ZOE is declared a slave as well and is put up for sale. The plot focused on Zoe, a young woman who is an octoroon (i.e. Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street. If there is a The Octoroon SparkNotes, Shmoop guide, or Cliff Notes, you can find a link to each study guide below. "The Octoroon - Characters" eNotes Publishing In the American version, the tale ends tragically with Zoes suicide as she realizes that any future with George as man and wife could never be. With the judge's death, Zoe loses his protection, and her. 1 May 2023 . Mary Elizabeth Braddon. What ensues is an upside down, topsy-turvy world where race and morality are challenged and intensified. Through artfully constructed layers of sentimentality and aesthetic contrivance emerges one of the primary justifications for the enslavement of a whole group of human beings: the notion of one drop of black blood, the drop sinister, by which a light-skinned person could be consigned to a life of bondage. Summaries. The Octoroon auction scene The plantation and townsfolk attend the auction of Terrebonne and all of its slaves. Bachelor. He is a prominent figure in Victorian era drama and is said to belong to more than one national literature, Irish, English and the United States. The Octoroon The Octoroon Play Writers: Dion Boucicault Monologues Sorry! [24], The Canadian premiere of An Octoroon was produced by The Shaw Festival for its 2017 season. As indicated by the inscription on the base of the statue, she is instead an octoroonthat is, an exceptionally light-skinned person of mixed race, technically defined as one-eighth black and the rest white. In 1858, Picquet discovered that her mother was still alive and began corresponding with her and with Horton in regards to buying her Ramsey's freedom. [15] In his review for The New York Times, Ben Brantley called the play this decades most eloquent theatrical statement on race in America today.[16] The production transferred to Theatre for A New Audience's Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn and ran from February 14, 2015 to March 29, 2015. The Octoroon Gender Female Age Range Young Adult, Adult Role Size Lead Time & Place mid 1800's, louisiana, plantation terrebonne, mississippi river Tags southern southern accent romantic passionate innocent soft kind illegitimate child bastard beautiful suicidal gentle loving trapped mixed race Analysis Mixed-race, Southern Accent. Boucicault portrayed Wahnotee, and in his play Jacobs-Jenkins explores the connection between a person and their identity as artist. date the date you are citing the material. It is in this part of the narrative that Picquet is separated from Ramsey. To settle his debts, the creditors made Cook sell his slaves, so at thirteen, Picquet was separated from her mother, who was sold to Colonel Albert Clinton Horton of Wharton, while Picquet went to New Orleans with Mr. John Williams. After sparring with Scudder over their role in the Peytons downfall and offering Zoe the chance to be the mistress of her own plantation (she refuses), MClosky goes through the judges desk and finds Zoes free papers, realizing that due to the judges debts, Zoe, an Octoroon, is still a slave. There are also the two Sunnysides: Mr. Sunnyside and his daughter, Dora. Mattison resumed pastoral work in Watertown, New York in 1842 and then in Rome, New York in 1844. [12], An Octoroon premiered Off-Broadway at Soho Rep on April 23, 2014 and closed on June 8. Return to North American Slave Narratives Home Page, Louisa Picquet, the Octoroon, or, Inside Views of Southern Domestic Life, Speaking Lives, Authoring Texts: Three African American Women's Oral Slave Narratives, Work Here, Rest Hereafter: Or, The Life and Character of Rev. Dora tells Sunnyside that he must buy Terrebonne and he does so, winning the auction. The archive and Harvard University Press collaborated to create The Image of the Black in Western Art book series, eight volumes of which were edited by Gates and David Bindman and published by Harvard University Press. publication in traditional print. [9] Prior to the first performance, Alexis Soloski for The Village Voice published an email from cast member Karl Allen who wrote, "the play has transformed from an engaging piece of contemporary theatre directed by Gavin Quinn to a piece of crap that wouldn't hold a candle to some of the community theater I did in high school". Pete is Paul's grandfather. An Octoroon is set way down yonder in the land of cotton during the antebellum period. 1828?- and Hiram Mattison, 1811-1868 In Cincinnati, Picquet "began to think more about her mother" (p. 25). George defends him and demands a fair trial, while MClosky reluctantly takes the role of prosecution. Dora Sunnyside, the daughter of another local planter, falls in love with George. Dora Sunnyside, the daughter of another local planter, falls in love with George. MClosky vows to own that Octoroon (37) and get the mailbag before Paul and Wahnotee, so that he may steal the letter and prevent the Peytons from saving their estate. The Octoroon was a controversial play when it debuted, given its focus on slavery when the pre-Civil War United States was engaged in a heated debate over the institution. This demure, pensive vision of miscegenation and its dire consequences was made by the popular British sculptor John Bell. We don't currently have any monologues from The Octoroon . Picquet was sold to Williams of New Orleans and her mother was sold to Texas. Jacobs-Jenkins reframes Boucicault's play using its original characters and plot, speaking much of Boucicault's dialogue, and critiques its portrayal of race using Brechtian devices. But white cast members, offended by the unapologetic racism of their nasty slave-owner characters, dropped out.
