The play was revived for the first time off-Broadway in 2007 at the Cherry Lane Theatre starring Dulé Hill and Jennifer Mudge, and in 2013 was restaged by Rashid Johnson at the Russian and Turkish Baths in the East Village.[7]
Plot
Scene I
The action focuses almost exclusively on Lula, a mature white woman, and Clay, a young black man, who both ride the subway in New York City. Clay's name is symbolic of the malleability of black identity and black manhood. It is also symbolic of integrationist and assimilationist ideologies within the contemporary Civil Rights Movement.[8] Lula boards the train eating an apple, an allusion to the Biblical Eve. The characters engage in a long, flirtatious conversation throughout the train ride.
Lula sits down next to Clay. She accuses him of staring at her buttocks. She ignores his denials and uses stereotypes to correctly guess where he lives, where he is going, what Clay's friend, Warren, looks and talks like. Lula guesses that Clay tried to get his own sister to have sex with him when he was 10. Clay is shocked by her apparent knowledge of his past and says that she must be a friend of Warren.
Lula is glad that Clay is so easy to manipulate and puts her hand on his leg. She feeds him apples. She tells Clay to invite her out to the party he is going to. At this point, it is unclear whether Clay is really going to a party, but he tells her he really is. Lula vaguely alludes to having sex with Clay at her "apartment" after the "party". We don't know if these are real or conveniently made-up by Lula.
Scene II
Clay is gladdened by Lula's apparent liking for him and maintains a hopeful attitude to having sex together. However, he does not push his hope onto her and waits for Lula to make the offer first.
Lula is angered by Clay's not falling for her manipulative tactics. She switches strategies and mocks Clay's Anglo-American speech, his college education and his three-button suit. She derides his being black and passive. She dances mockingly in an R&B style and tells Clay to join her and "do the nasty. Rub bellies".
Clay, who does not respond initially, eventually grabs her and throws her down. Clay accuses Lula of knowing nothing but "luxury". He slaps her twice and tells her to leave him alone.
Clay launches into a monologue. Clay suggests that whites let black people dance "black" dances and make "black" music. He explains that these segregatory actions assuage black Americans' anger towards whites and distracts them from accessing the "white man's intellectual legacy". Clay states that if black people stopped trying to heal their pain through dance, music, civic participation, religion, or focusing on moving upwards in American society, and became coldly rational like white people, black people would just kill all the whites and be done with racism in America. Clay says that if he were to take Lula's words to heart, he should just kill all the white people he meets.
Although Clay says all this, he deeply rejects this plan of action. He states that he does not want to kill and that he prefers to be ignorant of the problem. He says he would rather choose to pretend to be ignorant of racism, not try to get rid of it by fighting with whites.
Once Clay makes his confession, Lula changes strategies again. Clay makes as if to leave, but Lula coolly, rationally, stabs him twice to the heart. She directs all the other passengers, blacks and whites, in the train car to throw his body out and get out at the next stop.
The play ends with Lula looking towards another young black man who has just boarded the now mostly empty train car. The elderly black train conductor steps into the compartment and tips Lula his hat.
