Combination Skin by Lisa Jones

Combination Skin by Lisa Jones

Combination Skin is a play by Lisa Jones which is anthologized in Contemporary Plays by Women Colors anthology. Jones called this piece of works as play about color and race; it uses skin color to make its point. The main character of this play is Vendetta Goldwoman, a Master of Ceremony of a television program.

In a play, we usually try to figure out what the theme is, who the characters are, where the setting is, and so on, to know what the drama is all about. Actually, drama is not only about the characters, setting, theme, or story, drama is also about what the issue that the drama brings. To know what the issue the drama brings, we can try to figure out what is underneath the dialogue, some things that mentioned on the script. It may not a part of the drama, but there must be a reason why the playwright mention it on the script.

This essay will try to elaborate what and why the things are mentioned on Lisa Jones’ Combination Skin, what the relation between those references and the drama and why Lisa Jones mention those references on the drama.

Madame Bovary               

“Vendetta: Don’t coy with me, Madame Bovary. Your parents are from New Orleans, aren’t they? Combination Skin is your life story, isn’t it? You’re an incest victim, aren’t you? And every night you dream of being raveged b a runaway buck from way down Bama, don’t you?” (P. 316)

There is a scene when Vendetta called Specimen Number One as “Madame Bovary”. Madame Bovary is a novel by French writer, Gustave Flaubert. Madame Bovary is his debut novel. This novel tells about the life of Emma Bovary, a doctor’s wife who has extramarital sex (or adulterous affairs). Emma Bovary didn’t want to live her boring life; she lives beyond her measure in order to escape her boring life.

Emily Bronte

“Specimen Number One: ... yes! And sure enough, I learned to write about THE black experience. And now, though I am not Emily Bronte, the Emily Brontes of the world do buy my books.” (P. 318)

Emily Bronte is an English novelist, the author of Wuthering Heights. Lately, Wuthering Heights being her first and also one and only novel of her. She firstly published her work with pseudonym Ellis Bell, she published her novel by her real name at thirty, a year before she died.

Kathleen Cleaver

“Specimen Number Two (Painfully genuine): This bio is dedicated to Kathleen Cleaver and Queen Mother Moore, my black sisters in the struggle... Some say I’m just a misbegotten voodoo chile of the Aquarian age, with the lion spirit of Judy Mowatt and Billie Holiday’s victim beauty. But I know one thing; I’m a strong black woman. I’ve moved mountains. And my foremothers, also strong black women, have moved them too. Let me tell you their names, Sojourner Truth, Phyllis Wheatley, Rosa Parks...” (P.320-321)

Kathleen Neal Cleaver is American Law Professor. She is well-known because she was activist of Black Panther Party, a black revolutionary socialist party. She once lived in exile before went to Yale University. After had Bachelor Arts degree from Yale, she continued her study by went to Yale Law School. She was working as Senior Research Associate at the Yale Law School, and then worked as Senior Lecturer in the African American Studies department at Yale University, and as senior lecturer in Emory University School of Law.

Queen Mother Moore

Queen Mother Moore was born in Louisiana. She is an African-American civil rights and black activist who is a friend of Marcus Garvey, Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, and Jesse Jackson. Sheis founder of the Republic of New Afrika. After moved to Harlem, New York, she ever becomes leader of UNIA, Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League.

Judy Mowatt

Judy Mowatt is the member of  I Three, backing vocal trio for Bob Marley and TheWailers. Beside joining I Three she also singing solo. Her album, Black Women (1980) called as the greatest reggae album by female musician. She received OD, Order of Distinction, an award in the Jamaican honours system that similar with British honours system for Jamaicans.

Billie Holiday

Billie Holiday born with Eleanora Fagan as her name. She is jazz singer and song-writer. She has “Lady Day” as her nickname. When she was young she once becoming a victim of sexual harassment. She considered as one of the world’s greatest jazz female musicians along with Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald.

Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth is an African-American human rights activist as well as abolitionist, abolitionism is a movement to end slavery in American War. She well-known with her speech about gender inequality in Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in 1851, Ain’t I A Woman?.

Phyllis Wheatley

Phyllis Wheatley is African-American poet. She’s known as the second African-American poet and also first African-American woman whom her woks get published. She was sold as a slave on her childhood age and being brought to North America. Later, she was purchased by Wheatley family who taught her to read and write, so she became a poet.

Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks is African-American civil rights activist who called as “the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement” in United States Congress. December 1st and February 4th are celebrated as “Rosa Parks Day”, since February 4th is her birthday and December 1st is the day when she was arrested.

Jazz

In the history of Jazz, Jazz firstly invented by African-American community Southern America in around late 19th or early 20th century. The important elements of Jazz are blue notes, improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation, and swung note (swing). The root of jazz is ragtime. At first, Jazz was the mix of classic music with African and slave folk songs and has strong cultural influences from West African culture.

From above explanation we can conclude that most of references which mentioned in this play are about women and black people. We can see how Lisa Jones emphasizes women and race as the main issue. These issues delivered by the complexity characters of Vendetta Goldwoman, Specimen Number One, and Specimen Number Three. These references also shows how this play wants to deliver a message about women and black who want to go beyond of their limit, we can see it on how the play mentions about Madam Bovary and Emily Bronte, how the play uses jazz songs as musical background in mostly part of the play which represent about African-American music, how some of black and women activist, writer, and orator are mentioned in the play. 

Works Cited

(n.d.). Retrieved from Wikipedia .

(n.d.). Retrieved from http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/bhistory/history_of_jazz.htm

Jones, L. (n.d.). Combination Skin.

Contrasting Play and Film Version of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice is a play by well-known English dramatist, William Shakespeare. This play takes 16th century Venice as its setting. The Merchant of Venice once being filmed with Al Pacino as its main actor and also being staged on Broadway.

On its play version, The Merchant of Venice is a romantic-comedy that tells about Bassanio, a Venetian who wants to marry Portia of Belmont a beautiful and wealthy woman. To propose Portia, Bassanio wants to lend some money from Antonio, a prosper merchant of Venice, make a long story short, Bassanio lend money from a Jewish money lender, Shylock, with Antonio as the loan’s guarantor. The play version took Shylock in the ‘wrong’ side.

Different from the play version, on its film version, the story is emphasizes the life of Shylock and place Shylock as a tragic hero. The film version did bring an anti-Semitism, a discrimination towards Jews, issue during renaissance era deeper than the play did. That is why the film version is more like a tragedy than a romantic-comedy.

From the explaination above, we can conclude that even though film version has same story with play version, the issue that they emphasizes, what point of view that the movie brings, and how the movie being presented make the film version different from play version.

Works Cited

Shakespeare, W. (n.d.). The Merchant of Venice.

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Aristotle describes tragic hero as “a man of noble rank and nature whose misfortune is not brought about by villainy but by some “error of judgment” (hamartia)”[1], by that definition, we can see Macbeth of Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth as a tragic hero who bears tragic flaw, which also called as harmathia or harmartanein in Greek. The play put Macbeth on the “wrong” side alongside with Lady Macbeth, and put King Duncan on the “right” side alongside with Malcolm, Macduff, and so on, while in my opinion, this play placed Banquo and three Witches on the neutral side, between “wrong” and “right”, when the characters of Banquo and three witches can be on both of these conflicting sides.

If we talk about the character of Macbeth who built in the the play, we can see how Macbeth been placed on the “wrong” side, since the theme of the play is “fair is foul, and foul is fair”, in the play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth described as ambitional characters who kill King Duncan when King Duncan visited Macbeth’s cassttle.

Agusto Boal writes on his book, The Theatre of the Opressed, that “The comic poet Aristophanes thought that ‘the dramatist should not only offer pleasure but should, besides that, be a teacher of morality and a political adviser’.” (P. 2). The quotation says that a play must deliver message and moral lesson to spectators, that assumption makes the play of Macbeth placed Macbeth on the “wrong” side, because that positioning of Macbeth on the play can deliver messager to spectators that “right” side always wins, since in the end of the story Macbeth died and lost the battle. Beside moral lesson, Macbeth’s position on the play and also the ending of Macbeth story brings political advise that say only Malcolm that deserve throne as a King because he is the son of the King and the king throne is not belong to Macbeth, since he is not  son of the King, in other words, it aims to shows some propaganda to spectators in order to make spectators honor and obey the government.

Like what Agusto Boal writes on his book, The Theatre of the Opressed, “Tragedy imitates human acts. Human acts, not merely human activities.” (P. 12) the play of Macbeth may imitates human acts who fight for power, and murder other people in order to get the power. In the book The Theatre of the Opressed, Boal explain that according to Aristotles a man’s soul was composed of rational and irrational parts, what Macbeth and Lady Macbeth did to get the power may influence by their irrational part of soul if we see it from play’s point of view, but we have to underline another perspective, that what Macbeth and Lady Macbeth did is rational.

