What you gonna do once you free? You just gonna walk up in somebody house and be like, “Hey. I’m a slave. Help me?”
This is an update of Dion Boucicault's 'The Octoroon,' which was set in the antebellum South. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins wrote his adaption in 2015 and it received strong reviews and a number of nominations. When I saw it at the Wilma Theater, many actors played multiple roles. A plantation on the brink of foreclosure. A young gentleman falling for the part-black daughter of the estate’s owner. An evil swindler plotting to.
1859: A famous Irishman writes a play about America. It’s a huge hit!
2014: An American tries to write his own version. Does anyone still care?
A world-premiere, old-fashioned, meta-melodrama with Humor! Feelings! Live Music! Wigs! Sensation Scenes! Slave Auctions! Exploding Steamboats! Photography! And More!
Judge Peyton is dead, and his plantation Terrebonne is in financial ruins. Peyton’s handsome nephew George arrives as heir apparent, and quickly falls in love with Zoe, a beautiful “octoroon.” But, the evil overseer M’Closky has other plans — for both Terrebonne and Zoe.
Featuring Shyko Amos, Jocelyn Bioh, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Amber Gray, Ben Horner, Chris Myers, ZoëWinters, and Danny Wolohan.
Composer and Music Director: César Alvarez, Choreography by David Neumann, Set Design by Mimi Lien, Lighting Design by Matt Frey, Sound Design by Matt Tierney, Costume Design by Wade Laboissonniere, Wig and Makeup Design by Cookie Jordan, Projection Design by Jeff Sugg, Fight Choreography by J. David Brimmer, Props by Noah Mease, Cellist: Lester St. Louis, Illustration by Bee, Production Stage Manager: Amanda Spooner, Assistant Stage Manager: Rachel Gross, Producer: Elizabeth Moreau, Production Manager: Joshua Kohler, Casting: Jack Doulin, C.S.A.
Funding for this production is provided, in part, by the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation.
99-cent Sunday tickets for AN OCTOROON will be offered on April 27 and May 11. Tickets will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis one-hour prior to each performance. 99-Cent Sundays for AN OCTOROON are sponsored by Jody Falco & Jeffrey Steinman and Theatermania.
What is an octoroon?
octoroon
[ok-tuh-roon]
noun Older Use: Offensive.
a person having one-eighth black ancestry, with one black great-
grandparent; the offspring of a quadroon and a white person.
-
The following photographs were taken in New Orleans in the 1860’s for the purpose of raising funds for an organization that intended to educate emancipated slaves. The slave children with light complexions are octoroons, quadroons, one-sixteenth black or possibly less.
WHY IS THE PLAY CALLED AN OCTOROON?
An Octoroon is based on the play The Octoroon by Dion Boucicault which
made its debut in America in 1859. The play was an adaptation of a
novel entitled The Quadroon, which told the story of a slave that was
1/4 th black, raised as a white child on a plantation, and in love with the
white plantation owner. In The Octoroon, Boucicault changed the slave
character’s racial background to 1/8th black. Some feel he made the
change to play up the tragedy of the story about the slave character’s
unfeasible love for the white plantation owner.
Boucicault’s play was met with much acclaim in America and ignited
discussions about the abolition of slavery. Although actors in the
production performed in blackface, the practice of darkening an actor’s
skin to portray roles of non-white characters was an acceptable practice
in theatre during the time period.
In his studies of the theatre, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins took great interest
in Dion Boucicault as a playwright, especially the play The Octoroon. In
an interview with American Theatre, Jacobs-Jenkins expounded on
Boucicault’s influence on An Octoroon and his perspective as a
playwright:
An Octoroon Tfana
“I became really obsessed with Boucicault. He’s actually like our
first American dramatist, because he’s this Anglo-Irish guy that
came over here and wrote one of the first, most important plays
about American life. It was this huge sensation and a direct
response to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which is this hugely important flag
in the history of American theatre. I was interested in how
Boucicault would rewrite his plays depending on his
audiences—like for The Octoroon, he had two different endings:
one in which the heroine died (for American audiences) and
another where she didn’t (for the British audiences). To me, that
did not square up against the idea of an “responsible artist.” An
artist had to make an artistic choice and stand by it. The idea that
he would be commercially reworking his work just to make
money was just… I don’t know.
But as I dug deeper, I realized that’s not actually how it shook
down. He tried his original ending in London and the audiences
wouldn’t deal with it. He wrote like all these pamphlets and
editorials defending his ending as “truthful” but in the end,
perhaps a little out of spite, he rewrote the ending. I think a lot of
people see this as some sort of… weakness on his part, but I think
it’s telling that he burned that draft—that it’s not even in the
public domain anymore. Then he made a cut version for the
An Octoroon Tickets
printing, which was never actually produced and I thought, “This
is so amazing.”
I did all this crazy archival research at the New York Public
Library and I found this insane unfinished essay he wrote on the
art of dramatic writing. One thing I’ve always lamented is that
playwrights never really write down what they think in a real
way. I love Arthur Miller’s theatre essays—this is me being
academic and ridiculous. So I find this Boucicault essay and it says
how the whole enterprise for us is creating the dramatic illusion.
We’re just trying to create the most perfect illusion, because that
is where catharsis begins with audiences. And the way we get that
illusion is that we create the most believable illusion of someone
suffering. And I was, like, obsessed with this essay and that kind of
became the guide for Octoroon. I wanted to talk about the illusion
of suffering versus actual suffering and ask, “Is there a
relationship between the two?”
Read his full interview here.
Blog content provided by Adah Pittman-DeLancey.
Images provided by SohoRep: http://sohorep.org/glossary-oc...