PERFORMANCE RESPONSE
An Octoroon
Mixed Blood Theatre
—————————————–
Step 1: Check out the link on the syllabus to the show and determine when you will attend.
Important: check under “Required Performances” on Blackboard and read any information
posted there BEFORE you attend the show.
Step 2: Attend the show! Sit, listen, and allow yourself to WATCH the play. The play is
meant to be experienced, so let yourself do just that. Remember: cell phones must be
turned off once you enter the theater! Be sure to get a program, as you will need the
information listed in order to complete this assignment. Save your ticket as well (turn in
with your paper—along with the program).
Step 3: During intermission or after the show, draw pictures, make notes within your
program, or TALK about the show with a friend — whatever it takes to keep your
impressions fresh in your mind.
Step 4: WRITE a double-spaced, 2-3 page response to the performance (use the questions
below as a guide). Spelling, grammar, and presentation count.
——————————————–
“Because, it’s like, ‘Well what makes me a black
[playwright]?’ I mean, I guess, it’s that I’m black, but
then, it’s like, why isn’t Sam Shepard a white
playwright?” Jacobs-Jenkins asks. “It just feels like it’s
qualifying something, and I don’t know why or what it’s
qualifying exactly.” Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins, playwright
“An Octoroon” is performed now in the same way that it was written in the mid-nineteenth
century: as a melodrama. Melodrama (a play with music) has broad characters, clear moral
tones and plays “over the top”—especially to modern audiences.
Jacobs-Jenkins (the playwright) uses comedy to talk about subjects that audiences—both
black and white—find reprehensible: slavery, bigotry, racism. In the following link, Jacobs-
Jenkins is interviewed about his use of comedy. Listen to this clip and respond:
http://www.wnyc.org/story/making-comedy-out-slavery-and-prison-life/
What do you think of Jacobs-Jenkins use of comedy to get his audiences to think about
tough issues? How did you see him use comedy in “An Octoroon”? What if Jacob-Jenkins
had chosen to show these issues in a less comedic, broad way? Above all, comment on
HOW Jacob-Jenkins chose to deal with these topics of race.