American dramatist Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (born 1984) has said that he thinks of “genre or old forms” as “interesting artifacts that invite a kind of archeology of seeing” (qtd. in Foster, 2019: 1). His interest in excavating earlier texts and styles of performance to critique assumptions, especially racial assumptions, and values prevalent in contemporary America is apparent in many of his plays. In
Neighbors(2010) he revisits minstrel shows, and in
Appropriate(2014) American family drama; in
Everybody(2017) he adapts
Everymanand in
Girls(2019) Euripides’s
The Bacchae.
An Octoroon(2014) is an adaptation of Dion Boucicault’s nineteenth-century melodrama about slavery,
The Octoroon(1859). First performed by Soho Rep in New York in 2014 (and remounted in 2015),
An2302 words
Citation: Foster, Verna Ann. "An Octoroon". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 September 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=38959, accessed 23 November 2024.]
