ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ...

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Brown uses his strategy of having his puppets mock the author, as seen in My Man Friday, to challenge hegemonic themes in literature. The pair warns the audience that they should not trust writers, since they often lie. They claim that Rosalind, Juliet, Lysistrata, and Salome were all “done wrong” by their authors. (158) Thus, they implore the spectators to be “judicious till it hurts” and find out the true character of the individuals they witness (159). The specious premise that literary or dramatic characters have a life beyond the imaginations of their creators presses the spectator to consider not the injustice done to fictional persons, but the need for audiences to participate in the creation of art. Brown makes a nearly postmodern argument here, claiming that audiences have the responsibility to challenge the stereotypes and assumptions circulated by artists. The suggestion at its core is that associations between the morality of a fictional character and her race help produce associations between the idea of morality and the skin color of actual persons. This may be a naïve view of the contribution of art to society, but it is a notably progressive objection for 1930s American puppet theatre. The conclusion of the play shows how Brown’s artistic reversals, driven most likely by comic incongruity, led him to racially progressive images in his blackface plays. Brown rewrote Topsy to be the character who dies and ascends to heaven. He replaced the image of Little Eva ascending to Heaven to meet the white, bearded Saint Peter, with the image of Topsy ascending on black wings to meet a black Saint Peter. Uncle Tom’s Hebb’n incorporates the same minstrelsy-derived dialect stereotypes as Brown’s other plays, but challenges the foundation of those stereotypes more aggressively than its predecessors do. 173
Brown’s puppetry work is enigmatic. He adopts the categorical distinction established by McPharlin, by using local blackface characters in comic plays and incorporating into their speech the dialect exaggerations of minstrelsy. At the same time, he undercuts the lowbrow status of the local blackface puppet by representing it with more realistic images and adding direct challenges to the racial stereotypes and hierarchies of the 1930s. Where Bufano and Hastings adopted minstrel puppetry uncritically, Brown introduced critique. Where Bufano and Sarg segregated their artistic innovations to exotic blackface puppets, Brown applied his dramatic innovations to local blackface puppetry. In the following chapter, explorations in the great variety of nightclub, school, and community blackface puppetry will show how the circulating categorical distinction exerted considerable impact, but, similarly, did not bind puppeteers from individual interpretations of the blackface puppet’s essence. 174
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ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE
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THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF RACIALISM: BLA
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Dedication This dissertation is ded
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Table of Contents Dedication.......
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House and the Brooklyn Academy of M
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Bert O’States expands on the meth
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previous related performances, are
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“blackface” as counterfeit perf
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demands of this transcendent notion
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To manage such an investigation, th
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a celebration of superiority. 20 Th
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playbill, minstrel show script, con
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Lano fancies himself an advocate of
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of the African American race, and s
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in creating the first connection be
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In order to explain the interaction
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performance. 29 Marionette minstrel
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Nonetheless, it maintains the criss
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3), into more complex types. By the
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from the head and leg strings, can
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leased Queen’s Hall in Liverpool
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effectively capture the nonlinear p
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other puppet, is not slack and seem
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was already showing considerable ar
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The Marionettes in Performance The
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of an aged former slave who has esc
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The criminal acts and dishonesty de
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Antislavery songs in a marionette p
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e useful to compare the joke exchan
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the figure, once “folded up prepa
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eginning with a wide variety of mar
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Christy Minstrels, with their reper
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Walter E. Deaves Edwin Deaves, Walt
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some images of minstrel players (re
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Yet, one cannot easily reduce the s
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Daniel Meader Sometime after 1874,
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lackface makeup, rather than authen
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figure 12. His hair is slightly hig
