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Samuel A. Hay. African American Theatre: A Historical and Critical Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994. 272 pp. S18.95.
Reviewed by
Rena Fraden Pomona College
African Amencan Review, Volume 30, Number 3 1996 Rena Fraden
African American Theatre: A Historical and Critical Analysis by Samuel A. Hay is not quite what you might expect from its title; it is more (and less). First of all, it is not a year-to-year, cause-and-effect chronicle, nor is it a close reading of the canonical milestones of a tradition. Instead, this is a visionary and revisionary reading of African American theatre history, and something of a jeremiad. What drives Hay is a commitment "to improve prospects for the further long-term health of the theatre" (1). The health of African American theatre is ailing, Hay tells us, badly-and one could easily include in this diagnosis all kinds of theatres in America. Audiences fall way below 50 percent capacity; organizations' grants are cut, and with no adequate endowment or community support, all too often, they fold. "Theatres," Hay writes, "now are on their deathbeds. . . because there are too few young people willing to brave the uncertainty of the theatre profession and the racial prejudice in the preparation" (2). With cuts from grants and little in the way of endowments, theatres cannot advertise, and audiences consequently become even smaller. This book aims to give a "pep talk to the young and the tired. They must be made aware that historically the major contributions to African American theatre have come from people whose backs have been spiked to the wall. Their stories might be just the medicine needed to improve even the management of theatre organizations" (2). That's the premise: that the celebration of African American theatre can cure the ailing institution and that better trained critics and a better funded theatre will lure back the audiences and entice young people to become engaged thespians.
Hay opens and doses with the story of William Brown's management of the African Grove Theatre in New York City between 1816 and 1823, a troubling and compelling parable of African American and American theatre history. Brown was the first successful manager/director of an African American theater. So successful was he in bringing both blacks and whites...