‘A DAY WITHOUT A MEXICAN’ DEJA VU:
DOUGLAS TURNER WARD’S BLACK THEATER UNFORGOTTEN
*This article first appeared in the 6/4/04 issue of The Portland Medium
Deja vu, could this be the scene that I once knew? Having never seen “A Day without a Mexican,” Telvisa’s newly distributed film, it is impossible to comment upon its content beyond the trailer short downloaded online. But with aggressive advertising being what it is, it is not difficult to be made at least somewhat aware of this recent box office release.
In times when those who have lived long enough realize that the more things change, the more they stay the same, it is equally apparent that history must not be forgotten or taken for granted. While reading newspaper commentary about the plight and Mexicans and immigrants, an article clearly inspired by the release of “Day without a Mexican,” I found my attention moving towards comparisons to Douglas Turner Ward’s play, “Day of Absence” (written by Ward and produced by Robert Hooks). Emerging from the article and finding my way to a computer, I quickly conducted an internet search about the film while searching for (what I presumed would follow) mention of Mr. Ward. Surprisingly, or not so surprisingly, my search yielded nothing of the sort.
History requires us (the once Public Enemy listening-, asymmetrical hairstyle wearing-, Spike Lee watching-generation, as well as generations before and after) to take note of the fact that Ward wrote, “Day of Absence” in the 1960s during some of the most turbulent times for Blacks and America’s political landscape. Its off-Broadway premiere, at the St. Marks Playhouse on November 15, 1965, elicited less than favorable reviews by what many called New York’s most prominent critics. It is the likes of these critics, about whom James V. Hatch and Ted Shine would later write, in Black Theater U.S.A., who exhibited clear condescension through their criticisms at least until the 1960s and while “dispensing the usual bits of lemon with sugar, often felt compelled to wax authoritatively on what Negro Theater should be.”
“Day of Absence” consists of Black actors performing the roles of about 19 whites, who wake up in their small southern town to a day on which all of the “Nigras” have vanished. The text of Ward’s “Day of Absence” opens by informing the ensemble that it is a play “conceived for performance by a Black cast, a reverse minstrel show done in white face.” In his book In the Shadow of the Great White Way: Images from the Black Theatre, Bert Andrews (the now deceased official photographer of the Black Theatre movement) captures actress (and later founder of the National Black Theatre) Barbara Ann Teer in white face, absently gazing beneath her bowed blond wig, clearly dumbfounded now that there are no “Nigras” anywhere to be seen. Another black and white time-capsule finds townsmen gathered around the likes of a colonel Sanders-dressed local official, demanding answers and return of the Nigras.
Notwithstanding the cold to lukewarm attention from popular critics, the St. Marks Playhouse run consisted of 504 performances and present-day classroom study, of the Louisiana-born author’s work, continues throughout colleges and universities across the country. Most notably, recreations of the play’s premise became political and social vehicles for students and employees across the country who designated dates as days on which work, class attendance, and shopping by Blacks would cease. It is reported that the first such actualization took place in New York City in 1969 with an official declaration. Although initial recognition met with only partial successes, many Blacks today recognize Black Solidarity Day, the first Monday of November, as a day on which they take off from work and attend cultural or political-awareness events. Between November 3 through 10, 2002, Syracuse University students went further as to recognize “Black Solidarity Week” while calling for a time to support the Black community and address the political and social issues facing it.
With the partnership of Robert Hooks and Gerald Krone, Ward, the political activist/journalist turned playwright, spearheaded the 1967 founding of the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC). For over 25 years, Ward’s leadership of the not-for-profit organization gave artistic vision to one of America’s few Black resident companies. The company’s work not only served as the training ground and professional home of such popular actors as Louis Gossett, Jr., Sherman Hemsley, Samuel L. Jackson, Lynn Whitfield, Denzel Washington and Phylicia Rashad, it equipped numerous Black designers, technicians, managers, directors and producers. Although hundreds of plays were subsequently produced by the threesome via the NEC, one of the most popular includes “A Soldier’s Play” by Charles Fuller, later made into the movie “A Soldier’s Story.”
