The Octoroon was a controversial play when it debuted, given its focus on slavery when the pre-Civil War United States was engaged in a heated debate over the institution. The story overtly concerns racial identification, making it clear that even a small amount of African American blood would taint a person at that time, making them unable to marry a white person and, depending on their mother (whose status determined whether or not their children are slaves), potentially born into slavery. Lafouche comes to run the auction of the property and announces Zoe will be sold. Directed by Sarah Benson, featuring music by Csar Alvarez (of The Lisps), choreography by David Neumann, set design by Mimi Lien, and lighting design by Matt Frey. Through the playful lens of theater, An Octoroon invites us to take a good long look at the cultural history of slavery. Print fond memoriesThis pocket Bluetooth printer lets you print your precious memories before they hit Instagram. Log in here. Just as McClosky points out the blood on Wahnotee's tomahawk, the oldest slave, Pete, comes to give them the photographic plate which has captured McClosky's deed. One man, Jacob MClosky, is driven into such a frenzy by Zoe that he is willing to lie, cheat and kill in order to own her. Picquet was born into a lineage of sexual victimization and strong maternal dedication. Eventually, Zoe takes the poison and runs off. The incongruous mix of modern idiom and antebellum narrative fuels the wit of Jacobs-Jenkins project. During the early decades of the 19th century, she maintained an enduring liaison with the Kentucky politician Richard Mentor Johnson. "The Octoroon - Summary" eNotes Publishing The Image of the Black Archive & Libraryresides at Harvard Universitys Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. Yet when the staging must focus attention on an image encapsulating the evil violence of Americas racist past, a picture is not just found but held for a length of time that makes it impossible to look away. For its form he turned to a another carved vision of abject captivity, the highly praised Greek Slave by the expatriate American artist Hiram Powers. Key Information Character Solon Show The Octoroon Gender Male Age Range Adult, Mature Adult Role Size Ensemble Time & Place mid 1800's, louisiana, plantation terrebonne, mississippi river Tags african-american slave server cook good-natured loyal ensemble southern creole accent Analysis African-American, Southern Creole Accent. The stage provided the inspiration for Bells subject. Minnie and Dido realize all the other slaves ran away. Tragic mulatta. After Williams sickened and died, Picquet describes her relief at his passing; to celebrate her freedom from sexual abuse and "sin", she attended church that very Sunday (p. 22). With the judges death, Zoe loses his protection, and her situation becomes precarious. BJJ clarifies that in the time of the play, a photograph was a novel/innovative/contemporary way for the plot to be resolved. The men begin to call for McClosky to be lynched, but Scudder convinces them to send him to jail instead. The crunch comes when the good-hearted George Peyton has to choose between his love for Zoe, of one-eighth black ancestry, and his need to save the estate by marrying a rich heiress. The auction begins and MClosky aggressively bids on Zoe, winning her. Zoe enters to say goodbye to Dora and George but faints and tells George to give her the poisonous liquid, claiming its a restorative (73). A spectacular collision of the antebellum South and 21st-century cultural politics, An Octoroon twists a funhouse world of larger-than-life stereotypes into blistering social . BJJ stops the action of the play. NYT Critic . The evil McClosky desires her for himself, opposed by the sincere love for her by George, the heir to the family fortune. The auctioneer arrives, along with prospective buyers, McClosky among them. The Octoroon quickly garnered popular and critical acclaim. He produced a huge number of plays of which the exact number is between 135 and 400 titles (Kosok,82). However, we have dozens of other monologues that you can read. A $300-million (minimum) gondola to Dodger Stadium? Last Updated on June 19, 2019, by eNotes Editorial. She, however, gets her father to buy the plantation in order to save it, George, and Zoe, but Zoe is sold off separately to MClosky after a huge bidding war between him and the Sunnysides. Mr. Peyton believed that he had freed his daughter, Zoe, but because he had already incurred a lien on the property, she wasnt his property to free. Harder to overcome will