The "self" splinters into many "selves" for Sarah, a young black woman in New York in Adrienne Kennedy's play "Funnyhouse of a Negro," first performed in 1964. Now, in a frightening and acidly funny Sock and Buskin production, "Funnyhouse" compels its audience to consider the experience of Sarah within the context of broad institutional and internal forces that each of us, regardless of race or gender, are forced to confront.
Dancing, shouting, singing and shaking, these fractured components of Sarah's "self" - most introduced before she ever walks on stage - become her fellow storytellers in a multi-generational narrative recounted in poetry.
The play opens with a short video examining attitudes toward race, comparing the era in which Kennedy's play was first performed to the present. The video documents an experiment in which young black children are given a choice of a black baby doll and a white one. An interviewer asks them which doll they would rather play with. Most of the children choose the white doll, associating it with the words "good" and "nice" and the black doll with the word "bad." The film sets the tone for the play, in which the issue of race is fundamental and something society has yet to deal with.
In Kennedy's play, Sarah, played by Erin Adams '09, is plagued by her family history as well as by societal conceptions of blackness. She is obsessed with the union between her mother, a light-skinned black woman - played by both Jaime Rosenstein '10 and Jamie Lynn Harris '11 - and her father, a dark-skinned black man (Jonathan Dent '09). Their troubled relationship touches on themes of rape, suicide, madness and the black body. Sarah wears these burdens physically in the first part of the production as a noose wrapped around her upper body.
Taking place completely in "Sarah's Funnyhouse, where her selves reside," as the script puts it, the play creates a world that neither Sarah nor the audience can escape. The nonlinear structure of the play, though sometimes confusing and difficult to follow, artfully expresses the tensions Sarah feels in creating and accepting her identity.
At the same time, the "selves" that form this identity - including the figures of her parents - function mostly as tormentors. Her white landladies, played by Hannah Lennett '11, Alicia Coneys '09 and Jessica Laser '08.5, lurk about whispering to each other and scorning her isolationist habits and her unfortunate situation as a student and writer living alone in New York. A young, laid-back guitar player, Raymond (John Racioppo '11), provides a sharp contrast to these harpies. Surreal characters with names like Patrice Lumumba (Clarence Demesier '11 and Dent), the Duchess of Hapsburg (Lauren Neal '11), Queen Victoria (Fedna Jacquet '10), Jesus (Nick White '10) and the Funnyman (Sam Yambrovich '11) complete the circus of Sarah's funnyhouse. Wearing exaggerated clown makeup, they mirror society and mock Sarah's imitation of white traits and behaviors.
Assistant Dramaturges Kristin Jordan '09 and Bradley Toney '10 led a talk-back after Sunday's performance, commenting on the play's approach to racism - from the motif of hair as an indicator of "blackness" to Sarah's negotiations with her past and her pain.
"Funnyhouse of a Negro" runs through Oct. 5 in Leeds Theater.