Amidst deep governmental funding cuts to federal grant programs such as the National Endowment for the Arts, and fewer accessible venues for affordable live theatre, the Black Theatre as a vehicle for self-expression and political statement has had to take a back seat to the multi-million dollar music and movie industries. Even the 103-cinema-released “A Day without a Mexican” reportedly bore a cumulative gross of $554,434 during its second weekend, while merely placing fifteenth in the movie rankings for that week (May 21-23, 2004). Without researching, it can be presumed that “Day of Absence” faired short of the film’s total during its second weekend. Live theatre has traditionally never been able to compete with the movie box office, so a dollar per performance analysis proves unbeneficial. Because of its general lack of control by singularly-motivated mainstream promoters and distributors, benefits of live theatre (Broadway excepted) is afforded more room to truly communicate the author’s intended message in perhaps a more controversial fashion. Perhaps the authors of “A Day without a Mexican” were able to achieve this. But this must be put into context. Society’s reception of the screenwriters’ efforts today meets an audience which has evolved after having lived through the satires of such playwrights as Douglas Turner Ward, his predecessors and other American experiences and phenomena.
Can Black Theatre regain its place as, what some saw as, a trendsetter and political and social movement agitator? Although laudable local community theatres and a few of the major Black theatres remain in full operation today, it is difficult to conceive of another Black Theatre movement that would give birth to such a political and social vehicle as the currently-practiced day of absence, Black Solidarity Day and its progeny. Perhaps some would say that today’s vehicles may be found in rap music, possibly in the work of artists like Mos Def (certainly a vehicle that stands to reach a larger audience and with greater speed). But performing artists and theatre-goers will almost always tell you that there is nothing like the live theatre. Even Mos Def has put in his dues on stage, while playing Booth in Suzan Lori-Park’s play, Topdog/Underdog on Broadway last year (to say nothing of Sean “Puffy” Combs’ stab at Walter Lee Younger in the new “Raisin in the Sun” Broadway production this year).
Black Theatre can and should not be forgotten. With governmental bodies cutting back on or altogether obliterating arts programs in schools and on college campuses, it remains incumbent upon parents and student and community organizations to affirmatively take the time to incorporate the rich history of Black Theatre into our lives, not only for the youth’s sake, but for our sake as well. Such practice will give new voice to the works not only of August Wilson, Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones), ntozake shange, and Lorraine Hansberry, but to such playwrights as Micki Grant, Alice Childress, P.J. Gibson, Charles Fuller, Lonne Elder III and Paul Carter Harrison, as well. This reflection will assuredly inspire new playwrights to the medium. Woody King, playwright, director, producer and founder of New Federal Theatre demanded in 1986 in Black Drama Anthology, that “Black playwrights must now reach back to their African roots and define these times.” Almost twenty years later, we should now demand that we must reach back into our pockets, bank accounts, date books and palm pilots and exert efforts to read, stage and mount these timeless works.
The Black Theatre cannon serves as our present day griot, storyteller, keeper of the culture and connector to the past. This past informs the present, which necessarily prepares us, culturally, spiritually and politically for tomorrow.
Copyright 2004 by Demetria McCain
dmccain13@aol.com
The author formerly worked for the Negro Ensemble Company and New Federal Theatre during the early 1990s, holds degrees in Theatre and membership in the Actors’ Equity Association, and is a public interest attorney living in Oakland, CA.
A DAY WITHOUT MISREPRESENTATION: http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/clyne200409170630.asp
RELATER REFERENCES:
DAY OF ABSENCE, ONE ACT PLAY (1965) EXCERPTS
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DAY OF ABSENCE
- Opened at the St. Marks Playhouse on November 15, 1965 with Happy Ending
- Day of Absence: A Satirical Fantasy is an expressionistic situation satire
– performed on a bare stage as “a reverse minstrel show” with blacks in whiteface and blond wigs
– the announcer was white and Rastus was “a Negro thespian in pure native black”
– the black cast gives searing impersonations of Southern white stereotypes
- Ward points up the interdependence of the races in the South; the play contains a rich share of social commentary
– implicates the nation as a whole
– bitterly satirizes the South’s refusal to see the Negro as a dignified human being
– suggests that some whites were blacks who were “infiltrating”
– uses scathing satire in the interviews of the town’s “respected” whites
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THE DISAPPEARANCE
New York Times Book Review :
Book Description
Ann
Hello.
I am searching for a video of Douglas Turner Ward’s DAY OF ABSENCE. Does such a thing exist?
Thank you.
Howard Berkowitz
MODERATOR: I searched for videos of “Absence” at the time of my post, most specifically the one shown on broadcast television in or around the late 1960s, but with no luck. Hope springs eternal that I may luck up on it.