be the discovery by MClosky, the villainous overseer who now owns half the estate, that Zoes freedom papers are not valid and therefore shes to be sold with the rest of the enslaved. Their family included Henry's four year old daughter, Harriet, and Louisa's eight year old daughter, Eliza. Despite the happiness Zoe stands dying and the play ends with her death on the sitting-room couch and George kneeling beside her. Those who could move beyond Bells sentimental conception of the tragic mulatto might have contemplated the wider implications of this degree of miscegenation within the dominant social structures of the time. Picquet was sold to Williams of New Orleans and her mother was sold to Texas. The female "tragic octoroon" was a stock character of abolitionist literature: a light-skinned woman, raised in her father's household as though she were white, until his bankruptcy or death has her reduced to a menial position and sold. Another man called MClosky went through the courts and away went a thousand acres of Terrebonne to him. Pam Trotter, left, Vanessa Claire Stewart and Matthew Hancock in the Fountain Theatres An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street. Bells own distilled response to the theme of miscegenation in the play seems to have evolved rather quickly. Wahnotee, accused by the members of Captain Ratts ship of killing Paul, is about to be lynched. Hiram Mattison, New York: N. Tibbals and Son, 1870. Research Playwrights, Librettists, Composers and Lyricists. Research Playwrights, Librettists, Composers and Lyricists. [18], The play was presented at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia from March 16, 2016 to April 10, 2016, directed by Joanna Settle. The young Frenchman when he meets Eveline falls madly in love with her in spite of the fact that . We don't currently have any monologues from The Octoroon . The play was adapted by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins as An Octoroon in 2014. Boucicaults racial attitudes are both progressive for his day and unmistakably traditionalist, which is to say white supremacist. eNotes.com Back at Terrebonne, Zoe returns but with a sad heart, as she knows that she and George can never be together. As indicated by the inscription on the base of the statue, she is instead an octoroonthat is, an exceptionally light-skinned person of mixed race, technically defined as one-eighth black and the rest white. [24], The Canadian premiere of An Octoroon was produced by The Shaw Festival for its 2017 season. . MClosky then breaks some tragic news: The bank is foreclosing on their mortgage and Terrebonne is up for sale. The Greek Slave depicted a white woman, however, not a person of mixed race. Except for her chains, she could pass for a conventional likeness of Venus, the classical goddess of love. In a far less theatrical sense, women in mixed-race relationships continued to suffer the combined opprobrium of state and society far into the 20th century. A spectacular collision of the antebellum South and 21st century cultural politics, An Octoroon is a gasp-inducing deconstruction of a moustache-twirling melodrama by 19th century playwright Dion Boucicault that twists a funhouse world of larger-than-life stereotypes into blistering social commentary. Playwright taunts BJJ, and laments how theatre has changed since his death. A photograph of a real murdered human contrasts with the original play's use of a photograph for justice.[4]. Ed. The group tells Wahnotee of MCloskys guilt and go to capture MClosky, calling for his death, when MClosky escapes, lighting the shed and ship on fire as he does. eNotes Editorial. The murder is captured on Scudder's photographic apparatus. In 1867, she moved her family to New Richmond, Ohio where she stayed until her death in 1896. [6], An Octoroon had a workshop production at Performance Space 122 from June 19 July 3, 2010, featuring Travis York, Karl Allen, Chris Manley, Ben Beckley, Gabe Levey, Jake Hart, Margaret Flanagan, Amber Gray, Mary Wiseman, LaToya Lewis, Kim Gainer, and Sasheer Zamata. When the play was performed in England it was given a happy ending, in which the mixed-race couple are united. Theres something too straightforward in the approach to the staging, too oriented to the basic elements of storytelling to handle the dynamic shifts among parody, commentary and appreciation. His design for the narrative was moralistic and therefore he focuses many of his questions on Picquet's identity as a sexual victim and concubine. online is the same, and will be the first date in the citation. Williams made Picquet