Abstract
Buckner investigates the interwoven themes of home, hate, and history in Bruce Norris’s Clybourne Park (2011) and Kwame Kwei-Armah’s Beneatha’s Place (2013). Each play confronts racism through the filter of humor to address how the specter of race influences individual and community efforts to realize the “American Dream” of home ownership, prosperity, and equality for all. Employing Una Chaudhuri’s materialist theories of home as a point of departure for negotiations of postmodern diaspora, Buckner argues that Norris and Kwei-Armah examine racism spatially in communities, structurally in institutions including the academy, and ideologically across the globe in both US and African contexts, in order to further contest and complicate understandings of racial identity, belonging, and the political problematics of place.
Bruce Norris, Clybourne Park, eds. Young, Harvey and Rebecca Ann Rugg, Reimagining A Raisin in the Sun (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2012), 85.
An earlier version of this chapter was originally presented at the 2013 Comparative Drama Conference, and further developed in the 2014 Mid-America Theatre Conference Articles-In-Progress session. I extend my appreciation to the individuals at these conferences, as well as to this anthology’s editors and peer reviewers, whose generous feedback informed the development of this piece.
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Notes
- 1.
Una Chaudhuri, Staging Place: The Geography of Modern Drama (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995), 91.
- 2.
Dianne Harris, “Seeing the Invisible: Reexamining Race and Vernacular Architecture,” Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture 13, no. 2 (2006–2007): 101.
- 3.
Chaudhuri, 55.
- 4.
Ibid., 15.
- 5.
Norris, 85.
- 6.
Kwame Kwei-Armah, Beneatha’s Place (Rehearsal Draft 1), 44, 45A.
- 7.
Ibid., 48.
- 8.
Nell Irwin Painter, The History of White People (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2011), 366.
- 9.
Ibid., 370.
- 10.
Ibid., n. 37, 451.
- 11.
Ibid., 372.
- 12.
Paula S. Rothenberg, White Privilege: Essential Reading on the Other Side of Racism, 4th edition (New York: Worth Publishers, 2012), 76.
- 13.
Ibid., 76.
- 14.
Chaudhuri, 216.
- 15.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment reached a high of 10 percent in October 2009, and The Wall Street Journal reports that “9.3 million homeowners went through a foreclosure, surrendered their home to a lender or sold their home via a distress sale between 2006 and 2014.” See BLS Spotlight on Statistics: the Recession of 2007–2009, http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2012/recession/pdf/recession_bls_spotlight.pdf. See also Laura Kusisto, “Many Who Lost Homes to Foreclosure in Last Decade Won’t Return—NAR,” The Wall Street Journal, April 13, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/many-who-lost-homes-to-foreclosure-in-last-decade-wont-return-nar-1429548640.
- 16.
Chaudhuri, 55.
- 17.
Ibid., 15.
- 18.
Rosemary Marangoly George, The Politics of Home: Postcolonial Relocations and 20th-Century Fiction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 11.
- 19.
Harris, 99.
- 20.
Paul Harris, “Legit Review: Beneatha’s Place,” Variety, May 28, 2013, http://variety.com/2013/legit/reviews/legit-review-beneathas-place-1200488433/.
- 21.
Chaudhuri, 17.
- 22.
Ibid., 107.
- 23.
Kwei-Armah, 7.
- 24.
George, 11.
- 25.
Kwei-Armah, 8, 9.
- 26.
Ibid., 14.
- 27.
Ibid., 26.
- 28.
Chaudhuri, 63.
- 29.
Kwei-Armah, 33.
- 30.
Ibid., 34.
- 31.
Norris, 68–69.
- 32.
George, 6.
- 33.
Harris, (2006-07) 98.
- 34.
Norris, 74.
- 35.
Ibid.
- 36.
Ibid., 78.
- 37.
Chaudhuri, 111.
- 38.
Harris, (2006-07) 102.
- 39.
Cheryl Corley, “New Clybourne Park Picks up on 1959 Race Issues,” Morning Edition, NPR, November 11, 2011, http://www.npr.org/2011/11/11/142234894/clybourne-park-opens-in-chicago.
- 40.
Norris, 85.
- 41.
See Brett Zongker, “Playwright Takes on Clybourne Park with New Work,” Associated Press, May 17, 2014, http://www.salon.com/2013/05/17/playwright_takes_on_clybourne_park_with_new_work/, and Mary Carole McCauley, “Kwame Kwei-Armah Keeps His Vow to Bring Center Stage National Exposure: ‘The Raisin Cycle’ is Featured in International Media and on an Hour-long PBS Special,” The Baltimore Sun, May 11, 2013, http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/arts/bs-ae-raisin-cycle-20130511,0,4971608.story#ixzz2r51rQICf.
- 42.
Harvey Young and Rebecca Ann Rugg, eds., Reimagining A Raisin in the Sun (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2012), xxi.
- 43.
Touré, “No Such Place as ‘Post-Racial’ America,” The New York Times, November 8, 2011, http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/no-such-place-as-post-racial-america/?_r=0.
- 44.
Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, “Remarks by the President on Trayvon Martin,” July 19, 2013, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/07/19/remarks-president-trayvon-martin.
- 45.
Chaudhuri, 12.
- 46.
Kwei-Armah, 39.