Ed. 13 According to the formulaic plot that defined the octoroon genre, the enslaved mixed-race beauty was understood to be the product of a sexual relationship between a white male slaveholder and an enslaved woman of African descent. The most overt of this is Zoes status as an Octoroon, a person who is one-eighth black. The Octoroon. The tragic ending was used for American audiences, to avoid portraying a mixed marriage.[4]. The Octoroon is appropriately considered a sensation drama, though it received the label retrospectively. Paul is also regarded as a slave and referred to by other characters as a darkey (43), although he is only one-quarter black (then referred to as a quadroon). She faces the horrible prospect of being sold at auction, most likely to share the fate of her mother as the mistress of a rich white man. The Octoroon or, Life in Louisiana; A Play in Five acts Author: Dion Boucicault Release Date: June 24, 2014 [EBook #46091] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OCTOROON *** Produced by Roger Burch, from scans obtained from the Internet Archive THE . The play was adapted by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins as An Octoroon in 2014.
"The Octoroon" tells the late of when In the deep south of 1850's USA, an octoroon is given her freedom by her white father but is later bought as a slave by the evil Jacob McCloskey. Salem Scudder, a northerner who has been serving as the plantation's overseer, bears some responsibility for the poor state of affairs at Terrebonne. After some time, they had two more children named Sarah and Thomas. one-eighth African American), and how these . Paul was beloved and also valuable, and so the whites want to find what has happened to him. Upon learning of Pauls murder, they immediately believe Wahnotee did it and vow to lynch him (48) if he is found. Though he wanted her to run off and escape with him, she was too afraid of getting caught so he left without her. Log in here. George Peyton returns to the United States from a trip to France to find that the plantation he has inherited is in dire financial straits as a result of his late uncle's beneficence. McClosky intercepts a young slave boy, Paul, who is bringing a mailbag to the house which contains a letter from one of Judge Peyton's old debtors. eNotes critical analyses help you gain a deeper understanding of The Octoroon so you can excel on your essay or test. Besides race, what are some representations of slaves and slavery that are not complicity with the dominant ideology of this time? The murder is captured on Scudder's photographic apparatus. Assistant announces that the boat explodes. Nataki Garrett directed the first production of An Octoroon outside of New York with Mixed Blood Theatre Company in the fall of 2015. This issue arose because at first glance Picquet looked to be "a white lady" (p. 5). The second date is today's He plans to buy her and make her his mistress. [3] During this time, Louisa's mother was repeatedly impregnated by Cook; her mother was "pretty white; not white for white people" though (p. 8). Therefore, Mattison implores the reader to contribute to the cause if they "can sympathize with this daughter of affliction and victim of relentless oppression, and will rejoice in the opportunity of doing something to help alleviate her sorrow" (p. 48). Paul was carrying bags of mail, and MClosky wanted to intercept the mail to prevent notice of a loan repayment to Mrs. Peyton (that might save the plantation). The narrative begins with a description of Piquet's physical appearance as a passable mulatto to emphasize that despite "at first view, [looking like] an accomplished white lady," she was denied of any rights or liberty given to white women because of her African ancestry (p. 5). George, upon arriving at the plantation from Europe, begins to fall in love with her. [2] Among antebellum melodramas, it was considered second in popularity only to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). She explains that she felt that because she was committing adultery, she'd "have to die and be lost" (p. 22). Landmark court cases in the Southern states eventually erased the legal proscription against such unions, but the legacy of Zoes predicament still casts its long shadow over the affairs of the heart. 