Images from www.almeida.co.uk
After I saw this play, I realised that my opinions from a previous post (Origins and Where We’re From) might actually be flawed. Theodore Ward’s Big White Fog, directed by Michael Attenborough, no less, has had a grand welcome from the literary circuit. It was discovered quite recently to have been written before A Raisin in the Sun, which until now was known as the first Afro-American mainstream play. Basically, it covers the experiences of the Mason family, when Vic the father ties up his family’s life savings in Marcus Garvey’s shipping line which never materialised. He ended up losing the money, his children dropped out of school, and his daughter began to play pay-per-touch with her body to help her mother take care of the younger siblings. Of course the very same father turned round and called her a whore, complained to his wife that she should fix the kid’s leaking shoes etc, conveniently forgetting that it was his royal highness who kicked them to the bottom of the poverty line in the first place.
The subtext and the inter-family relations outdoored all the most pertinent issues of the time: Black on Black attitudes that came with different shades of lightness of darkness, the political climate, etc. But what made me think the most were Vic and Dan’s opposing views which related directly to my post. Vic was following Garvey and trying to claim Africa for the Africans. He got promoted to something like Overseer of the Grounds and Goats, ahead of their planned return to Africa. Dan, however, declared that he was American because he was born there. In a nutshell, Big Whit Fog dramaised the conflict between The American Dream and the Back to Africa schools of thought, and how the different ideologies affected the Mason family during the Depression.
By the end of the play, I had moved from siding with Vic to siding with Dan, at least somewhat. Dan thought that The Garvey idea was just another way of perpetrating segregation, and a hoax. I now agree that from-ness is not always absolutely about where your parents are from, but a combination of factors. And so I stand corrected. It was silly for Vic to assume that he would automatically be a land baron in Africa, and silly, I think, for the Garvey squad to bestow such an honour on him; it wasn’t their place. It betrayed a condescending attitude towards the people who were already living there – why would Vic and his superiors assume that those who had been in Africa always and never left would gladly step aside and relinquish agricultural control of their land to strangers? The notion also irked me because it took the quintessential standpoint of Africa as a table top that many ignorant people tend to adopt. Did Garvey know how large Africa was? Did he know that there are way over 15000 different cultures rooted there? Did he know that he wasn’t the only one with his eye on the prize, and that it wouldn’t be so easy to just waltz in?
I am not yet a Garvey scholar, so forgive me if my rants are off the mark, and I will go away and do some reading; but these were the issues thrown up by the play (which I have on trusted authority) as being quite historically accurate. Nevertheless, Dan turned out to be right, and there was a huge cathartic situation at the end, where Vic got shot (served him right; I liked him, but it was poetic for him to die), and his son Les, and his other friends resisted eviction by the Mayor’s cohorts.
The only factor that I found slightly chilling, was that the last scene seemed like a thinly veiled attempt to endorse socialism. I mean, come on! But I won’t get into that today; my opinions on socialism etc tend to degenerate very fast into expletives, and this is neither the time or the place, so I shall spare you the aggro.
That said, it was possibly the best bit of theatre I’ve seen so far. The set was the work of a brainchild. It felt like we were sitting in someone’s living room, eavesdropping on their conversations. Without any gushing or histrionics, I’d encourage everyone to go and see it. Believe it or not, there are some hugely comic scenes in there, what with the snide old grandmother and her pearls of wisdom.
Big White Fog shows at the Almeida Theatre until 30th June, 2007.
Tickets from £6 - £29.50
http://www.almeida.co.uk/
The subtext and the inter-family relations outdoored all the most pertinent issues of the time: Black on Black attitudes that came with different shades of lightness of darkness, the political climate, etc. But what made me think the most were Vic and Dan’s opposing views which related directly to my post. Vic was following Garvey and trying to claim Africa for the Africans. He got promoted to something like Overseer of the Grounds and Goats, ahead of their planned return to Africa. Dan, however, declared that he was American because he was born there. In a nutshell, Big Whit Fog dramaised the conflict between The American Dream and the Back to Africa schools of thought, and how the different ideologies affected the Mason family during the Depression.
By the end of the play, I had moved from siding with Vic to siding with Dan, at least somewhat. Dan thought that The Garvey idea was just another way of perpetrating segregation, and a hoax. I now agree that from-ness is not always absolutely about where your parents are from, but a combination of factors. And so I stand corrected. It was silly for Vic to assume that he would automatically be a land baron in Africa, and silly, I think, for the Garvey squad to bestow such an honour on him; it wasn’t their place. It betrayed a condescending attitude towards the people who were already living there – why would Vic and his superiors assume that those who had been in Africa always and never left would gladly step aside and relinquish agricultural control of their land to strangers? The notion also irked me because it took the quintessential standpoint of Africa as a table top that many ignorant people tend to adopt. Did Garvey know how large Africa was? Did he know that there are way over 15000 different cultures rooted there? Did he know that he wasn’t the only one with his eye on the prize, and that it wouldn’t be so easy to just waltz in?
I am not yet a Garvey scholar, so forgive me if my rants are off the mark, and I will go away and do some reading; but these were the issues thrown up by the play (which I have on trusted authority) as being quite historically accurate. Nevertheless, Dan turned out to be right, and there was a huge cathartic situation at the end, where Vic got shot (served him right; I liked him, but it was poetic for him to die), and his son Les, and his other friends resisted eviction by the Mayor’s cohorts.
The only factor that I found slightly chilling, was that the last scene seemed like a thinly veiled attempt to endorse socialism. I mean, come on! But I won’t get into that today; my opinions on socialism etc tend to degenerate very fast into expletives, and this is neither the time or the place, so I shall spare you the aggro.
That said, it was possibly the best bit of theatre I’ve seen so far. The set was the work of a brainchild. It felt like we were sitting in someone’s living room, eavesdropping on their conversations. Without any gushing or histrionics, I’d encourage everyone to go and see it. Believe it or not, there are some hugely comic scenes in there, what with the snide old grandmother and her pearls of wisdom.
Big White Fog shows at the Almeida Theatre until 30th June, 2007.
Tickets from £6 - £29.50
http://www.almeida.co.uk/
2 comments:
I wish I could go see this play. I'll look it up and see what I can find. Thanks for the heads up.
Please blog on socialism...please please please (rubbing hands together in fiendish glee).
You shd definately see it if you can, it's amazing. It's a very complete and sophisticated piece of drama on all levels. I know you'd enjoy it. And as for socialism, lol. I'm waiting for an angle. for something communist to piss me off and then the bows of my disdain will break, and you'll have a post!!
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