The America Play

Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1994

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Summary

Background

Act Summaries & Analyses

Act 1

Act 2

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Background

Ideological Context: Suzan-Lori Parks's Playwriting Ideology

In her collection The America Play and Other Works, Suzan-Lori Parks includes three essays that supplement and contextualize her unusual and unique approach to playwriting. In the first essay, “Possession,” she describes the theater as a site for creating much of the African American history that has been lost, explaining that one of her jobs as a playwright is to “locate the ancestral burial ground, dig for bones, find bones, hear the bones sing, write it down” (12). Parks compares the process of theatrical mythmaking to artificial insemination, in which the resulting baby is still a human being. Throughout her body of work, Parks endeavors to uncover lost histories by constructing humans where only a few bones remain.

Parks cites philosopher John S. Mbiti’s African Religions and Philosophy to explain the conceptualization of the living dead in her work, the dead who continue to exist simultaneously in the past and the present. Parks’s plays are therefore works of spiritual possession or acts of mediumship that can bring the past into the present. Because the performances are events that actually occur and are embodied, they become new acts of history that are worthy of inclusion in the canonical mainstream narrative. In The America Play the Great Hole of History is an eternal receptacle, containing even histories that are no longer taught or remembered. Parks is asserting that these histories are just as real and substantial, and the that creation of history as a singular, conventional narrative is also a fabrication.

In her essay “An Equation for Black People Onstage,” Parks explains how she reconfigures the ideology of her work as African American theater. As she describes, portrayals of Blackness are often focused on their relationship to White oppression. However, Parks asserts, “The Klan does not always have to be outside the door for black people to have lives worthy of dramatic literature” (24). Blackness should not be explored only through cultural trauma, and it should not be used as a carrier for a politicized message. Additionally, there is no singular African American experience, and those varied experiences should be the rich source of portrayals onstage. Parks states, “We should endeavor to show the world and ourselves our beautiful and powerfully infinite variety” (25).

Rhetorical Context: Style and Structure

One of the most memorable aspects of Parks’s plays is her use of rhythmic dialogue, vernacular English, and innovative structure. In her essay “Elements of Style,” she explains that she spells out African American vernacular differently in order to take advantage of the physicality of speaking. Parks also speaks specifically about why she rejects traditional structure, which she defines as chronological two-act plays, in her work. Parks doesn’t disparage naturalistic structures, but they simply don’t properly contain her characters. She compares her structure to jazz, citing “repetition and revision” (15) as a central element in her work. Parks draws the traditional, climactic story structure and then draws the way she sees the structures of some of her plays, using mathematical equations and illustrations to contain her nontraditional narratives.

For instance, in The America Play, X (illustrated by a drawing of the Foundling Father as Lincoln) equals an illustration of a log cabin and an illustration of the big town where he ends up, multiplied by an illustration of Lincoln himself. She directs readers to solve for X where X equals “the true measurement of the Great Man’s stature,” and to express X “in terms of the Lesser Known” and “in terms of Lucy and Brazil” (20). In other words, the play’s shape and structure is based on the different angles and perspectives through which the audience can understand the Foundling Father’s complex identity. The play isn’t limited to the traditional narrative; its shape extends to include these different interpretations.

Historical Context: Abraham Lincoln

The Foundling Father’s storyline focuses on the historical reenactment of John Wilkes Booth’s assassination of Abraham Lincoln. He incorporates historical quotes, blurring the lines between his own identity and that of Lincoln, fragmenting and dissecting the events of that night to place himself in the narrative. Lincoln has become an iconic figure in US history as the emancipator of the slaves. The Foundling Father repeatedly describes him as the “Great Man,” a larger-than-life character who rose to prominence from the humble beginnings of his log cabin. In national mythology Lincoln is reduced to two spectacular moments: the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation and his assassination. Contrary to popular belief, the Emancipation Proclamation did not actually end slavery. Slavery was abolished in Northern states by the 1860s, although it had mostly only been widespread in the agricultural South. There was also a growing abolitionist movement and the establishment of the Underground Railroad. After Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860, 11 states seceded from the United States, largely out of fear that Lincoln would abolish slavery.

The Civil War began in 1861, and on September 22, 1862, Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. In this executive order Lincoln threatened to emancipate slaves in the Confederate states—not the few Union states that still had slavery, whose support he still needed—if the South refused to rejoin the Union by January 1, 1863. When the Southern states didn’t comply, Lincoln followed through, but since the Confederate states were already rebelling, they didn’t comply with the order to emancipate enslaved people either. However, the Emancipation Proclamation was symbolically powerful and officially aligned the goals of the Union as antislavery. The use of Lincoln’s assassination in the play is particularly significant because his assassination was committed in the theater by a well-known actor.

On April 14, 1865, five days after the surrender of the Confederacy, Lincoln arrived late to Ford’s Theatre for a performance of the play Our American Cousin. The newspapers had announced that Lincoln would be present, and the show was paused for a rendition of “Hail to the Chief” and a standing ovation. Booth, who may or may not have used his status as a famous actor to gain access to the presidential box, waited until the line “You sockdologizing old man-trap” in the third act, which Booth knew would provide enough laughter to cover his actions. Booth shot Lincoln and jumped onto the stage, breaking his leg and shouting, “Sic semper tyrannis,” or “Thus always to tyrants,” before escaping. Lincoln died the next day, and his body was taken across the country by train so mourners could pay their respects. In December 1865 the 13th Amendment officially outlawed slavery.