2023 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. THE OCTOROON 1 Hail! Their family included Henry's four year old daughter, Harriet, and Louisa's eight year old daughter, Eliza. Johnson openly acknowledged these children and provided the girls with a superior education and marriage to prominent white men. However, enough funds were raised between Mattison's interview with Picquet and the narrative's publication that Mattison includes, at the end, a notice published in the Cincinnati Daily Gazette on October 15, 1860 explaining that Ramsey had been freed from slavery. I wondered if I might be moved to tears at my return to the theater, but instead I felt grateful and relieved that human ingenuity wasnt thwarted by a virus. The performers are in effect asked to simultaneously exist in two theatrical realms Boucicaults and Jacobs-Jenkins. As such, among many other things, it provides a dramatization of and peek at the plantation pecking order in .
In an act of desperation she drinks a vial of poison, and Scudder enters to deliver the good news that McClosky was proven guilty of murdering Paul and that Terrebonne now belongs to George. Dido protests, but Zoe steals the liquid and runs away. After various slaves are auctioned off, George and the buyers are shocked to see Zoe up on the stand. [17], Company One Theatre in Boston co-produced the play with ArtsEmerson, directed by Summer L. Williams. [2], Jacobs-Jenkins also cites Peter Brooks' The Melodramatic Imagination as an inspiration for his approach to melodrama. How to End "The Octoroon", John A. Degen, Learn how and when to remove this template message, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Octoroon&oldid=1114317331, This page was last edited on 5 October 2022, at 22:08. The stage provided the inspiration for Bells subject. George and Zoe reveal their love for each other, but Zoe rejects George's marriage proposal. He almost proposes to Dora to get her fortune and save Terrebonne, but he cannot bring himself to lie. eNotes.com Rather than execute this, the actors explain and act out what happens. George reluctantly agrees. "The Octoroon - Summary" eNotes Publishing eNotes.com, Inc. date the date you are citing the material. This character allowed abolitionists to draw attention to the sexual . Since this letter would allow Mrs. Peyton to avoid selling Terrebonne, McClosky kills Paul and takes the letter. Jacobs-Jenkins knows Boucicaults play cant be redeemed, but he challenges us to see whats there. The Fountains ambition in reopening the theater with this multilayered play must be acknowledged and applauded. Mrs. Peyton informs her nephew George, who has just returned from Europe, that he is the heir to the Terrebonne estate. They have realized that Paul is missing, and most believe him dead. While posing, MClosky comes from behind and kills Paul to take the letter. Given its 19th century Southern setting, the play is also filled with numerous examples of racial discrimination beyond the institution of slavery, even by the plays more sympathetic characters. Williams made Picquet his concubine and she bore him four children, but only two survived enslavement. Minnie comforts Dido and they look forward to their new lives on Captain Ratts boat. Scudder insists that they hold a trial, and the men search for evidence. British audiences disliked this unhappy ending, and the play was rewritten with the more optimistic happily ever after possibility of their union in another, more tolerant land. [6], An Octoroon had a workshop production at Performance Space 122 from June 19 July 3, 2010, featuring Travis York, Karl Allen, Chris Manley, Ben Beckley, Gabe Levey, Jake Hart, Margaret Flanagan, Amber Gray, Mary Wiseman, LaToya Lewis, Kim Gainer, and Sasheer Zamata. The founding director of the Hutchins Center is Henry Louis Gates Jr., who is also chairman ofThe Root. His