his concubine and she bore him four children, but only two survived enslavement. In comparison, a quadroon would have one quarter African ancestry and a mulatto for the most part has historically implied half African ancestry. Wahnotee appears, drunk and sorrowful, and tells them that Paul is buried near them. Enfolded in the mortgage melodrama of a Louisiana plantation is a love story involving George, the young romantic heir of the estate, and the illegitimate daughter of the dead patriarch, Zoe, who was raised at Terrebonne as part of the family. His battles with the church arent over, How Palm Springs ran out Black and Latino families to build a fantasy for rich, white people, 17 SoCal hiking trails that are blooming with wildflowers (but probably not for long! Hired out by Cook to the Bachelor family, Picquet labored in Mrs. Salem Scudder, a northerner who has been serving as the plantation's overseer, bears some responsibility for the poor state of affairs at Terrebonne. The men leave to fetch the authorities, but McClosky escapes. The citation above will include either 2 or 3 dates. The group immediately calls for his lynching, but they agree to try him first. An Octoroon is a play written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Take a look at our library of free monologues . Both Scudder and M'Closky claim to be in love with Zoe as well. Zoe heads out to the slave quarters to ask Dido for poison. Salem Scudder, a kind Yankee, was Judge Peyton's business partner; though he wishes he could save Terrebonne, he has no money. Here we see the first theatrical depiction of a slave auction on stage. date the date you are citing the material. Later, her husband Henry served in the Union Army until receiving a medical discharge, leaving Louisa as the household's sole provider. As the men try to put out the fire, MClosky swims away while Wahnotee follows to get revenge. Picquet described it at as a moment that "seems fresh in my memory when I think of it - no longer than yesterday - my mother was right on her knees, prayin' to the Lord for me" (p. 18). So, instead of giving up, he decides to play the white male roles himself. Dido protests, but Zoe steals the liquid and runs away. Minnies hilarious advice to Dido: I know we slaves and evurthang, but you are not your job captures both the madness of slavery and the stupefying cruelty. eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. At the time of its presentation at the annual exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1868, Bell stood at the height of his career. Our summaries and analyses are written by experts, and your questions are answered by real teachers. Synopsis A Black playwright is struggling to find his voice among a chorus of people telling him what he should and should not be writing. Mrs. Peyton instead tells Paul to go fetch the mailbags because she is waiting for an important letter from Liverpool. Just getting the production up and running in this new outdoor playing area was miracle enough. Abolitionist John Brown was hanged just three days before the plays debut, which is seen as one of the catalyst events that started the Civil War. In May 1860, Mattison met with Picquet to help her raise money to free her mother from bondage. A Black playwright is struggling to find his voice among a chorus of people telling him what he should and should not be writing. This led Jacobs-Jenkins to see doubles and pairs in Boucicault's play, through relationships between characters e.g. They discover a photographic plate showing MClosky standing over Pauls body and realize he is the murderer instead. Act II begins with Scudder showing off his camera, when Pete, an older slave, enters to say the estate has officially been put up for sale. one-eighth African American), and how these . The archive and Harvard University Press collaborated to create The Image of the Black in Western Art book series, eight volumes of which were edited by Gates and David Bindman and published by Harvard University Press. Bells conflation of the carved simulacrum of the nude female slave with the theatrically inspired concept of the mixed-race woman glosses the reality of slavery with a more broadly nuanced commentary on the role of race in the self-definition of an entire culture. The second date is today's The play begins with BJJ, in a black box telling the audience a conversation he and his therapist had, to get him excited about playwriting and to overcome depression. An Octoroon, the play that drew us together, is a tricky work to pull off under optimal conditions, and I worried how