This year, however, we're deciding to try Drama. It's something I've thought about seriously before, because it is challenging to get through four full novels between late January and last April. However, every time I think about it seriously, I've been daunted: out of 42 authors of Drama on the IB Prescribed List of Authors, only eight are women: Ama Ata Aidoo (she currently has no plays in print on Amazon), Tess Onwueme Akae (her plays are sometimes available but expensive, and we found her plays had many typographical errors), Caryl Churchill (British, white), Sarah Kane (British, white, and her plays seem too risqué to teach); Suzan-Lori Parks (African-American); Sharon Pollock (Canadian, white); Judith Thompson (Canadian, white); and Timberlake Wertenbaker (British, white). So, out of the <20% female representation, even the female playwrights represented are not very diverse, which is especially disappointing when such great modern playwrights as Lynn Nottage, Anna Deveare Smith, and Quiara Alegria Hudes could have been included on the list, or older playwrights like Lorraine Hansberry and Lillian Helmann are left off.For our upcoming year, we are choosing a Shakespeare (likely Richard III, because of Chesapeake Shakespeare Company's spring production); a Tom Stoppard (Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead, as it's accessible and many students have read Hamlet in the past); a Suzan-Lori Parks (undecided which one); and the fourth is open. We would like a woman, but that sort of balance may not be possible. However, we are busily reading plays by Sharon Pollock and Judith Thompson to decide; I like Wertenbaker but three Brits in this part of the curriculum seem too much.
This summer has re-affirmed that I just don't like reading plays very much, compared to fiction. I've burned through ten novels or so this summer, but reading a play makes me feel like I'm reading the notes for something I should be seeing in front of me.
I need to get over that, though, and, last night, I found myself enjoying the reading of Suzan-Lori Parks' Father Comes Home from the Wars (Part 1, 2, and 3), reading all 150+ in an hour and, at times, being really moved by its lyricism and intrigued by its mix of humor and pathos.
The first thing to note about the play is its playful allusions to The Odyssey; the main character is named, literally, "Hero" and he renames himself "Ulysses" by play's end; the female lead and his wife is named "Penny". There is a character named "Homer", a loyal dog named "Odd-see," and a blind old man who gives guidance. Unsurprisingly from the title, there is a war and a return.
Set on a plantation in west Texas during the Civil War, the first part ("A Measure of a Man") of the three-part play dramatizes a dilemma for our Hero, who is a slave: should he go away with his master, the Colonel, to fight as a rebel in the Civil War, or should he refuse to go, to force himself and his fellow slaves to incur beatings for impertinence? The master has promised Hero his freedom after the war if he goes, but he has lied before about this, and the irony of fighting in a war to maintain slavery also, of course, hangs heavy in the drama. Big, painful secrets are revealed, too.
With the title, it's no spoiler that Hero does go to the war, and the second part, "A Battle in the Wilderness," is probably my favorite. The colonel, Hero, and a captured Union captain named Smith are lost in the woods, somewhere between the two armies, and, here, we get several existential conversations. After a conversation about Hero's value on the slave market, he asks about how much he is going to be worth once freedom comes. "Where's the beauty in being worth nothing?" Parks is playing with modern times here, too, imagining what will happen when a Patroller comes up to him after freedom, he will say 'I belong to myself.' Parks' stage directions read, "Imagining being confronted by a Patroller, Hero holds up his hands. Reminiscent of 'Hands up! Don't shoot!' The Colonel himself becomes an interesting character here; Parks sentimentalizes him at one point, but that sympathy is erased right away with a monologue that beings, "I am grateful every day that God made me white."
In the third part, "The Union of My Confederate Parts," more secrets are revealed as we await the titular "return" from the wars. The naturalism of the second section has evaporated, as a trio of escaped slaves act as a Greek chorus and the characters often speak in verse. Again, big secrets are revealed, and the pain and longing in the characters is palpable. The play ends in part with the Emancipation Proclamation, but seems to be suggesting that this piece of paper will have little impact on the lives of the Hero, Penny, Homer, and the rest of the slaves.
In a description that reminded me of August Wilson's Century Cycle, Father Comes Home from the Wars includes the first three parts of a cycle that will end up being nine parts or more, according to Parks, and will follow the situation presented into modern times.
The inclusion of Suzan Lori-Parks on the IB Authors List is exciting, but we have been deliberating about which play to choose. Personally, I love Topdog/Underdog (which also happened to be the first play I ever saw on Broadway, starring Geoffrey Wright and Mos Def), but it is so profane that it makes it a difficult (though not impossible) work of literature to teach. One of my colleagues read and liked State of Grace, which I haven't read yet. I don't think I understood Venus enough to teach it.
But Father Comes Home from the Wars might solve our problems. It is accessible but also unusual and inventive. I think the kids will love dissecting it, even starting with the title (what are the wars, plural? why is he referred to as father? What does the play have to do with fatherhood? What is "home" referring to?), to the language (the shifts between verse and prose, between modernities like "true dat" juxtaposed against the setting), to the allusions and symbolism. I think they'll be puzzled and intrigued by the ending, as I was, as well as enjoy talking about Parks' shifts in tone and levels of realism. There are also many songs throughout the play, including with music that Parks wrote herself, which I hope some of my more musical students might be able to analyze for the class.
To teach or not to teach this one? Right now, it's definitely on my list.
from Epiphany in Baltimore http://ift.tt/2aRhOsC Book Review: Father Comes Home from the Wars by Suzan-Lori Parks (could be a great teach) - Entrepreneur Generations
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