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puppets for the last time, he may s
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The Meader Uncle Tom suggests the e
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Chapter III: David Lano The Essence
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lackface characters for ridicule; h
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doctor. Lano then depicts the black
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A colored quartet now sang. They we
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The Career of David Lano While thre
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Lano’s solo career. One of the la
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human oddities. Like many of its ki
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“continually transforms necessity
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David Lano’s Work Lano’s extant
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such as the kakunga of the Suku peo
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The clothes are a curious blend of
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the age of ten, he presented his ow
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Punch murdering the Servant. Lano c
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form by introducing sentimental mus
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creation on the basis of active mot
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divided between the “Sambo” and
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Though they share in the appercepti
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mild embarrassment on his use of Ji
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“The marionette can be anything o
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he [can] find them.” 147 Calthrop
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of the Moor, who is, though still m
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slanted and sharp, the nostrils are
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perhaps the beginning puppeteer, wh
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taken it from playwright Tsou Ku Ch
Page 129 and 130: figure, who dismisses his complaint
Page 131 and 132: Thus, the structure of the play pre
Page 133 and 134: Chapter V: The Majors The major pup
Page 135 and 136: Bedchamber.” 165 Sarg described:
Page 137 and 138: Critics and fellow puppeteers prais
Page 139 and 140: Sarg and Blackface Though Sarg neve
Page 141 and 142: “Skin me, Brer Fox,” sez Brer R
Page 143 and 144: possibilities of puppetry led him t
Page 145 and 146: was common with the so-called “To
Page 147 and 148: present his particular imaginations
Page 149 and 150: herself in need of independent econ
Page 151 and 152: The Essence of Puppetry for Sue Has
Page 153 and 154: the head to the right and left, to
Page 155 and 156: art,” and “a descendent of the
Page 157 and 158: puppeteers to avoid complicated and
Page 159 and 160: delicate verisimilitude for blackfa
Page 161 and 162: Remo Bufano: The Local Emcees the E
Page 163 and 164: Club’s stage (ca 1932) began with
Page 165 and 166: world culture, including a Medieval
Page 167 and 168: impressive aspects of elaborate, la
Page 169 and 170: capture the great variety of black
Page 171 and 172: tangled a Prime Minister marionette
Page 173 and 174: program continued with a pair of ne
Page 175 and 176: no good messin’ aroun’ wid whit
Page 177 and 178: By inaugurating the action with thi
Page 179: lackface stereotypes, but also mark
Page 183 and 184: (Marionette Minstrel Show), and Bru
Page 185 and 186: and personality for her/his creatio
Page 187 and 188: Paris’s semiotic choices introduc
Page 189 and 190: characters were common to the varie
Page 191 and 192: However, the essential realism of t
Page 193 and 194: A ninth grade Art Club in Oshkosh,
Page 195 and 196: the Royal Marionettes, with some re
Page 197 and 198: slips away with his clothes. The ti
Page 199 and 200: the same moment, Mumbo commented on
Page 201 and 202: Munger also introduced a range of a
Page 203 and 204: minstrelsy. They would also permit
Page 205 and 206: yo all arrested.” 249 In the same
Page 207 and 208: exclamation; “Oh, my lan’! Now
Page 209 and 210: Tom. Simon Legree was a puppet base
Page 211 and 212: event led to a full season of produ
Page 213 and 214: comic context of their puppet plays
Page 215 and 216: epresentations of blacks would cont
Page 217 and 218: impressive, and touted his enterpri
Page 219 and 220: clearly believes that some other pu
Page 221 and 222: of the play to connect with African
Page 223 and 224: its length (see figure 52). Finally
Page 225 and 226: O’Neill’s take on Henri Christo
Page 227 and 228: audiences, then goes on to suggest
Page 229 and 230: Chesse’s reading of Brutus was th
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meticulous artistic strokes then, c
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Many of the lost objects may have b
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sketches would be well-served by th
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The FTP production of Little Black
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transmitted to, and circulated with
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Conclusion: Phenomenology, Authenti
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the essence of less grotesque black
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used them in plays where puppets ce
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minstrelsy-derived Topsy, as genuin
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productions featuring blackface cha
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_. Race and Ethnic Relations. 3 rd
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Durham, Weldon B. ed. American Thea
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Hill, Errol. Shakespeare in Sable:
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Mahar, William J. Behind the Burnt
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Powell, Herbert Preston. The World'
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Spurling, Laurie. Phenomenology and
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