Abstract
Drama, as a literary genre, gives man the rare opportunity of sitting in judgment on his actions and inactions. African-American drama from inception has battled with the challenges of social engagement and aesthetics, notwithstanding the fear of the Blackman otherwise called, "negrophobia" mentality of the white audience. Although a great deal of African-American writing is literature of anger and strife, yet there is a strong assertion that their plays, in spite of the major challenges of being black in America, the playwrights decry the inhuman and social problems in the domestic African-American Society. This ranges from the evil of homosexuality and lesbianism to the ordeal of idle husbands of hardworking women and the process of growth, sexual promiscuity and drunkenness. This article in line with the African-American " Revolutionary Theatre", examines the representation of these social ills in the African-American drama especially in Bullins' Clara's Ole Man and In the Wine Time. The playwright represents the major phase in the development of African-American drama and theatre especially during the major outrage in the entire experience of the Blackman in America. Ed. Bullins, being an adherent to Amiri Baraka's Revolutionary Theatre represents the domestic front of the expose theatre of the Black Arts Movement of the African-American Literature especially among the African-Americans themselves.
Introduction
Any integral study of the plays of Ed. Bullins must pay attention to the understanding of his concept of "Theatre of Reality" in line with Amiri Baraka's Revolutionary Theatre. (Sander, 177) This concept complements Amiri Baraka's idea of the expose theatre of the revolutionary aesthetics. Bullins remains the prophet of the home front, warning his people against the dangers of self-inflicted destruction. His plays, among other values, make it clear that the whites are not always to be blamed in the problems of the African-Americans. Lenka Vanova has observed that, "Bullins' Theatre of Reality built up a sense of black world beyond the confines of the play script". (47) In fact, his plays are replica of life as are lived in the African-American streets. Vanova observes that “Bullins typically pictures unpolished black characters who are often involved in drugs and misdemeanour. He shows them as unworthy human beings, able to find justification in their lives while seeking their betterment relentlessly.” (20) Bullins’ basic concern is with the people’s values, aspirations and dreams as well as their future. He probes and questions clichés, stereotypes, and formal illusions to test what are of value in them. This paper is strongly against the inhuman social misnomer repugnant to human natural habitation, perpetuated by the African-Americans against themselves, either as a form of social protest or revolts that are detrimental to lives and development of the domestic African-American society and the American nation in general.
Content
Edward Artie was born on July 2, 1935 to the family of Edward Bullins and Marie Queen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was primarily raised by his mother. He attended predominately white schools and got deeply involved with gangs. Among the schools he attended was Franklin High School, where he nearly lost his life as a result of gang clashes. Later he quit high school for the Navy. During his stay with the Navy, he won a boxing championship and this motivated him to start reading. Ed. Bullins enrolled into a night school in Philadelphia until 1958, where he began an insight into the predominant ghetto life style of the African-American underclass. He even left his wife and kid for Los Angeles. One important virtue of Ed. Bullins which was his predominant clamour is self-development for a better future. After receiving his General Education Development (GED) in Los Angeles, Bullins enrolled into Los Angeles City Colleges where he began to write. Ed. Bullins was a product of the African-American underclass (lower class) that lived out his teachings on the appropriate freedom for the Blacks through personal development and positivity in action and attitude towards one another.
