Mulatto (play)

Mulatto: A Tragedy of the Deep South is a play about race issues by Langston Hughes. It was produced on Broadway in 1935 by Martin Jones,^[1] where it ran for 11 months and 373 performances.^[2] It is one of the earliest Broadway plays to combine father-son conflict with race issues.^[3]

Plot

Act One On the Norwood Plantation in Polk County, Georgia, Colonel Norwood and his black slave, Cora Lewis, have four children together: William, who still lives on the plantation and who has a son of his own; two daughters, Bertha and Sallie, who are light enough to pass for white; and Robert, a.k.a. "Bert", who is 18 and who has Norwood's facial features. Robert has been away at an all-black school since he was a young boy and is visiting the plantation for the first time in many years. In Act One we learn that Robert has been refusing to follow all the expected behaviors for black people and has been asserting himself as Norwood's heir, much to the shock of the local townspeople and to Norwood's anger. Cora, meanwhile, is revealed to have secretly sent her daughters to secretarial school, so that they can move up north and have good jobs, but has been telling the Colonel that they are learning to be cooks.

Act Two

• Scene 1:
• Scene 2:

Characters

• Colonel Thomas Norwood: originally played by Stuart Beebe.^[2] Norwood is 60 years old. He has a quick temper. He Is a commanding colonel. His wife is dead so he took up Cora as a lover and fathered 4 of the mulatto children, but he refuses to acknowledge them as his own, even though he allows them to go to school. He is also Cora's boss. Cora's mother helped raise him. He cares greatly about what people think of him.
• Cora Lewis: originally played by Rose McClendon. She is Norwood's mistress. Cora met Norwood when she was 15, which is when they first had sexual relations. Her relationship with Norwood is encouraged by her mother on the grounds that her life would be better with him than if she stayed in the fields. She lives with him separate to the other slaves. She has four children with him. She did not move into the house until Norwood's wife died, at that point she was carrying their first child William. She knows her "place" in this hostile and racist world and cares for her family's survival over everything. She even risks her safety for the salvation of her children by sending them off to school. By the end of the play, she has become more defiant against the white people, refusing to answer Talbot.
• William Lewis: originally played by Morris McKenney
• Sallie Lewis: originally played by Jeanne Green
• Robert Lewis: originally played by Hurst Amyx. Robert is the youngest son of Cora, and he is rebellious. He stands up for his rights, doesn't want to bow down to the "whites," even though his mother asks him not to be rebellious because she wants him to be safe and alive. Robert is the only one who wants things to change, the rest just want to be safe. But, he says if they all stay quiet things, will never change.
• Fred Higgins: originally played by Frank Jaquet
• Sam: Sam is a servant that does everything he is told to do by Norwood. He is loyal to Norwood, and he will tell on anyone who does not obey Norwood's orders. Even though he is loyal to Norwood, he is relived from all his fear after he finds our Norwood is dead.
• Billy:
• Talbot: originally played by John Boyd. He is the overseer of the slaves that work on Norwood's plantation. Always angry and wanting to punish the slaves for the most minuscule mistakes.
• Mose:
• Storekeeper: originally played by Clark Poth
• Undertaker: originally played by Howard Negley. The undertakers job was to remove the body. He likes to drink, Yells for Cora to get liquor she doesn't because she doesn't work for him. He is A man who is probably white due to the way he treats Cora.
• Undertaker's Helper:
• Mob

Reception

Historian Joseph McLaren notes that the play was popular with audiences because they were intrigued by the tragic mulatto theme.^[1] Critics, however, were more negative, perhaps in part because director/producer Martin Jones altered much of the plot, moving the play away from tragedy and into melodrama.^[1] Melinda D. Wilson notes that Jones's addition of a rape scene may have helped sell tickets, but also may have reinforced stereotypes of violent and promiscuous blacks—the kinds of stereotypes that black writers of the time were trying to stamp out.^[3]

Literary scholar Germain J. Bienvenu argues that the play also examines the ways black people of the time held prejudices against other blacks.^[4]

References