Keir Elam, in his book The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama, writes “The drama presents what is very much a ‘pure’ model of social intercourse, and the dialogue bears a very limited resemblance to what actually takes place in ‘everyday’ linguistic encounters.” (P. 109). A play only presents model of social intercourse that barely resemble what actually takes place in ‘everyday’ life, so do Macbeth play. Macbeth placed in the “wrong” side as a model, but actually Macbeth’s power struggle towards King Duncan is rational if we do not placed Macbeth as model who must brings moral lesson.

The role and function of three witches now becoming important, since what Macbeth and Lady Macbeth do are much influenced by the prophecies of the three witches. If we want to underline that alternative standpoint, we have to emphasizes what Macbeth feel when Lady Macbeth try to influence him to murder the King. Inner war that happened in Macbeth’s heart must be staged to give spectators another point of view, and we don’t have to place Macbeth as model who has to deliver moral lesson and political advice to spectators.

Works Cited

Boal, A. (2008). Theatre of the Opressed.

Elam, K. (1990). The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama .

Shakespeare, W. (n.d.). The Tragedy of Macbeth.

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[1] http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/253196/hamartia

Identity and Race in Brenda Wong Aoki’s The Queen Garden

The Queen’s Garden is a play by Brenda Wong Aoki and premiered at the Life on the Water Theater in San Francisco in October 1992, produced by the Climate Theatre. The main character of this play is a narrator who projects her chilhood life when she was growing up on the Westside. The Narrator who is Brenda in present time tells about her past in Westside, her romance with her first love, Kali, her family, her companions, Sherry, Hai, and so on, about her students when she was teaching on Twelve O’ Clock High, and about Aunti Mary, Kali’s mother, who always brought her father roses to buy a drug in her father’s drugstore. This paper will talk about some issues on the play, especially will focus on identity and racial issue.

From the very first narrator’s dialog in this play, we can see how Brenda has mix-up blood in her body, she said:

 “I’m Pake, Buddahead, Chicana, and Haole: Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, and Scots. And I grew up in a neighbourhood surrounded by the 405, the 710, and the L.A. Country Flood control and the Carson oil fields. An island unto itself that we called the Westside.” (P.21)

It makes Brenda look different from the other people who live in Westside. Brenda has oriental look that made Judy decided to ask Brenda to be a friend of Hai, new student in Lit. 1 class who came from Vietnam. Firstly, Brenda didn’t want to be look like Hai who is new commer and she called it as F.O.B. Fresh Off the Boat but later, Hai think about her true identity and her origin. Hai and Brenda lived together above the whore house when Brenda was teaching at Twelve o’Clock High. Brenda fell in symphaty with Hai when Hai told her how she used to do to survive when she moved from Vitnam to Westside. Since then, Brenda questions her self and her surroundings why people murder other people look like them, such as Vietnamese.

The climax of Brenda’s confuseness appears in the scene “Dinner with Father”:

“Brenda: I’m nor gonna ask God to help us murder people. Especially people who look just like us!

...................................................................................................................

Dad: Wait! Stop! Not at this table! We are Americans! Brenda Jean! What kind of example are you setting fo these kids? You’re the onesan. I never seen such a bitter perverse person. You hate everybody! White people! Rich people! Buzzy! Forget the store! Dave’s Pharmacy is dead! I love working at Lucky’s! Mama’s thrilled with her job at the cafetaria! So what happened to you? You used to be so sweet. Now, look at you! You buy everything at the girl? And why are you wasting all that money on rent? You got money to perverting you. I want you to move back home right now.

Brenda: Home? This doesn’t feel like home. Hai’s more family than you are!” (P.36)

That scene shows how everytime Brenda look at her self in the mirror, she agree that she look like oriental women, just like Vietnamese, but her father said she is an American. Her whole family are American. Her mix-up blood can be the cause of her identity confuseness or her identity confuseness can be caused by her life experience that made her more critical about her identity.

Beside identity issue, this play also brings race issue. The race issue appear on “The Riot” scene.

“Narrator: Then these two white guys push me. Knock me to the ground and I hear...

Steven: Wait! Stop! She’s in my Lit. Class.

Narrator: It’s steven Newcomb. He gives me his frat ring.

