- The Octoroon; or, Life in Louisiana by Dion Boucicault premiered in New York City on December 6, 1859. The title refers to a person who is one-eighth black. The Octoroon was a controversial play when it debuted, given its focus on slavery when the pre-Civil War United States was engaged in a heated debate over the institution.
- Synopsis: 'An Octoroon' is a play about a play. A modern-day Black playwright is struggling to find his voice among a chorus of people telling him what he should and should not be writing.
What you gonna do once you free? You just gonna walk up in somebody house and be like, “Hey. I’m a slave. Help me?”
Quite the same Wikipedia. The Octoroon; or, Life in Louisiana by Dion Boucicault premiered in New York City on December 6, 1859. The title refers to a person who is one-eighth black. The Octoroon was a controversial play when it debuted, given its focus on slavery when the pre-Civil War United States was engaged in a heated debate over the institution. AN OCTOROON Time Out New York Despite the moments of palpable fear and disquiet, the audience leaves feeling somehow healthier, as though the theater has given us a violent shake and a pep talka tremendously exciting production, moving and chilling and surprising at once.
1859: A famous Irishman writes a play about America. It’s a huge hit!
2014: An American tries to write his own version. Does anyone still care?
A world-premiere, old-fashioned, meta-melodrama with Humor! Feelings! Live Music! Wigs! Sensation Scenes! Slave Auctions! Exploding Steamboats! Photography! And More!
Judge Peyton is dead, and his plantation Terrebonne is in financial ruins. Peyton’s handsome nephew George arrives as heir apparent, and quickly falls in love with Zoe, a beautiful “octoroon.” But, the evil overseer M’Closky has other plans — for both Terrebonne and Zoe.
Featuring Shyko Amos, Jocelyn Bioh, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Amber Gray, Ben Horner, Chris Myers, ZoëWinters, and Danny Wolohan.
Composer and Music Director: César Alvarez, Choreography by David Neumann, Set Design by Mimi Lien, Lighting Design by Matt Frey, Sound Design by Matt Tierney, Costume Design by Wade Laboissonniere, Wig and Makeup Design by Cookie Jordan, Projection Design by Jeff Sugg, Fight Choreography by J. David Brimmer, Props by Noah Mease, Cellist: Lester St. Louis, Illustration by Bee, Production Stage Manager: Amanda Spooner, Assistant Stage Manager: Rachel Gross, Producer: Elizabeth Moreau, Production Manager: Joshua Kohler, Casting: Jack Doulin, C.S.A.
An Octoroon
Funding for this production is provided, in part, by the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation.
An Octoroon Tickets
99-cent Sunday tickets for AN OCTOROON will be offered on April 27 and May 11. Tickets will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis one-hour prior to each performance. 99-Cent Sundays for AN OCTOROON are sponsored by Jody Falco & Jeffrey Steinman and Theatermania.
An Octoroon Awards
As both the most recent text of the course as well as our last, I think Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s “An Octoroon” points to the complex hope of a world in which black artists can create works which are separate from the recycling of previous black narratives in America. His prologue perfectly shows how Jacobs-Jenkins feels trapped by his works being put into a different box because he is a “black playwright” although he “[doesn’t] know exactly what that means,” and he just wants to create works to tell human stories, not necessarily always dealing with the race issue in America. His aggression that people always try to place these bigger cultural burdens, such as the adaptation of African folklore when he merely uses animals to illustrate his own point, shows that he wants for his work to speak for itself and not be as tied down to one specific meaning.
This wish to use preexisting material to simultaneously move past these experiences because of the multiple levels of the play’s presentation and humor. Most notably with its racially swapped casting, Jacobs-Jenkins uses this practice as a means to show that race is somewhat arbitrary and a social construct. This point goes all the way back to our early readings of Gilroy and theory, so Jacobs-Jenkins uses these well known texts as his foundation for “An Octoroon,” while also moving drastically past these notions. Even the title shows this sense of exhaustion with the abundance of the race question and critics viewing his work through a racial lens. Moving from “The Octoroon” to “An,” Jenkins suggests that despite the incredibly modern and subversive elements which Jacobs-Jenkins adds to Boucicault’s original, this is just another play and that the novelty of racial mixing has worn off and become common now. His use of humor during the play most clearly shows Jacobs-Jenkins’s belief that there is now enough time passed between the days of “The Octoroon” and his own time that not only can he adapt and deconstruct the themes of the original play and its context, he can laugh at it. Although this concept for a play sounds controversial on paper, I don’t think that he explicitly makes these changes just to make an audience for his work because of mere curiosity. Jacobs-Jenkins has clearly done his research, and makes a hard case for the reader that we still have to talk in certain ways about certain topics. The fact that has the audience laughs at slavery and BJJ even encourages that laughter shows his belief that not only can these experiences can be joked about, they can also stop overshadowing African-American art to allow new black artistic forms to come into being.
An Octoroon Soho Rep
Looking back over the semester, I thought it was only fitting to end on “An Octoroon.” Not only does it apply multiple themes from across the class, even going all the way back to January, but it brings all this history together to put his own spin on it, making parts of the play nearly incomprehensible without the proper context of these older texts and plays.