- 47.
Ibid., 42.
- 48.
Harris, (2006-07) 98.
- 49.
Kwei-Armah, 45–45A.
- 50.
Ibid., 52.
- 51.
Geoffrey Himes, “Two Scoops Center Stage’s Raisin Cycle Confronts Ownership, History, and Race in Response to A Raisin in the Sun,” City Paper, May 8, 2013, http://citypaper.com/arts/stage/two-scoops-1.1485353.
- 52.
Brett Zongker, “Playwright Takes on ‘Clybourne Park’ with New Work,” Associated Press, May 17, 2014, http://www.salon.com/2013/05/17/playwright_takes_on_clybourne_park_with_new_work/.
- 53.
Martha Thomas, “New Centerstage Play Rewrites the Script on Race,” Bmore, May 7, 2013, http://bmoremedia.com/features/kwamekweiarmah050713.aspx.
- 54.
Kwei-Armah, 58.
- 55.
Harris, (2006-07) 98.
- 56.
Chaudhuri, 15.
- 57.
Nelson Pressley , “Hansberry’s Long Shadow in ‘Raisin Cycle,” The Washington Post, April 5, 2013, http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/hansberrys-long-shadow-in-raisin-cycle/2013/04/04/4ffaf0ae-9baa-11e2-a941-a19bce7af755_story.html.
- 58.
“A Raisin in the Sun Revisited” PBS Arts Fall Festival, PBS, October 25, 2013, http://video.pbs.org/video/2365104391/.
- 59.
Mary Carole McCauley, “Kwame Kwei-Armah Keeps His Vow to Bring Center Stage National Exposure ‘The Raisin Cycle’ is Featured in International Media and on an Hour Long PBS Special,” The Baltimore Sun, May 11, 2013, http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/arts/bs-ae-raisin-cycle-20130511,0,4971608.story#ixzz2r51rQICf.
- 60.
Harris, (2006-07) 98.
Works Cited
Chaudhuri, Una. Staging Place: The Geography of Modern Drama. University of Michigan Press, 1995.
Corley, Cheryl. “New Clybourne Park Picks up on 1959 Race Issues.” Morning Edition, NPR, November 11, 2011, http://www.npr.org/2011/11/11/142234894/clybourne-park-opens-in-chicago.
George, Rosemary Marangoly. The Politics of Home: Postcolonial Relocations and Twentieth-Century Fiction. University of California Press, 1996.
Harris, Dianne. “Seeing the Invisible: Reexamining Race and Vernacular Architecture.” Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture 13, no. 2, 2006–2007, pp. 94–105.
Harris, Paul. “Legit Review: Beneatha’s Place.” Variety, May 28, 2013, http://variety.com/2013/legit/reviews/legit-review-beneathas-place-1200488433/.
Himes, Geoffrey. “Two Scoops Center Stage’s Raisin Cycle Confronts Ownership, History, and Race in Response to A Raisin in the Sun.” City Paper, May 8, 2013.
Kusisto, Laura. “Many Who Lost Homes to Foreclosure in Last Decade Won’t Return—NAR.” The Wall Street Journal, April 13, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/many-who-lost-homes-to-foreclosure-in-last-decade-wont-return-nar-1429548640.
Kwei-Armah, Kwame. Beneatha’s Place (Rehearsal Draft 1), May 14, 2013.
McCauley, Mary Carole. “Kwame Kwei-Armah Keeps His Vow to Bring Center Stage National Exposure.” The Baltimore Sun, May 11, 2013, http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/arts/bs-ae-raisin-cycle-20130511,0,4971608.story#ixzz2r51rQICf.
Norris, Bruce. Clybourne Park. Reimagining A Raisin in the Sun, edited by Harvey Young and Rebecca Ann Rugg, Northwestern University Press, 2012.
Office of the Press Secretary, The White House. “Remarks by the President on Trayvon Martin,” July 19, 2013, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/07/19/remarks-president-trayvon-martin.
Painter, Nell Irwin. The History of White People. W.W. Norton & Co., 2011.
PBS Arts Fall Festival. “A Raisin in the Sun Revisited.” PBS, October 25, 2013, http://video.pbs.org/video/2365104391/.
Rothenberg, Paula S. White Privilege: Essential Reading on the Other Side of Racism, 4th edition. Worth Publishers, 2012.
“The Recession of 2007–2009.” BLS Spotlight on Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2012/recession/pdf/recession_bls_spotlight.pdf.
Thomas, Martha. “New Centerstage Play Rewrites the Script on Race.” Bmore, May 7, 2013, http://bmoremedia.com/features/kwamekweiarmah050713.aspx.
Touré. “No Such Place as ‘Post-Racial’ America.” The New York Times, November 8, 2011. http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/no-such-place-as-post-racial-america/?_r=0.
Zongker, Brett. “Playwright Takes on Clybourne Park with New Work.” Associated Press, May 17, 2014. http://www.salon.com/2013/05/17/playwright_takes_on_clybourne_park_with_new_work/.
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Buckner, J.L. (2019). “‘The History of America Is the History of Private Property’: The Politics of Home in Clybourne Park and Beneatha’s Place”. In: Klein, E., Mobley, JS., Stevenson, J. (eds) Performing Dream Homes. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01581-7_2
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