Introduction: the first presentation of the play and the audience’s reactions2. Reasons for its success2.1. The complexity of themes2.1.1. The representation of the situation of the blacks in the 1960s2.1.2. The representation of gender and class issues2.2. Its revolutionary character2.3.

1. Amiri Baraka The Dutchman Film

The appeal to a new black consciousness2.4. The appeal to the society on the whole2.5.

The effect of authenticity2.6. The autobiographical line2.7. Its symbolism3. Summary and conclusion4.

Introduction: the first presentation of the play and the audience’s reactionsDutchman was first presented at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York in 1964. As the best Off-Broadway Play it gained an Obie-Award the same year 1 and was made into a film in 1967 which made it widely known. 2 Later, Dutchman was internationally successful because of being produced and performed in other metropolises like Paris, Berlin and Spoleto (Italy).

Being Baraka’s most widely acclaimed play, which is often regarded as his break through and the break through of African American theatre, it convinces up to now and gives occasion for discussions about its intentions and its historical background. It is titled as a triumph of stagecraft, a model two-acter whose economy and handling of pace and denouement were not to be doubted. 3Although the play was generally well received 4, it provoked critical controversy amongst its audience as well 5. Dutchman was performed for a dual audience. Initially, it played to primarily white audiences until Baraka moved it to the black audiences of Harlem 6.

For both, it was something new: The white audience was confronted with a new type of black man because up to now they had just known the nigger minstrel who was harmless and acceptable to them because he was de-sexed, trapped in a role which combined self-mockery with an endearing musicality 7. The Negro is not presented as a primitive African savage 8 anymore. For the black people, precisely for the black non-reading audiences of the lower classes, it was the first time to be confronted with theatre.

As differently these two audiences may read the play as differently are their interpretations, criticism and attitudes toward the play. Dutchman had been praised and refused at the same time.

Above all it incited indignation because of being interpreted as a white-hating play (Bigsby: 375) with its radical language and its racist attitude against white people. Beyond that it broke the habitual theatre form and presented a two act play far from following the rules of conventional theatre plays.Now, the question is what it made that successful that it was not only performed in Harlem’s streets in front of a black audience which the play mainly aimed at with its intention, but even internationally for black and white people altogether although it provoked such divergent reactions. Why did it even have the possibility to be performed in front of such a dual audience, that means two opposing social groups, in a time of white racism against blacks? To answer these questions several aspects have to be considered. They concern Dutchman ’s relation to the historical period of the 1960s in the US, its character as a theatre play, more precisely the examination of its form and language, and its intentions for the black and white world and for society in general.

This paper will put up thesis about the reasons of Dutchman ’s success which are to be proved. Reasons for its success 2.1. The complexity of themesWhen Baraka moved his play Dutchman to Harlem it was quickly labelled as a white-hating play. The interpretation of a black racism against white people is just one, maybe even wrong aspect. Dutchman is thematically working on several fields at the same time which can be attributed to the fact that it was written in Baraka’s transitional time in which he himself was in search for an orientation in the American society but I will come back to that later. The play is concerned with a variety of social issues (MacNicholas: S. 51): racial betrayal 9, anti racist sentiments and black consciousness-raising combined with gender and class themes.

Further on, it is about American history (Bloom: 89) and it describes Baraka’s own autobiography (Bigsby: 397) in which he asks the general question of personal identity and the nature of the relationship between the self and society (Bigsby: 375). All these themes are embodied by only two characters, Clay and Lula, who therefore have racial, social and sexual roles in one plot (Bigsby: 399) which leaves his work open to ambiguity (Bigsby: 402).The following parts will now try to examine each of these issues in detail.

Amiri Baraka The Dutchman Film

The representation of the situation of the blacks in the 1960sThe first intention which Dutchman expresses is being an evidence of the period. It describes the unambiguous reality of the situation of the American blacks in the 1960s and gives an impression of the American history and politics of that time. Racism as the previous condition was a living death (Berkowitz: 146), so black people were faced with two alternatives, assimilation or revolt 10. They had to find new identities (Berkowitz: 146).

Dutchman presents Clay who has chosen the first one and who therefore denies his origin. He takes the white world as a model which is expressed by his appearance, language (his mastery of language gives him access to the white world (Bigsby: 397)) and behaviour like numerous other young black people did it.

Lula is the one who proves this by saying: “Is Warren Enright a tall skinny black boy with a phony English accent?” 11, or “I told you I didn’t know anything about you you’re a well-known type.” (Jones: 12). Later, she guesses his name and proposes typical black names: “ Gerald or Walter Lloyd, Norman? One of those hopeless colored names creeping out of New Jersey. Leonard?” (Jones: 15).