Analysis
Symbolism: The Atlantic Trade
The play's title evokes images of Dutch ships that carried slaves across the Atlantic. The subway car itself, endlessly traveling the same course, is symbolic of "The Course of History."[9] Another layer of the title's symbolism is the myth of the Flying Dutchman, a ghost ship which, much like the subway car Clay rides on, endlessly sails on with a crew that is unable to escape the confines of the vessel.[10] The allusion the Flying Dutchman also references a notable novel by Rivers Solomon published in 2019 and called The Deep. The story is set in an underwater civilization, where enslaved people who were thrown from the slave ships can live and breathe in the deep ocean.[11] This connection perhaps refers to the moment at the end of the play when Clay was thrown overboard of the moving train in the “Underground” world that resembles the “underwater” society in the novel.” Yet, the play shows that, within the context of the slave ships, Lula is the enslaver or the ship captain while Clay is one of the enslaved people.[12]
Modernity and Double Consciousness
Clay, as a Black man in the play, is a character who speaks and extends to the discussion of “double consciousness,” a term, idea, and concept that was first introduced by W. E. B. Du Bois' s autoethnographic work, The Souls of Black Folk in 1903. Throughout the play, Lula’s lines, at many moments, suggested the conception of double consciousness in Clay’s dressing in a suit, self-control speech, childhood upbringing, and intellectual mannerism as an educated man. Nevertheless, these contained images burst and erupted with his heightened and raged monologue at the end of the play.[13] Double consciousness raises the question of Black identity with the experience of “dual soul.” This idea within the context of modernity specifically directs the audience into understanding and analyzing Clay’s identity as an American and a Black man in America. It is the modern discourse of African American experience in America that Dutchman emphasized. Referencing the symbolic connection of the Atlantic Trade, the concept of double consciousness draws a critical analysis of the “Black Atlantic” in Paul Giroy’s "The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness.” Giroy, overall, argues that in the modern world, which Dutchman was set in, Black people everywhere have to carry the doubleness of their identity as a diasporic community. Nevertheless, Giroy also advocates how “dual soul” builds intercultural power that unites Black people and communities around the world.[14]
Characters
Clay: is a 20-year-old, middle-class black boy. He is college educated, and well dressed. Clay is extremely calm and well-mannered, although he finally reaches his breaking point by the end of the play. It is thought that Clay's character is both real and symbolic. Symbolizing the real struggle of a black man.
Lula: is a 30-year-old white woman. She is tall, slender, and has long red hair. She is described in the play as loud lipstick, bright, and skimpy summer clothes, with sandals, and sunglasses. Like Clay, Lula is also symbolic, she symbolizes "White America". Throughout the play, Lula continues to seduce and taunt Clay.
Riders of Coach: are white and black. Although they do not play an important role until the end of the play, they are witnesses to Clay's rant, and his murder.
Young Negro: is about 20 years old. He is described to have a couple of books under his arm. It is suggested at the end of the play that he is Lula's next victim.
Conductor: is portrayed as a happy spirited man, mumbling a song to himself, and swaying down the aisle to a song in his head. He does not appear until the end of the play.
Ball State University Department of Theatre & Dance
Indiana
André Garner
2022
American Stage Theatre Company
Florida
Erica Sutherlin
2022
Sunstone Studios
Wisconsin
Di'Monte Henning
Film adaptation
In 1967, Dutchman was adapted into a film directed by an English filmmaker, Anthony Harvey. The film stars Shirley Knight as Lula and Al Freeman Jr. as Clay. According to Joseph Lelyveld, an executive editor of The New York Times, the film was shot with a low budget of 600,000 USD for only six days. Additionally, the location of play is set in with the D train, running through New York from the Bronx to Coney Island. However, it turned out that the production was located in a studio outside of London.[18] The film adaptation raised discussions about surrealism, tension violence and race, and the existence “in a vacuum” that was set in one location only.[19] The film’s female star, Shirley Knight, won the Best Actress award at the 28th Venice International Film Festival in 1967.[20]
Diane di Prima was an American poet, known for her association with the Beat movement. She was also an artist, prose writer, and teacher. Her magnum opus is widely considered to be Loba, a collection of poems first published in 1978 then extended in 1998.
The Black Arts Movement (BAM) was an African-American-led art movement that was active during the 1960s and 1970s. Through activism and art, BAM created new cultural institutions and conveyed a message of black pride. The movement expanded from the accomplishments of artists of the Harlem Renaissance.
Lee Chamberlin was an American theatrical, film and television actress.
Double consciousness is the dual self-perception experienced by subordinated or colonized groups in an oppressive society. The term and the idea were first published in W. E. B. Du Bois's autoethnographic work, The Souls of Black Folk in 1903, in which he described the African American experience of double consciousness, including his own.