this postmodern riff on Dion Boucicaults musty The Octoroon would fare under the moonlight, amid the blare of car mufflers and police helicopters. Discussion of themes and motifs in Dionysius Lardner Boursiquot's The Octoroon. George is courted by the rich Southern belle heiress Dora Sunnyside, but he finds himself falling in love with Zoe, the daughter of his uncle through one of the slaves. Suspense the melodramatists best friend is sent up even as its savored. There are also the two Sunnysides: Mr. Sunnyside and his daughter, Dora. Sign up today to unlock amazing theatre resources and opportunities. New York, NY, SM for Poor Yella Rednecks Perhaps not surprisingly, such informal mixed-race unions in the slave states occurred fairly often, making Zoes situation seem not so unusual after all. date the date you are citing the material. The citation above will include either 2 or 3 dates. During this time, Louisa's mother was repeatedly impregnated by Cook; her mother was "pretty white; not white for white people" though (p. 8). In Mobile, Picquet describes her love interest with a "colored man more white than [she was]" (p. This character allowed abolitionists to draw attention to the sexual . Here, Picquet was hired out by Cook as a nurse and domestic help to a Mr. "Bachelor" whose wife ran the boarding house where Cook stayed. [2], Jacobs-Jenkins also cites Peter Brooks' The Melodramatic Imagination as an inspiration for his approach to melodrama. The most famous one is her first novel, Lady Audley's Secret 1862 , which won her recognition and fortune as well. Following the act three climax: the plot lines must converge, the moral is made clear, and the audience has to be hit with a "theatre trick" which overwhelms the audience with technical elements. She faces the horrible prospect of being sold at auction, most likely to share the fate of her mother as the mistress of a rich white man. New York, NY, Accessibility Statement Terms Privacy |StageAgent 2020. All scenes are property and copyright of their owners. The most striking characterization is by Pam Trotter, who as Minnie, one of the enslaved workers at the house, seizes every moment of her stage time. The drama tells the moving story of Zoe, the mixed-race daughter of a rich Southern judge and plantation owner by his black paramour. Picquet recalls that slaves were stripped of their clothes to be appraised and then sold to the highest bidder. Set on the fictional Terrebonne Plantation in Louisiana, The Octoroon depicts life in the American South with honesty and empathy. The title refers to a person who is one-eighth black. This is the origin story of the play were watching, but BJJ is an unreliable narrator. "An Octoroon" begins with a prologue, in which a surrogate for the author, BJJ, introduces himself to the audience as a "Black playwright," a label he doesn't fully comprehend. To that end, every now and again an actor dressed as a rabbit makes a surreal cameo. An Octoroon Austin Smith being dragged in this comedy by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn. Scudder insists that they hold a trial, and the men search for evidence. Picquet solicited for donations to reach the one thousand dollar price, and in her travels asking for donations, she made it all the way to New York City where she met the Reverend Hiram Mattison. Mrs. Peyton informs her nephew George, who has just returned from Europe, that he is the heir to the Terrebonne estate. He received his doctorate in dramaturgy and dramatic criticism from the Yale School of Drama. Mattison glosses over this violence, stating that "it is too horrible and indelicate to be read in a civilized country" (p. 15). publication in traditional print. George Peyton, the owners nephew, has come to assist the widow Peyton with her business. Like Louisa, Henry was born to an enslaved black mother used as a concubine by her white master, who freed his enslaved children and their mother. It contains elements of Romanticism and melodrama. A planter named Salem Scudder was brought in a while ago to help out with the running of the place, but he apparently sank a bunch of money into crazy inventions that didnt work out. Soho Rep's An Octoroon. MClosky steals the letter, leaving before Wahnotee finds Pauls dead body and smashes the camera to pieces in grief. The word octoroon signifies a person of one-eighth African ancestry. publication in traditional print. Wahnotee tracks him down and confronts him; in the ensuing struggle, Wahnotee kills McClosky. After sparring with Scudder over their role in the Peytons downfall and offering Zoe the