wooster group

this is my second festival as "visual and performing arts curator" with the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival (www.livearts-fringe.org), a really great, 16day, contempory arts festival that happens every september. in that capacity i play a role in selecting works as well as creating "context" for the presentation of that work.

i've been thinking a great deal about our upcoming presentation of the wooster group's "emperor jones" wondering how it can trigger necessary conversations about race in contemporary art and culture. since i haven't seen the work (i wasn't able to make the limited NYC run last year) and i didn't have any role in selecting, it seems a bit more challenging to question it. instead, as i do with all of our shows, i've been reading past reviews and basically everything i can get my hands on about the work.

and my answers for the question, "why" aren't satisfying. there's something about the notion of "blackface" as a theatrical device by a contemporary theatre company that makes me very uncomfortable. i'm still sorting out why. these are my initial questions that i hope will inspire conversation.

(1) For some the problem with blackface is that it perpetuates the archetypal stereotypes of black Americans. Some argue that blackface set a precedent for the presentation of black culture in America and around the world. Does the use of it today serve to continue these ideas? Does it hold the same meaning and cultural function as it once did or is there some other function.

(2) Since minstrelsy and blackface continue to be lucrative means or packaging, marketing and disseminating black culture, is the Wooster Group’s use of this device culturally insensitive? And is that okay? Who decides?

(3) Why is “blackface” an appropriate theatrical device for contemporary theater? What purpose does it serve? And does its use in Wooster Group’s Emperor Jones render the work, in essence, “for whites only?”

these questions spark others.