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and language practices handed down from
generation to generation. As the island migrants
came to cities such as Charleston, they brought
their culture with them, including folktales, music,
dance, religion, and speech, often presenting
a minority culture within the traditional African
American culture that existed. Heyward, inspired
by his mother who collected Gullah stories and
songs and fascinated by the people he saw on his
walks through their neighborhoods, decided to
create a work that would capture the uniqueness
of their lives.
After reading a story in the local newspaper
about an African American beggar, Samuel
Smalls (“Goat Cart Sam”), who was arrested for
attempting to shoot a woman, Heyward decided
to explore the character. With Catfish Row as
the background,
Porgy
told the story of the lead
character (a crippled beggar), his sensual lover
(Bess), and a cast of poor stevedores, fishermen,
desperate mothers, a drug dealer, a pseudo-
intellectual want-to-be paralegal, and a white
policeman and lawyer.
Porgy
painted a portrait
of Gullah people whose dialectic language
patterns differed from traditional African
American dialect in word choice and language
structure. Heyward paints pictures of spirituals
(ring shouts) that emphasize the repetition and
call/response symbols of West African culture.
Although the dialogue was difficult to read,
especially with the usage of the term “nigger”
spoken constantly by the African Americans,
the basic love story between Porgy and Bess
in this “strange” environment impressed literary
critics. Given the background of the Harlem
Renaissance,
Porgy
presented an exotic view of
African Americans.
The novel and, two years later, the play
by Dorothy Heyward raised questions of
authenticity vs. realism.
The New York Times
called the play “…a sympathetic and convincing
interpretation of Negro life by a member of
an ‘outside’ race.” W. E. B. Du Bois hated
the negative images. After publication of the
novel, Langston Hughes wrote, “With his white
eyes…Heyward saw wonderful poetic qualities
in the inhabitants of Catfish Row that make
them come alive.” Later in 1956 Hughes would
criticize
Porgy and Bess
for its negative images of
“an interminable crap game and whose leading
lady…stands straddle-legged like a cow to sing
her arias.” This changing difference of opinion
by Hughes represents not only the adaptation
from novel to stage but, more importantly, the
changing times as the culture changed and
Hughes and others saw the art through different
eyes.
A larger issue of authenticity vs. realism is
the question of what is true vs. what audiences
believe. Dramatically, realism has the goal of
selecting believable events/characters and
creating exciting moments in a story that will
hold the audience’s attention, as opposed to
naturalistic authenticity that may be absolutely
true but fails to engage the audience.
Porgy
–
the novel and play – was designed to hold the
reader’s and viewer’s attention while being true
to a particular culture and time period.
The 1927 play gave a larger audience an
opportunity to experience Heyward’s story.
Presented by the Theatre Guild in New York,
the play gained praise from many white critics
and mixed reviews from the African American
viewers. It must be emphasized that
Porgy
was
seen by big-city Easterners, as opposed to the
entire nation. The success of the play as a
commercial venture may also be due in part to
the presentation of other ethnic productions,
including works by such writers as EugeneO’Neill
(
The Hairy Ape
) and the widely popular Elmer
Rice (
Street Scene
). Many cities boasted of their
Irish, Jewish, and Italian theaters, all popular with
immigrant audiences. The creation of African
American theaters such as the Lafayette Theatre
and Krigwa Theatre, and others in Philadelphia
and Washington, D. C., made it possible for
Porgy
to fit comfortably in New York and be a
legitimate success for theatergoers.
Porgy and Bess
raised the stakes of the
Heywards’ story by creating an opera (the
composer labeled it “folk opera”) intended to
highlight music over story. When it opened in
1935, the country was no longer experiencing
the “good life” that characterized the 1920s. By
1935 the Depression spread to a majority of
Americans, and for African Americans optimism
was fast fading as racism and poverty intensified.
At the same time, more African Americans were
becoming literate in historically black colleges
Catfish Row was based on the real-life Cabbage Row in Charleston, South Carolina.
William Warfield and Leontyne Price in the title roles
of
Porgy and Bess,
1952.
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