parents, Solomon and Lydia Mattison, raised him and his eleven siblings in the Methodist Episcopal Church. An Octoroon begins with a prologue, in which a surrogate for the author, BJJ, introduces himself to the audience as a Black playwright, a label he doesnt fully comprehend. [11], Mark Ravenhill staged a workshop production of the play featuring Saycon Sengbloh in April 2012. But how a work is produced matters too, and An Octoroon requires directorial sensibility and skill that arent always in evidence in Judith Morelands production. Last Updated on June 19, 2019, by eNotes Editorial. The Octoroon is a play by Dion Boucicault that opened in 1859 at The Winter Garden Theatre, New York City. Narrative context is dispensed with to focus on the essential plight of the victim, a process often leavening compassion with a less chaste voyeurism. An Octoroon, the play that drew us together, is a tricky work to pull off under optimal conditions, and I worried how this postmodern riff on Dion Boucicaults musty The Octoroon would fare under the moonlight, amid the blare of car mufflers and police helicopters. A spectacular collision of the antebellum South and 21st century cultural politics, An Octoroon is a gasp-inducing deconstruction of a moustache-twirling melodrama by 19th century playwright Dion Boucicault that twists a funhouse world of larger-than-life stereotypes into blistering social commentary. There are a number of slaves on the plantationPeter, Grace, and Dido to name a fewbut Paul, a thirteen year-old boy, is the most important to the plot. Dissatisfied with ongoing Methodist support for slavery, on November 1st of 1861 Mattison formally withdrew from the church and became a pastor of St. John's independent Methodist church. Devoid of any actual references to plot or the characters identity, the figure stands naked, chained and ready for sale to the highest bidder. Picquet was born into a lineage of sexual victimization and strong maternal dedication. She was born to a slave, but her father, Randolph, was a free man and her master. Cook, who wanted to sleep with Picquet, asked her to wait on him at night, yet each time Picquet evaded his bedroom thanks to the protection of Mrs. Pam Trotter, left, Vanessa Claire Stewart and Matthew Hancock in the Fountain Theatres An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Shakespeare in the Woods 2023 Season
Summary of The Octoroon. When Boucicaults play premiered at New Yorks Winter Garden Theatre in 1859, it was a controversial hit, angering both pro- and anti-slavery factions. Hiram Mattison, New York: N. Tibbals and Son, 1870. Those who could move beyond Bells sentimental conception of the tragic mulatto might have contemplated the wider implications of this degree of miscegenation within the dominant social structures of the time. Age Range. Ed. By 1863, the London Art Journal reported that Bells statue was well under way, though its formal exhibition took place only several years later, in 1868. He tells Wah-No-Tee, an Indian and his protector, to remove the cap from the camera. 2 Come with Although she and her children were free, Picquet was stuck in New Orleans until Williams' brother gave her a portion of the proceeds from selling Williams' furniture. Three years later, in 1850, Louisa married Henry Picquet. [2] In a 2018 poll by critics of The New York Times, the work was ranked the second-greatest American play of the past 25 years. The group also discusses Zoe, who lives at the estate and is the judges illegitimate child, although Mrs. Peyton loves [her] as if shed been her own child (26).
Works Consulted: Barthelemy, Anthony G., ed. An extremely beautiful young slave girl, who is treated like a member of the family, Zoe is kind, generous, and adored by every man who lays eyes on her. His work typically mixed the conventional standards of classical form with the emotive pathos of contemporary romanticism. Searching him, George finds the letter which resolves the conflict of Terrebonne's future. Wahnotee appears, drunk and sorrowful, and tells them that Paul is buried near them.
