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Dutchman (2013)

Creator

Theatre Arts

Preview

Creation Date

2013

Description

Playwright: Amiri Baraka

Director: Jenni Passig

Set Design: Christopher Gadomski

Costume Design: Karen Eisenhour

Photographs/Program/Reviews: Available Here

Plot Synopsis

A powerful one-act drama,Dutchman brought immediate and lasting attention to poet Amiri Baraka. The play is a searing two-character confrontation that begins playfully but builds rapidly in suspense and symbolic resonance. Set on a New York subway train,Dutchman opens with a well-dressed, intellectual, young African American man named Clay absorbed in reading a magazine. He is interrupted by Lula; a flirtatious, beautiful white woman a bit older than he. As Lula suggestively slices and eats an apple, she and Clay tease each other with bantering talk that becomes more and more personal. She reveals little about herself, but Lula is clearly in control of the conversation and the situation as she perceptively and provokingly challenges Clay's middle-class self image. Lula is, in fact, a bit cruel. "What right do you have to be wearing a three-button suit and striped tie?" she asks. "Your grandfather was a slave, he didn't go to Harvard." Aware of his insecurities, Lula dares Clay to pretend "that you are free of your own history." -enotes