocently. Stowe shows the idea of humanity and Christian philosophy on Eva through building the deep relationship with Uncle Tom and loving the little naughty Topsy.

August Wilson was an African American playwright who had a heavily impacted American theatre. In his ten plays, Wilson consistently worked to accurately portray African American cultural throughout the 20th century. A prominent theme within Wilson’s work is the search for black identity within the 20th century. August Wilson portrayed his belief that in order to understand one’s identity, you must first look into their cultural past through the depiction of Troy in Fences and Herald in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. August Wilson’s belief is transparent by his depiction of their cultural past as African American men and the heavy influences it has on the way they each identify their selves in society. Troy in Fences and Herald in Joe Turner’s

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was historically relevant to the slavery era because it gave a clear insight to the good and bad sides of slavery. Stowe showed the good side of slavery by including kind slave owners like Mr. Shelby and St. Clare. These men treated their slaves fairly well by giving them nice living conditions and freedom

Up to modern day, Aristotelian theatre has been commonly accepted as the way theatre works internally. Augusto Boal, a Brazilian theatre director, examines the extent to which Aristotle’s views apply to theatre in the modern context of severe governmental oppression. In his book Theatre of the Oppressed, Boal finds limitations in Aristotle’s thinking. He believes that Aristotle limited theatre to only pre-existing conditions, and calls for a theatre that allows for revolution against a pre-existing system. Similarly, Thomas Merton in his book The Black Revolution: Letters to a White Liberal calls for white American citizens to realize their comfort with pre-existing conditions, and to stop the oppression of black people. Merton examines the

Uncle Tom’s Cabin pulls on the emotional heart strings of anyone who reads it. The writings showcasing the horrors of slavery- the long grueling hours and the ripping apart of families. “The most dreadful part of slavery, to my mind, is its outrages on the feelings and affections,- the separating of families, for example.” (200) The family member that Harriet Beecher Stowe places the most emphasis on, though, is the mother. In her writings there's a vast diversity of motherly characters, showing that strong mothers come in all different forms and their compassion creates an unbreakable familial bond. This diversity of females most likely comes from Stowe’s background of going to an all girls school at a young age. Through characters like Eliza,

Uncle Tom’s Cabin illustrates the incredible brutality of the system of chattel slavery and the potential power for human solidarity to destroy that