chance to be the mistress of her own plantation (she refuses), MClosky goes through the judges desk and finds Zoes free papers, realizing that due to the judges debts, Zoe, an Octoroon, is still a slave. The most overt of this is Zoes status as an Octoroon, a person who is one-eighth black. Learning that the owner would free Ramsey for one thousand dollars, "she resolved to make the attempt at all hazards," which included "saving every penny she could" and "soliciting money" abroad (p. 36). His work typically mixed the conventional standards of classical form with the emotive pathos of contemporary romanticism. In the American version, the tale ends tragically with Zoes suicide as she realizes that any future with George as man and wife could never be. [2] In a 2018 poll by critics of The New York Times, the work was ranked the second-greatest American play of the past 25 years. The narrative begins with a description of Piquet's physical appearance as a passable mulatto to emphasize that despite "at first view, [looking like] an accomplished white lady," she was denied of any rights or liberty given to white women because of her African ancestry (p. 5). Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street. Log in here. The Octoroon was written by Dion Boucicault and was adapted from the novel The Quadroon by Thomas Mayne Reid. In 1835, the year after his conversion, he was a junior preacher in Oswego County, New York after serving as an agent of the American Bible Society in New Jersey. A plate from George's camera is presented, showing both Paul sitting, and MClosky murdering him is presented and proves M'Closky's guilt. The Octoroon is a play by Dion Boucicault that opened in 1859 at The Winter Garden Theatre, New York City. Time & Place. [3], Jacobs-Jenkins recommends the play be performed with 8 or 9 actors,[4] with male characters played using blackface/whiteface/redface, and female characters portrayed by actresses that match the characters' race.[1]. She may even be unaware of her status before being so reduced. Last Updated on June 19, 2019, by eNotes Editorial. Also, he emphasizes that the defining point of this "whole narrative is the deep moral corruption which it reveals in the families concerned, resulting from the institution of slavery" (p. 50). This play is set in Creole Louisiana, before the Civil War, on a plantation called Terrebonne. After 17 years leading L.A.s most important theater company, and after last years racial reckoning, Michael Ritchie says its time to pass the torch. Hiram Mattison, Louisa Picquet, the Octoroon: or Inside Views of Southern Domestic Life. The narrative goes on to recount an exchange of letters between Picquet, her mother, and Ramsey's slave owner in Texas. Mrs. Peyton, for instance, refers to her slaves black ungainly faces (32) even as she extols her love for them, while Scudder speaks directly of the protection, forbearance, gentleness and other goods that show the critters the difference between the Christian and the savage (72). The buyers gather to take away the slaves they have purchased on a steamship. Word Count: 465. mid 1800's, louisiana, plantation terrebonne, mississippi river. Although Sunnyside calls Wahnotee a nuisance, Zoe defends him as a gentle, honest creature who loves Paul with the tenderness of a woman (30). But white cast members, offended by the unapologetic racism of their nasty slave-owner characters, dropped out. [11], Mark Ravenhill staged a workshop production of the play featuring Saycon Sengbloh in April 2012. Mrs. Peyton hopes that the letter shes awaiting from Liverpool will save the estate, as it concerns a debt owed to her husband that may now be paid back. Summary In 1828, Louisa Picquet (1828-1896) was born near Columbia, South Carolina to fifteen year old Elizabeth Ramsey, a quadroon slave, and John Randolph, Ramsey's white master, which made her an octoroon, or an individual with one black and seven white grandparents. I feel like it has interesting connections to "Lady Audley's Secret," though. This role is played by Matthew Hancock, who while delivering a sprawling monologue, applies whiteface in preparation of taking on the roles of both George and MClosky. The Octoroon (1913) Plot Showing all 3 items Jump to: Summaries (2) Synopsis (1) Summaries In the period before the Civil War, a young man returns to his hometown of New Orleans after having been gone for a long time. Between his knavery (according to Scudder) and Scudders own folly, the rest of the plantation is likely to be sold off to cover debts. Zoe also uses the same term unlike in the . publication