These examples show how blacks adapt themselves to the white society and how they deliver their own individuality. When Lula says “ I bet you never once thought you were a black nigger.” (Jones: 19), it comments on the status which blacks had in America in the 1960s 12: they made themselves invisible by ignoring their African origin and took on the protective colour and language of white middle-class America 13 which they saw as a disguise because they could not identify with it. Consequently, they lost their orientation and found neither their old ways nor the imitation of white behaviour fully satisfactory 14.The text of Dutchman can be seen as a representation of the black situation. Several evidences represent Lula as the white class dominating the black one. She forces him to assimilation which is expressed by giving him the symbolic sinful apple with which he accepts her discriminating attitudes and denies himself. Regarding the whole dialogue, Lula’s dominance is unmistakable when she dictates Clay what to do and when he cannot do anything but asking questions.

In a wider sense, Lula as the white woman dictates Clay white values and norms which he believes to have to assume. In scene two, when Lula describes a fictive evening together with Clay at and after a party, Clay again asks questions about how the evening might go on. Symbolically, he allows her to decide about his life because he is not able to manage his life beyond his ideas because he always has been living under white “control”. In his submissiveness he renounces to use his own power against the white group because that would be his own disaster. Here we see the contrast between white liberalism and the vulnerability of black integration 15.Dutchman is a mirror which shows the black reaction to white racism: assimilation. By means of Clay as a black stereotype, he play shows the inner feelings, especially anger, of an entire black group oppressed by the white one which is in search for their identification. Like Baraka said, “Dutchman is about the difficulty of becoming a man in America.” (MacNicholas: 53).1 Knaak, Alexander: Things have come to that.

2 Schlueter, Paul/ Schlueter, June: Modern American Literature. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1985.3 Bloom, Clive (ed.): American Drama. London: Macmillian Press CDD, 1995.4 MacNicholas, John (ed.): Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol 7: Twentieth Century American Dramatists Part 1: A – J. Detroit/ Michigan: Gale Research Company, 1981, p.

51.5 Wilmeth, Don B./ Miller, Tice L. (ed.): Cambridge Guide to American Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p.

59.6 Amiri Baraka. Www.enotes.com 7 Bigsby, C.W.E.: A Critical Introduction To Twentieth-Century American Drama. Volume Three Beyond Broadway. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, p. 375.8 Boan, Devon: The Black „I“. Author and Audience in African American Literature. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2002, p.

34.9 McMichael, George: Anthology of American Literature. II – Realism to the Present. New York: Macmillian Publishing Company, 1980, p.

1895.10 Clay, Richard: Three Negro Plays. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1969, p. 13.11 Jones, LeRoi: Dutchman and The Slave.

New York: William Morrow and Company, 1964, p. 10.12 Mr Africa: Amiri Baraka. 13 Bigsby, C.W.E.: Modern American Drama 1945 – 1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 280.14 Berkowitz, Gerald M.: American Drama of the Twentieth Century. London: Longman, 1992, p. 146.15 DLB 38, p.

Abstract This article explores how the notion of black masculinity embodied by Clay in Amiri Baraka's important play, Dutchman, only surfaces in relation to the complicated picture of femininity Baraka stages in the figure of Lula. Lula's characterization allows her to embody white femininity, and through a form of 'blackface' minstrelsy, to mimic the same black masculinity Baraka was after in Clay's final, angry monologue. By tracing how race and gender categories circulate in Lula's minstrel performance, however, the defining trait of Baraka's new Dutchman of the 1960s emerges-namely, his endless desire for punishment, his unyielding self-'flaying.' By putting pressure on the scope of Lula's complex performance, this article also reveals how Lula's own masochistic white femininity forecloses the same sexual liberty and agency she achieved when she metaphorically 'blacked up.' In this way, Baraka's ironic treatment of Lula and Clay's intricate, interrelated power plays in the end not only illustrates the self-destructive tragedy of black nationalist masculintiy, but also underscores the way white femininity's trafficking in this currency of blackness as a method of empowerment is doomed, like the Dutchman Lula emulates, to suffer endlessly the scene of her own debilitation.

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View freely available titles: OR.Author by: LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) Language: en Publisher by: Akashic Books Format Available: PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read: 26 Total Download: 569 File Size: 51,9 Mb Description: 'Jones has learned—and this has been very rare in jazz criticism—to write about music as an artist.' —Nat Hentoff ks Black Music is a book about the brilliant young jazz musicians of the early 1960s: John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, and others. It is composed of essays, reviews, interviews, liner notes, musical analyses, and personal impressions from 1959–1967.