Ray Bremser was an American poet married to Brenda Bremser.
Hettie Jones was an American poet. She wrote 23 books that include a memoir of the Beat Generation, three volumes of poetry, and publications for children and young adults, including The Trees Stand Shining and Big Star Fallin' Mama: Five Women in Black Music.
Amiri Baraka, previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism. He was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at several universities, including the University at Buffalo and Stony Brook University. He received the PEN/Beyond Margins Award in 2008 for Tales of the Out and the Gone. Baraka's plays, poetry, and essays have been described by scholars as constituting defining texts for African-American culture.
Eugene Clair "Gene" Persson was an American actor, theatrical and film producer, best known for his work as the co-producer and co-creator of the original 1967 production of the Broadway musical comedy, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, as well as the show's 1999 Broadway revival, which won two Tony Awards.
Judson Crews was an American poet, bookseller and small press publisher.
The Cricket, subtitled "Black Music in Evolution", was a magazine created in 1968 by Amiri Baraka, Larry Neal and A. B. Spellman. Baraka has said: "Larry Neal, AB and I realized the historical influence of music on African /Afro American Culture. I saw the magazine as a necessary dispenser of this influence as part of a continuum. And that attention to the culture was a way of drawing attention to the people's needs and struggle." The headquarters was in New York City.
Askia Muhammad Touré is an African-American poet, essayist, political editor, and leading voice of the Black Arts Movement. Toure helped to define a new generation of black consciousness by creating a triumphal identity for the purpose of uplifting the African heritage beyond the oppressive ideas that dominated the time.
Lisa Victoria Chapman Jones is an American playwright, essayist, journalist, and memoirist.
Dutchman is a 1966 British drama film directed by Anthony Harvey and starring Shirley Knight and Al Freeman, Jr. It was based on the 1964 play Dutchman by Amiri Baraka, who wrote the screenplay adaptation. John Barry wrote the score. The movie tells the story of a black man who meets a white woman while riding the subway in New York City.
"Black Art" is a poem written by African-American poet Amiri Baraka. It was written in 1965 after the assassination of Malcolm X while still known as LeRoi Jones. The poem issued a clarion call for art by and for Black people:
Qasim Basir is an American filmmaker. He wrote and directed Mooz-lum (2011) starring Danny Glover and Nia Long about an African-American Muslim family and how their lives are changed by the September 11 attacks. The film received nominations from the NAACP Image Awards and Black Reel Awards.
Amina Baraka is an American poet, actress, author, community organizer, singer, dancer, and activist. Her poetic themes are about social justice, family, and women. Her poetry has been featured in anthologies including Unsettling America (1994). She was active in the 1960s Black Arts Movement, as an artist.
Sonny's Time Now is an album by American free jazz drummer Sunny Murray, his first as a leader. It was recorded in New York City on November 17, 1965 and first released on LeRoi Jones' Jihad label. It was later reissued on the DIW and Skokiaan labels.
The New Wave in Jazz is a live album recorded on March 28, 1965, at the Village Gate in New York City. It features groups led by major avant-garde jazz artists performing at a concert for the benefit of The Black Arts Repertory Theater/School founded by Amiri Baraka, then known as LeRoi Jones. The album was released on LP in 1965 on the Impulse! label, and was reissued on CD in 1994 with a different track listing.
New York Art Quartet is the debut album by the group of the same name. It was recorded on November 26, 1964, at Bell Sound Studios in New York City, and was released in 1965 by ESP-Disk as the fourth item in their catalog, following Albert Ayler's Spiritual Unity and Pharoah Sanders's Pharoah's First. It features John Tchicai on alto saxophone, Roswell Rudd on trombone, Lewis Worrell on bass, and Milford Graves on percussion. In addition, LeRoi Jones recites his controversial poem "Black Dada Nihilismus" on one track.