online or last modification online. Note: When citing an online source, it is important to include all necessary dates. An Octoroon is set way down yonder in the land of cotton during the antebellum period. online is the same, and will be the first date in the citation. [1] Jacobs-Jenkins considers An Octoroon and his other works Appropriate and Neighbors linked in the exploration of theatre, genre, and how theatre interacts with questions of identity, along with how these questions (such as "Why do we think of a social issue as something that can be solved?") The men accuse Wahnotee of the murder, and McClosky calls for him to be lynched. She is beautiful, educated, kind, and polished. [26], An Octoroon was staged by the Georgia Southern University Theatre & Performance Program from November 8 to November 15, 2017.[27]. At the Plantation Terrebonne in Louisiana, Dido and Minnie chat about the arrival of George, and the passing of his uncle, their previous master. The Reverend Hiram Mattison (1811-1868) was born on February 8, 1811, in Norway, Herkimer County, New York. 1828?- and Hiram Mattison, 1811-1868 Scudder and Pete enter to tell the group of MCloskys guilt when MClosky enters and is quickly rushed on by Wahnotee. The play was first produced in 1859, at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York City, and was both controversial because of its sympathetic and human portrayal of slaves before the civil war, and extremely popular from the moment it premiered. George reluctantly agrees. In fact, the subject seems to have been suggested to Bell by the arrival on the London stage in 1861 of The Octoroon, a highly popular play first produced in New York two years earlier by the widely celebrated playwright Dion Boucicault. Pete, George, and Dora acquaint themselves when Zoe enters to meet George. It is in this part of the narrative that Picquet is separated from Ramsey. "[2] This examination of race as a social construct is also in Appropriate and Neighbors. The Octoroon explores themes of slavery and racial identification and discrimination, although it does not fully commit to either side of the slavery debate. An Octoroon is a radical, incendiary and subversively funny riff on Dion Boucicault's once-popular 1859 mustache-twirling melodrama set on a Louisiana plantation. This guide details the original Boucicault script and associated productions. The plot focused on Zoe, a young woman who is an octoroon (i.e. Download the entire The Octoroon study guide as a printable PDF! New York, NY, Escape To Margaritaville The title of the play refers to a character named Zoe. Paul was beloved and also valuable, and so the whites want to find what has happened to him. George reveals his love to Zoe, who loves him too, and the fact that she is the daughter of a slave does not deter him. But the productions scattered tone leaves everyone looking unsettled. The Octoroon Gender Female Age Range Young Adult, Adult Role Size Lead Time & Place mid 1800's, louisiana, plantation terrebonne, mississippi river Tags southern southern accent romantic passionate innocent soft kind illegitimate child bastard beautiful suicidal gentle loving trapped mixed race Analysis Mixed-race, Southern Accent. Gain full access to show guides, character breakdowns, auditions, monologues and more! In the colonial societies of the Americas and Australia, a quadroon or quarteron was a person with one quarter African / Aboriginal and three quarters European ancestry. His parents, Solomon and Lydia Mattison, raised him and his eleven siblings in the Methodist Episcopal Church. The drama tells the moving story of Zoe, the mixed-race daughter of a rich Southern judge and plantation owner by his black paramour. British audiences disliked this unhappy ending, and the play was rewritten with the more optimistic happily ever after possibility of their union in another, more tolerant land. Here Mattison asks what her feelings were living with Williams in sin and Picquet discusses her distress. The conflict centers around Zoe, the Octoroon, a term used at the time to describe a person who was 1/8 African, 7/8 Caucasian. Dora, oblivious to George's lack of affection for her, enlists Zoe's help to win him over. The condition was reached by gradual degrees of miscegenation, or racial mixing, until the complexion of an individual often became indistinguishable from a person of pure white ancestry. Before long it was widely reproduced on a smaller scale as one of Mintons ceramic Parian-ware figurines, as well as in bronze replicas.

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