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PREJUDICE
By Richard Watts, Jr.
Writing in ADL Bulletin—
It would be idiotic to feel smug
about the contemporary Ameri
can theater, but the record in the
matter of its attitude toward rac
ial minorities certainly can be a
source of considerable pride to a
professional drama critic. It isn’t
just the complete absence of the
old-fashioned stereotypes, either;
the passing of the begorrah Irish
man, the yassah-boss Negro, the
gesticulating Jew and the baleful
Oriental. It lies in the more in
telligent general attitude in writ
ing and casting.
As in so many other things, Eu
gene O’Neill may be regarded as
a pioneer in this field, too. When,
in the twenties, he wrote “All
God’s Chillun Got Wings,” his
tragedy about the marriage be
tween a Negro man and a white
woman, a scene in which the wife
kissed her husband’s hand—a then
politically spotless Paul Robeson
played the husband, by the way
—provoked shocked outcries from
many voluble voices, but the play
went on. It was not one of O’Neill’s
most distinguished plays, but the
dignity and power with which he
treated his theme made a mark
on its time. It wasn’t easy to con
vict O’Neill of mere sensational
ism.
It still is tragically difficult for
a talented Negro actor to have a
career worthy of his skill in the
serious drama, but it is not the
result of prejudice against him. It
is because, while the role written
for Negroes in the plays of today
are no longer caricatures, they are
usually small and are rarely on
an important scale. But there are
advances even here.
Paradoxically, one of them was
a recent play in which the Negro
character was at least nominally
the villain. It was Molly That
cher’s “The Egghead,” an unsuc
cessful and rather ineffectual
drama about a fatuous liberal, and
the Negro was a hard core Com
munist, whom the hero tried to
defend. The part was unsympath
etic, but he was also a human
being, with dignity, intelligence
and a stubborn pride. And I think
the fact that the author treated
him as a human being, though an
unlikeable one, rather than as a
cartoon or a sentimentalization
showed progress in the stage’s at
titude toward minorities.
Nevertheless, the finding of
proper roles for Negro actors re
mains an unsolved one. And some
of the efforts to solve it have been
mistaken. Shortly after the war,
the late Canada Lee was assigned
the part of a white man in a re
vival of Webster’s “The Duchess
of Malfi” and the idea was hit
upon of having him play it in
what was described as "white
face.” It resulted in a grotesque
makeup and was in itself grotes
que.
Last season “The Duchess of
Malfi” was again revived, and this
time another fine Negro actor,
Earle Hyman, played another of
the white roles. There was no at
tempt at any foolish chalklike
makeup, and it worked out ad
mirably. Mr. Hyman, by the way,
offers a striking example of the
problems faced by a Negro in an
essentially white theater. Although
he gave a magnificent perform
ance as an ambitious Africian
native trapped between two worlds
in a modern play called “ Mr.
Johnson,” his work has been con
fined chiefly to the classics. He
attracted justifiable attention by
his Othello and the Prince of Mo
rocco in "The Merchant of Ven
ice,” which were obvious roles for
a player of his brillance, but, for
the Phoenix Theater, he appeared
not only in the Webster tragedy,
but also in Cocteau’s “The Infernal
Machine” and as Dunois in “St.
Joan,” which showed imagination
in casting.
It is understandable that min
orities should be sensitive about
their treatment in the American
theater, but there are times when
it is a hyper-sensitivity. Shortly af
ter "The Teahouse of the August
Moon” first opened, I was told by
several of my Oriental friends that
the play seemed patronizing to
them. They felt that the comic
character of the interpreter, Sak-
ini, and some of the humorous ob-
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