The Dutchman is an upcoming American thriller film directed by Andre Gaines, co-writing along with Qasim Basir, based on the 1964 play Dutchman by Amiri Baraka. The film stars André Holland, Kate Mara, Zazie Beetz, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Aldis Hodge, and Lauren E. Banks.
References
↑ Baraka, Imamu Amiri (1964). Dutchman and The Slave, Two Plays (Morrow Paperback Editionsed.). New York: William Morrow and Company. ISBN688-21084-8.{{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: length (help)
↑ Baker, Christopher (2013). "A Trip with the Strange Woman: Amiri Baraka's "Dutchman" and the Book of Proverbs". South Atlantic Review. 78 (3/4): 110–128. JSTOR43739218.
↑ Achilles, Jochen (2000). "Allegory and Iconography in African American Drama of the Sixties: Imamu Amiri Baraka's "Dutchman" and Alice Childress's "Wine in the Wilderness""". Amerikastudien[American Studies]. 45 (2): 219–238. JSTOR41157564.
↑ Solomon, Rivers, et al. The deep. Simon and Schuster, 2019.
↑ Nelson, Hugh. “LeRoi Jones’ Dutchman: A Brief Ride on a Doomed Ship.” Educational Theatre Journal 20.1 (1968): 53-59.JSTOR. Accessed December 1, 2024. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3204875.
↑ Atallah K.A. Diyaiy, Sabah. “The Dilemma of the Black Man in LeRoi Jones’ Play Dutchman.” Al-Fatih Journal 40 (2009): 13-22.
↑ Gilroy, Paul. "The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness." Harvard UP (1993).
↑ Taubman, Howard. “The Theater: “Dutchman”; Drama Opens on Triple Bill at Cherry Lane; the Casts.” The New York Times, 25 Mar. 1964, www.nytimes.com/1964/03/25/archives/the-theater-dutchman-drama-opens-on-triple-bill-at-cherry-lane-the.html.
↑ McGee, Celia. “A Return to Rage, Played out in Black and White.” The New York Times, 14 Jan. 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/theater/14mcge.html.
↑ Lelyveld, Joseph. “LeRoi Jones’s ‘Dutchman’ in Exile; Jones’s ‘Dutchman’ in Exile.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 18 Sept. 1966, www.nytimes.com/1966/09/18/archives/leroi-joness-dutchman-in-exile-joness-dutchman-in-exile.html.
↑ Crowther, Bosley. “Screen: ‘Dutchman’ Padded for Film; Little Carnegie Shows Jones’s Protest Play British Director Gets Message Confused.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 28 Feb. 1967, timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1967/02/28/83581585.html?pageNumber=32.
Atallah K.A. Diyaiy, Sabah. “The Dilemma of the Black Man in LeRoi Jones’ Play Dutchman.” Al-Fatih Journal 40 (2009): 13-22.
Baraka, Imamu Amiri. Dutchman and The Slave, Two Plays. Morrow, 1964.
Baraka, Amiri. The Autobiography of LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka Freundlich Books: Distributed to the trade by Scribner, 1984.
Gilroy, Paul. "The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness." Harvard UP (1993).Lelyveld, Joseph. “LeRoi Jones’s ‘Dutchman’ in Exile; Jones’s ‘Dutchman’ in Exile.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 18 Sept. 1966, www.nytimes.com/1966/09/18/archives/leroi-joness-dutchman-in-exile-joness-dutchman-in-exile.html.
Solomon, Rivers, et al. The deep. Simon and Schuster, 2019.
Taubman, Howard. “The Theater: “Dutchman”; Drama Opens on Triple Bill at Cherry Lane; the Casts.” The New York Times, 25 Mar. 1964, www.nytimes.com/1964/03/25/archives/the-theater-dutchman-drama-opens-on-triple-bill-at-cherry-lane-the.html.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
