#BlackHistoryMonth2022 Big White Fog

FEBRUARY

23. by Theodore Ward (no photo)

Finish date: 11 February 2022
Genre: Play
Rating: D
Review:

Bad news: This play was described as one of the most
powerful African American plays on the 1930s. So why didn’t I like it?
Act 1 – too slow, no real set up for emerging conflict…just introduction to characters.
Act 2 – scene 2,3 finally explode in race/family conflict, inter-black prejudice…but it is too little too late for this reader. Yes I noticed themes in 1938…are still relevant today….blacks cut off from opportunity: Vic’s son Les: his scholarship cancelled b/c of skin color but that was not enough to create an emotional connection to the play as…I had with Raisin in the Sun (Lorraine Hanesberry)
Act 3 -…just fizzles out.

Good news: Interested in African American drama? There are better plays to read.
Raisin in the Sun (Lorraine Hansberry)
Fences (August Wilson)
#WorthYourReadingTime

Personal: The play was relevant in its time (depression era)..offering an exact record of its times. But it was a somber, depressing play. Weak point: There was a constant heavy-handed leftist rhetoric, tone. Vic is Marcus Garvey follower, Pizer (Jewish student, friend of his son Les) promotes socialism. Weak point: The play occasionally shows its age: the family’s horror at the elder daughter’s prostituting herself to a white man seems overdone…and the climax is melodramatic. (Act 2:2,3) Strong emotional appeal with characters shouting and and threatening each other (Vic vs mother-in-law and wife) Weak point: covering a 10-year span from 1922 to 1932 In Act 3 there is a 8,5 year jump, too far to feel like a compact “problem play”. Probably the play needs to be seen on stage…and not read in bed at 10 pm. The sparks that must fly between Vic, Ella, Martha, Dan….that would salvage this story.