Bullins’ plays include: Goin’ a Buffalo (1968), Clara’s Ole Man (1968), In the Wine Time (1968), The Electronic Nigger (1968) The Fabulous Miss Marie (1971), The Taking of Miss Janie (1975) and others. These plays are elaborate characteristics of African-American underclass exposed in the literary works. Mensor-Fur observes that, “Bullins explores the dark side of the African-American experiences in his ‘Black America,’ focusing issues and characters (like “common folk”, pimps, prostitutes, etc.) that many mainstream Americans and middle class African-Americans’s theatre patrons may wish to ignore.” (iv) However, the African-American plays were the core of the Black Arts Movement under the active control of Amiri Baraka’s “Revolutionary theatre” ideology
Bullins’ plays include: Goin’ a Buffalo (1968), Clara’s Ole Man (1968), In the Wine Time (1968), The Electronic Nigger (1968) The Fabulous Miss Marie (1971), The Taking of Miss Janie (1975) and others. These plays are elaborate characteristics of African-American underclass exposed in the literary works. Mensor-Fur observes that, “Bullins explores the dark side of the African-American experiences in his ‘Black America,’ focusing issues and characters (like “common folk”, pimps, prostitutes, etc.) that many mainstream Americans and middle class African-Americans’s theatre patrons may wish to ignore.” (iv) However, the African-American plays were the core of the Black Arts Movement under the active control of Amiri Baraka’s “Revolutionary theatre” ideology
Conclusion
In conclusion, Worthen, W.B. in the preface to the brief edition of the Harcourt Anthology to Drama (2002) notes that, "studying drama is more than reading plays. It requires the study of where the plays were produced, the culture that framed those theatres and the critical and performance history that have framed the meaning of the drama over the time". (3) This entails a study of the symbols and the meanings especially in relation to the messages the play communicates to the first society that receives the drama. Worthen maintains that, "of the many kinds of literature, drama is perhaps the most immediately involved in the life of its community" (3). Drama confronts the audience in the confines of the theatre and lets them watch and judge their actions and inactions. Amiri Baraka in his concept of Revolutionary Theatre exposes the life lived in the African-American society with undoubtable condemnation of the Whites as architects of the Blacks misfortunes. In his Expose theatre plays, he enacts the various scenes and episodes of Whites inhumanity to Blacks, thus exposing the vulnerability of the Blackman in a White dominated society. Ed. Bullins in the same line but on the other hand, exposes the Blacks vulnerability at various streets of the African-American society in his Theatre of Reality. This is the complementary aspect of the revolutionary theatre, for Bullins gives the audience the side of African-Americans inhumanities to themselves. In other words, while Baraka is busy challenging the Blacks to rise against the Whiteman's inhumanity to Blackman, Ed. Bullins complements his vision by asking the Blackman to be careful with his choices against their fellow Blackman and against themselves.
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American Literature Forum. 17 (1) 1983, 19-21
Baraka, Amiri "The Revolutionary Tradition in Afro-American literature in
Selected plays and prose ofAmiri Baraka/le Roi Jones New York Marron
1979. 242-251.
"The Revolutionary Theatre" in Afro-American Literature an
Jovanovich
Introduction.
Inc.
Robert Hayden et al (eds.) New York: Harcourt Brace 1971. 295-298.
Baraka, Amiri and Larry Neale (eds). Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing Classic Press, 1968.
Barnes, Clive. "American Place Stages' Electronic Nigger" by Ed. Bullins.In New York Times 9 March, 1962. Bullins, Ed. Clara’s Ole Man” in The Drama Review. 12(4) 1968 159-171. Clark, Priscilla B. "Literature and Sociology”. Interrelations of Literature ed. Jean
122.
Pierre Barricelli and Joseph Gibaldi. New York: MLA, 1982 107-
Cruse, Harold. "Revolutionary Nationalism and the Afro-American" in Black Fire: An Anthology of Afro-American Writing: Amiri Baraka (ed.) Classic Press, 1968.
Gates, Henry Louis and Nellie Y McKay (eds.) The Norton Anthology of African-American Literature. New York ww Norton Company, 1997. Grant, Lisbeth "The New Lafayethe Theatre. Anatomy of a Community Art Institution in The Drama Review: TDR Vol. 16, No. 4. Black Theatre Issue. December, 1972 46-55.
Harris, William J. The LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader.New York Basic Book, 2009.
Menson-Furr, Ladrica C. Audience and the African American playwright: an analysis of the importance of audience selection and audience response on the dramaturgies of August Wilson and Ed Bullins. PhD Thesis, Louisiana: Lousiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, 2002.
Nwaiwu, Mishael Chinaecherem. Social Engagement and the African-American Aesthetic in the Selected Drama of Amiri Baraka and Ed. Bullins PhD Thesis University of Port Harcourt, 2015.
Sell, Mike (ed. Ed. Bullins: Twelve Plays and Selected Writings. The University of Michigan Press, 2006.
Sanders, Leslie G. The Development of Black Theatre in America: from Shallow
to Selves. Baton Rouge: La, 1989.
Stevens, Bonnie Klomp et al. A Guide to Literary Criticism and Research. New
York: CBS College Publishing, 1987.
Vanova, Lenka "The Power of Black Theatre: ImanuAmiri Baraka and Ed.
Bullins' Play as Reflection of the Transformation of the Civil Right
Movement in 1960. Masary University, 2009.
Wellek, Rene and Austin Warren.Theory of Literature. Mitcham:Penguin, 1963.
Worthen, William B. The Harcourt Anthology of Drama. Australia, Hernie Pub, 2002.