NEGRO DRAMA

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 45, 16 November 1929, Page 27

NEGRO DRAMA

DEVELOPMENT IN AMERICA

MAGNETISM & HUMANITY OF “PORGY”

(By

H.P.)

If there be five per cent of the white population that are potential entertainers—actors, singers, dancers, reciters, story-tfellers, etc.—there must be at least ten per cent, of the black race of the United States. These people in their millions are no longer the poor humble ignorant, down-trodden folk of slavery days. There is little trace of primal Africa left in the United States negro of 1929, save in his ebon ekin. He is a product of a fecund people which has grown up beside one of the smartest, most alert of white races this world has ever bred, tor condemn the modern American as you will, he is the most pushful, energetic, aggressive, ambitious* and inven* five type of man known. So on to the negro have been grafted several qualities that are purely American. Give a negro half a chance, and you wHI find him as ambitions, as pushful, and as energetic as the rest; moreover, a percentage of him is amenable to higher education, though with all bis culture he is apt to make big slips, back to his primordial origin. It is in this tendency to slip back, usually under the stress of some powerful emotion, that marks mental limitation of -the race.. There is a breaking point in his. mental make-up which he cannot bridge over, as can the unemotional Nordic people. The best of negro people have been known to develop storms of insensate rage when upset by something upon which they think deeply. Probably no race is so deeply affected emotionally by religion. With them it becomes stark ecstasy, which finds expression in wild dancing, perspiration, writhiugs of the body, tears, and groans which, to the white folk round, is not far removed from insanity. Yet perhaps men behaving in such a manner, could at other times discourse very learnedly on Shakespeare, music, and the arts with a robust sensibility and judgment commanding admiration. The Torch to the Tinder. The negro on the stage has usually been- a mere buffoon —a ..‘‘nigger” minstrel, or an extension of him into, farce and low comedy; but though undeveloped the negro'has a fine sense of the theatre. Did you ever see a- negro play a part badly on the screen? To me they are always most graphic in expression and action, and never know the' attitude of being stiff and uneasy on the stage. As far back as “Pinafore” there have been negro companies from time to time. I mention “Pinafore” because in the craze which that opera caused in the United States hnlf a century ago, when thirty companies were employed in its production, one of them consisted of coloured folk only. Could anything be more ludicrous —a coal-black Sir Joseph Porter, an ebony Josephine? No one ever thought to write drama for black people until George Octavius Cohen, the eminent New York critic and literary flaneur, wrote his amazing stories in the negro vernacular for the ‘Saturday Evening Post,’ of Philadelphia. These were a torch to the tinder. They found eager readers, and led the way to all-black drama. Its coming was foretold in that powerful play “The Nigger,” played in Australia by Mr. Guy Bates Post, but that was only a play upon the seemingly unconquerable prejudice of'the whites against the colour streak. Now comes a new type of play that gives expression in negro thought, the negro complex of life. One notable instance is “Harlem,” produced recently in New York, but the best is “Porgy,” so poignant a play that it even swept Mr. C. B. Cocbran off bis feet and led to him buying it for production in London. Mr. Cochran is the modern Barnum of England. He is a great showman—a man born to do big things in. a big way ; yet one whose ideals "can be touched by the super-beautiful,- as witness his production. in London of “The Miracle and the introduction to the metropolis of the Guitrys. the Chauve Souris, the production of “Cyrano de Bergerac” and Pirandello’s enchanting Italian play?. With such a record behind him it is Interesting to bear him say: “I would rather be responsible for. putting on

‘Porgy* than for all the other plays and entertainment# presented in London in my lifetime." In the course of a recent article Mr. Cochran said “The show staggered me. Its vivid colour, its interplay of humour and pathos, cruelty and kindness, religion and viciousness, its superlative technical accomplishment in acting, decor, lighting and production—these all overwhelmed me. I was so stunned and at the same time elated that I could nqt—and still cannot —see how any public could fail to respond to the appeal of the show in the same way that I did. ‘Porgy’ is folk drama of the best. It is the attitude of Catfish Row that counts, the gracelessness of and poignancy of Bessie, the bereft; the strange nobilities of the cripple Porgy;- the sorrow and rancour of Serena; the animalism of Crown, Catfish Row (Charleston) and its people are the index of the mind of a folk and of the whole colour problem. It is a masterpiece of naked life as we know It not, and its authors, Due Bose and Dorothy Heyward, deserve the laurel leaves—if there are any for negro drama."