Steven: Show this to any white people who try and bother you.” (P. 30)

That scene shows how violence caused by race happened on Brenda’s high school. How there were a binary between superior and inferior. How white people, as the superior, do violence to other races, as the inferior, in this play.  The scene when Judy taught her students about Utopian Literature and the way Judy describe Utopia as “a place where people live together in harmony” shows how there are many different tribes and races live the Westside and oppression often happened to them who are inferior. In this case, Westside is only a place that the writer use as a representation of the world. The writer want to deliver the message that violence and oppression to the inferior races still happen in the world.

From above explanations, I can conclude that Brenda Wong Aoki’s The Queen’s Garden try to bring cultural issue, such as race issue in the Westside and also identity issue by how the Narrator projects the character of Brenda and how the character of Brenda being told by the Narrator. 

Works Cited

Aoki, B. W. (1992). The Queen's Garden. Life on the Water Theater, San Francisco.

The Zoo Story by Edward Albee

The Zoo Story is play written by American playwright, Edward Albee. The Zoo Story is an absurd drama which mentions some symbol on the dialogue. Those symbol actually reflect to social problems in the real life, such as class and loneliness. The Zoo Story takes Central Park, New York as its setting.

The characters of this play are Peter and Jerry. Peter described as a man in his early forties but his dress and his manner make him look younger.  Peter always come to Central Park to read some books everyweek. Peter has a wife and two daughters. In the contrary, different from Peter, Jerry descibed as the one who live alone, isolated by his loneliness. Jerry wants deep conversastion with someone, he once stated “I don’t talk to many peopla but every once in a while I like to talk to somebody, really talk; like to get know everybody, know about him.”

The Zoo                                                             

In The Zoo Story, the zoo itself is a symbol. Before I explain what kind of symbol the zoo is, firstly, I want you to read the dialogue between Peter and Jerry bellow:

“Peter: The zoo; the zoo. Something about the zoo.

Jerry: The zoo?

Peter: You’ve mention it several times.

Jerry: (still distant, but returning abruptly): The zoo? Oh, yes. I was there before I came here. I told you that. Say, what’s the dividing line between upper-middle-middle-class and  lower-upper-middle-class?”

The zoo is a symbol about social classification. The zoo symbolizes people who live their live separately, separated by social classification, lower class, middle class, and upper class. The zoo represents how people are isolated by their class. Upper class people only know people in their class, so do middle class people and also lower class people. People live fragmentarily just like animal in the zoo who live inside the cage, people live inside “their cage”.

Bench

Bench in The Zoo Story symbolizes honour and ownership. Just like what written on the script:

“Jerry: Listen to me, Peter. I want this bench. You go sit on the bench over there, and if you’re good I’ll tell you the rest of story.

Peter: (flustered) But... What ever for? What is the matter with you? Besides, I see no reason why I should give up this bench. I sit on this bench almost every Sunday afternoon, in good weather. It’s secluded here; there’s never anyone sitting here, so I have it all to myself.

Jerry: (softly) Get off this bench, Peter; I want it.             

Peter: (almost whining): No.”

“Peter: (his fury and self-consciousness have possed him) It doesn’t matter. (He is almost crying) GET AWAY FROM MY BENCH!

Jerry: Why? You have everything in he world you wnat; ypu’ve told me about your home, and your family, and your own little zoo. You have everything, and now you wnat this bench. Are these the things men fight for? Tell me, Peter, is this bench, this iron and this wood, is this your honour? Is this the thing in the world you’d fight for? Can you think of anything more absurd?”

When Peter said “GET AWAY FROM MY BENCH!” it clearly represents the ownership. Peter claims the bench is his bench, and Jerry wants the bench because he thinks Peter already has everything.

From the explanation above we can conclude that absurdity in absurd plays actually do represent something real in the real life more than what rational play can do. Just like what Martin Esslin says on his essay, The Theatre of the Absurd:

“If the dialogue  in these plays consists of meaningless cliches and the mechanical, circular repetition of stereotyped phrases--how many meaningless cliches and stereotyped phrases do we use in our day-to-day conversation? If the characters change their personality halfway through the action, how consistent and truly integrated are the people we meet in our real life? And if people in these plays appear as mere marionettes, help- less puppets without any will of their own, passively at the mercy of blind fate and meaningless circumstance, do we, in fact, in our overorganized world, still possess any genuine initiative or power to decide our own destiny? The spectators of the Theatre of the Absurd are thus confronted with a grotesquely heightened picture of their own world: a world with- out faith, meaning, and genuine freedom of will. In  this sense, the Theatre of the Absurd is the true theatre of our time.” (P.6)

The absurdity in The Zoo Story play represents problem in the real life, such as loneliness (Jerry’s miserable life) and the disctinction of social classes.