Also includes Amiri Baraka's reflections in a 2009 interview with Calvin Reid of Publishers Weekly. LeRoi Jones (now known as Amiri Baraka) is the author of numerous books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. He was named Poet Laureate of New Jersey from 2002 to 2004 by the New Jersey Commission on Humanities.1 Dutchman (1964) by Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka) A Modern Myth of Assimilation Dream Deferred What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat?.

Or crust and sugar over- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.His most recent book, Tales of the Out & the Gone (Akashic Books, 2007), was a New York Times Editors' Choice and winner of a PEN/Beyond Margins Award. He lives in Newark, New Jersey. Author by: Amiri Baraka Language: en Publisher by: Univ of California Press Format Available: PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read: 57 Total Download: 603 File Size: 42,9 Mb Description: 'As a commentator on American music, and African American music in particular, Baraka occupies a unique niche.His intelligence, critical sense, passion, strong political stances, involvement with musicians and in the musical world, as well as in his community, give his work a quality unlike any other. As a reviewer and as someone inside the movement, he writes powerfully about music as few others can or do.' Isoardi, author of Central Avenue Sounds: Jazz in Los Angeles 'Every jazz musician who has endured beyond changing fashions and warring cultures has had a signature sound. Amiri Baraka—from the very beginning of his challenging, fiery presence on the jazz scene—has brought probing light, between his off-putting thunderclaps, on what is indeed America's classical music.

I sometimes disagree insistently with Amiri, and it's mutual; but when he gets past his parochial pyrotechnics, as in choruses in this book, he brings you into the life force of this music.' —Nat Hentoff, author of The Jazz Life.Author by: LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) Language: en Publisher by: Akashic Books Format Available: PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read: 22 Total Download: 430 File Size: 50,7 Mb Description: 'We owe profound thanks to Akashic Books for reissuing this important collection of Amiri Baraka's short stories. Baraka was, without question, the central figure of the Black Arts Movement, and was the most important theorist of that movement's expression of the 'Black Aesthetic,' which took hold of the African American cultural imagination in earnest in the late sixties. While known primarily for his plays, poems, and criticism of black music, Baraka was also a master of the short story form, as this collection attests.Tales first appeared in 1967 and is an impressionistic and sometimes surrealistic collection of short fiction, showcasing Amiri Baraka's great impact on African American literature of the 1950s and 1960s. Tales is a critical volume in Amiri Baraka's oeuvre, and an important testament to his remarkable literary legacy.' -Henry Louis Gates, Jr. 'A clutch of early stories from the poet, playwright, and provocateur, infused with jazz and informed by racial alienation.Worth reading to see the way Baraka feverishly tinkered with ways to explore a multiplicity of black experiences.

An intense and button-pushing collection.' -Kirkus Reviews Praise for Amiri Baraka: 'Baraka's stories evoke a mood of revolutionary disorder, conjuring an alternative universe in which a dangerous African-American underground, or a dangerous literary underground still exists.

Baraka is at his best as a lyrical prophet of despair who transfigures his contentious racial and political views into a transcendent, 'outtelligent' clarity.' -New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice) on Tales of the Out & the Gone The sixteen artful and nuanced stories in this reissue of Amiri Baraka's seminal 1967 collection fall into two parts: the first nine concern themselves with the sensibility of a hip, perceptive young black man in white America.The last seven stories endeavor to place that same man within the context of his awareness of and participation in a rapidly emerging and powerfully felt negritude. They deal, it might be said, with the black man in black America. Yet these tales are not social tracts, but absolutely masterful fiction-provocative, witty, and, at times, bitter and aggressive.Author by: Komozi Woodard Language: en Publisher by: Univ of North Carolina Press Format Available: PDF, ePub, Mobi Total Read: 66 Total Download: 832 File Size: 54,8 Mb Description: Poet and playwright Amiri Baraka is best known as one of the African American writers who helped ignite the Black Arts Movement. This book examines Baraka's cultural approach to Black Power politics and explores his role in the phenomenal spread of black nationalism in the urban centers of late-twentieth-century America, including his part in the election of black public officials, his leadership in the Modern Black Convention Movement, and his work in housing and community development. Komozi Woodard traces Baraka's transformation from poet to political activist, as the rise of the Black Arts Movement pulled him from political obscurity in the Beat circles of Greenwich Village, swept him into the center of the Black Power Movement, and ultimately propelled him into the ranks of black national political leadership.

Moving outward from Baraka's personal story, Woodard illuminates the dynamics and remarkable rise of black cultural nationalism with an eye toward the movement's broader context, including the impact of black migrations on urban ethos, the importance of increasing population concentrations of African Americans in the cities, and the effect of the 1965 Voting Rights Act on the nature of black political mobilization.