The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-10-09

score by Dolphe Martin, staged
by EN- 10 Basshe, Stanley Pratt,
and Margaret Hewes. At the
Cort Theatre.
Reviewed by
LEON ALEXANDER
IF MT. Paul Green, writing once
more of the Negro in the South
but this time, alas, without the SYM
pathy and the understanding that
was in "In Abraham's Bosom"-had
not assumed the prophets cloak
and wrapped himself in seeming
profundity, I might have found his
new play Roll Sweet Chariot"
merely dull and banal melodrama.
But Mr.. Green has a thesis, his
play is parable Of the Negro peo-
pie, and through the symbolic fog it
emerges as a vicious SANDER upon
the Negro.
The locale Of the play is Potter's
Field, a Negro settlement in the
South, on the edge of white mans
town. There the Negroes live in
squalor and promiscuity,, ignorant,
physically and morally degraded,
content to wallow in filth, unrebel-
lious. Two at least of the depicted
characters are congenital idiots, and
the level Of intelligence of most of
the rest is not much higher.
THE melodramatic story, what
there is of it, centers around a
woman whose husband has been
sent to the changing, and who is
now living with another lover.
To this settlement comes John |
Henry, the hero of song and story, |
the Paul Bunyan of the Negro in
America; but he also has become
degraded and depraved, an escaped |
convict from the chain gang, CARRIED |
in the fake dress of a minister, !
planning to prey upon the ignorance
and the superstitions of this COM
munity. He impresses the people !
with his strength and his magic,
and plots deeply and darby sad
fate for Potter's Field. He engineers
the husbands escape from the |
changing; he helps the husband !
best the lover and overcome his
wife. The lover comes back and
kills the husband.
And now swift retribution strikes
the folk of Potter's Field A dyna-
mite blast from the road which the |
chain gang has been building to go
through the settlement shakes its
ramshackle hutS to the ground. A
sepulchral voice from the height |
of the second balcony-police or
god?-condemns John Henry and |
the lover to 20 and 10 years on the
chain gang.
THE last scene opens on the now
destroyed settlement. We see the
overseer Of the changing, brutal,
welding whip, and an armed |
guard; we hear the changing ap-
preaching. They come in, dis
pirited, suffering group, singing a
work song in the second best man
ner of Mr.. Baillieff's performers in
the "Volga Boatmen" tableau. The
lover is i'll and near exhaustion; he
drops to the ground. The brutal
overseer whips him, and the gang
rises up and overpowers the guard
and the overseer.
Now the play is resolved, and the
meaning of the parable becomes
suddenly clear John Henry, bad
man, does not join in the rising;
instead, with the guards disarmed,
he raises his voice louder in the
worksong, swinging his pick Justify
while the overseer gapes; and the
rest of the chain gang, then the
whole population of Potter'S Field
men, women, children, the halt, the
lame, the sick, the blind-hypno-
tized, raise picks and continue to
dig with increasing frenzy 1.-THE
Road" that is to destroy the settle
ment. And regenerated Potter's
Field marches of, picks swinging,
into the glory of a glaring amber
spotlight, left stage.
Now the deep and significant thesis
that Mr.. Green has been wrestling
with in the past three scenes be-
comes apparent: That the problem
which confronts the Negro is not to
overthrow the rule of those who
exploit and Cypress him, but to
strive first for his own moral re-
generation. 1t is to PROFOUND this
old bromide that the author has set
into motion his choirs, his orchestra,
his actors, and his sepulchral off,
stage voice: that man Gin this par
ticular case the Negro cannot i'm
prove his lot on earth until-through
retribution and suffering-he has
improved his moral character.
THE direction, the settings, the
L lighting are on a par with the
playscript. The acting and the di-
recting swing confusedly from stiff
stylisation, melodramatic posturing
to slow-dragging reals the
true-to-life set, crowded inside
cheese cloth sky cyclorama, is con-
stantly at odds with the intended
mood of the play; the lighting re-
minds us Of the worse atrocities of
the high school auditorium.
Returning to the play, it is also
quite possible that I have misin-
terpreted the purposes of Mr.. Green.
Perhaps his only serious intention
had been to write a higher-browed
musical opera. At any rate, for
those who want realistic picture of
Negro life, there is still "Stevedore,'
the exciting production of the