[1] Jacobs-Jenkins considers An Octoroon and his other works Appropriate and Neighbors linked in the exploration of theatre, genre, and how theatre interacts with questions of identity, along with how these questions (such as "Why do we think of a social issue as something that can be solved?") He received his doctorate in dramaturgy and dramatic criticism from the Yale School of Drama. The miracle of vaccines allowed us to come together again, but the Fountain Theatre, acting with foresight and dispatch, turned its parking lot into an outdoor venue to ensure the earliest possible resumption of in-person performance. He is beloved by an old Indian man named Wahnotee, who lives nearby and keeps watch over Paul. The play is an adaptation of Dion Boucicault's 1859 abolitionist melodrama retold through Jacobs-Jenkins eyes. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, An Octoroon (New York: Onstage Press, 2014), 121. "[2] This examination of race as a social construct is also in Appropriate and Neighbors. In Bells mind the sentimentality and clamor of the stage were elevated to a higher conceptual plane that confronted the viewer with the image of Zoe in her most vulnerable state. An Octoroon is a play written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Set on the fictional Terrebonne Plantation in Louisiana, The Octoroon depicts life in the American South with honesty and empathy. Act II begins with Scudder showing off his camera, when Pete, an older slave, enters to say the estate has officially been put up for sale. He hoped to use Picquet's experiences to prove the moral corruption of slavery at the General Conference of the Methodist Church in Buffalo. In May 1860, Mattison met with Picquet to help her raise money to free her mother from bondage. I envy not the proud old Florentine The classic beauties of his Italy; Give me but here to have my glory dream, 'Mid fragrant woods and fieldsby lake and stream. The Octoroon or The Lily of Louisiana is a dark tale of crime, race and slavery. Research Playwrights, Librettists, Composers and Lyricists. [13] The cast featured Chris Myers as BJJ, in triple roles: the black playwright, George Peyton and M'Closky; Danny Wolohan as Dion Boucicault, Zo Winters as Dora, and Amber Gray as Zoe.
Brooks' idea is that melodrama is about binaries and opposites, where there is always good and bad with no gray area. The term octoroon is thankfully not in circulation anymore, and it is likely that the melodrama would have remained in historys dustbin were it not for Jacobs-Jenkins ambivalent curiosity. Research Playwrights, Librettists, Composers and Lyricists. Mrs. Peyton and Mr. Peyton never had any children of their own and basically raised Zoe as their child; even Mrs. Peyton loves her. BJJ is focused on a play, The Octoroon, but runs into issues staging it because the white actors quit, so he applies whiteface in order to play them himself. [19], Dobama Theater in Cleveland Heights, Ohio presented An Octoroon from October 21, 2016 to November 13, 2016, directed by Nathan Motta[20], The first West Coast premiere of An Octoroon was held at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, directed by Eric Ting with Sydney Morton in the title role. At the Plantation Terrebonne in Louisiana, Dido and Minnie chat about the arrival of George, and the passing of his uncle, their previous master. Zoe reciprocates his feelings but says that they cannot be together, as she is an Octoroon and interracial marriage is illegal. Though she remained enslaved and unmarried, Julia bore him two daughters. This led Jacobs-Jenkins to see doubles and pairs in Boucicault's play, through relationships between characters e.g. Salem Scudder, a kind Yankee, was Judge Peyton's business partner; though he wishes he could save Terrebonne, he has no money. She is the so-called illegitimate (not produced by marriage) daughter of a plantation owner named Mr. Peyton and one of his slaves on this plantation, which is called Terrebonne. Lead. In 1828, Louisa Picquet (1828-1896) was born near Columbia, South Carolina to fifteen year old Elizabeth Ramsey, a quadroon slave, and John Randolph, Ramsey's white master, which made her an octoroon, or an individual with one black and seven white grandparents. If there are two dates, the date of publication and appearance Another man called MClosky went through the courts and away went a thousand acres of Terrebonne to him. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Jacobs-Jenkins himself took on the role of Br'er Rabbit and Captain Ratts.[14]. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality study guides that feature detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics. A stereo photograph of the original allowed even those of modest means to view it with a convincing illusion of depth. At the time her narrative was transcribed, despite the kind donations of many people, Mattison explains to the reader that Picquet had been unable to raise enough money to free her mother. To that end, every now and again an actor dressed as a rabbit makes a surreal cameo.
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