Works Cited

Albee, E. (n.d.). The Zoo Story.

Esslin, M. (n.d.). The Theatre of the Absurd.

Dutchman by Amiri Baraka

Dutchman is a play by Amiri Baraka, an African-American writer. There are two main characters in Dutchman, Clay, twenty-year old black man and Lula, thirty-year old white woman. Lula and Clay met on the subway when Lula ate some apples. The gesture of Lula was seductive. We can see in this dialogue:

"Lula: (She gets one out of the bag for herself) Eating apples together is always the first step. Or walking up uninhabited Seventh Avenue in the twenties on weekends. (Bites and giggles, glancing at Clay and speaking in loose sing-song) Can you get involved... boy! Get us involved. Um-uh. (Mock seriousness) Would you like to get involved with men, Mister Man?"

She used that seductive and agressive gesture to manipulate the situation and dominate convesation with Clay. She said to Clay about Warren which provoked Clay and made Clay assumed that she is a friend of Warren.

Clay described as educated black man, or at least, he tried to look like educated black man. He wore suit and tie and read a book. It shows in this dialogue:

"Lula: Everything you say is wrong. (Mock smile)That’s what makes you so attractive. Ha. In that funny book jacket with all the buttons. (More animate, talking hold of his jacket) What’ve you got that jacket and tie on in all this heat for? And why’re you wearing a jacket and tie like that? Did your people ever burn witches or start revolutions over the price of tea? Boy, those narrow-shoulder clothes come from a tradition you ought to feel oppressed by. A three-button suit. What right do you have to be wearing a three-button suit and striped tie? Your grandfather was a slave, he didn’t do to Harvard."

In the end of the story, Lula stabbed Clay two times and thrown out Clay from the subway.  She also made other passangers, black or white, to get out from the Subway. The story end when a young black man entered the Subway in the next stop and Old Negro Conductor came.

This play wants to represent binary opposition between white and black. How black to be seen by white and how whiteto be seen by black. How white people make a stereotype to black, and how black people want to refuse that stereotype and get out from the oppression.

Works Cited

Baraka, A. (1964). Dutchman.

Baraka, A. (n.d.). Dutchman.

Becoming Brenda in Brenda Wong Aoki's "The Queen's Garden"

1. What do you see in the mirror?

I have Chinese, Mexican, and Scotland blood from my Mom and I have Japanese and Salt Lake blood from my Dad, indeed, but everytime I look at the mirror, I realize that mostly, I have an Asian face. My teacher, Judy, once said that I’m an oriental woman back then. She said that when she asked me to make a friend with Hai, a Viatnamese. However, at that time I tried to denial it. I thought I was not like her, but days after days I realized that I’m an oriental.

2. Where are you in your world?

Everyone try to tell me that I’m from Westside. In Westside, I helped my father in Pharmacy. But lately, I’m beginning to looking for who I really am. I went outside Westside, I went to collage by EOP (Ethnic Opportunity Progam), I dropped out from college, but I got a special certificate to teach, because no one else would teach Twelve o’ Clock High, the class for losers. I never thought my students are losers, they just lazy. In school, I met Rosie who has dramatic story.

3. What do you see when you see Kali?

Reminiscing the old days, Kali is someone that I used to love. He was my boyfriend when I was on the Westside. He was the one who taught me how to surf, he was the one who always helped me when I’m starting drowning at the sea. I remember the first time I called him boyfriend was when Kali celebrate his 14th birthday, we went to the beach because we heard there were six footers down on Hunington. It was dangerous, I’ve told Kali. Kali almost drowning at that time, I shouted to the life guard “No! He’s drowning. And he’s my boy friend!”. Kali and I used to love each other, but everything changes when we went to Long Beach Polytechnic High School. Kali said to everyone in Westside, we are getting married, but I didn’t want to marry him, or anyone else that time, and he was upset to me, so did I. Maybe, when we grew up, our love was just grew apart. I used to love Kali, but people change, so do I, and the changing of me, change my love to Kali too.