Childress, Alice (Vol. 12) | Clive Barnes
CLIVE BARNES
["Wedding Band"] is a romantic play, and does not entirely escape the charge of sentimentality.
The writing is rather old-fashioned in its attempt at Ibsenite realism, and neither the situation nor the characters really change from the beginning of the play to the end. But perhaps that was par for the course in South Carolina in 1918, and the play has a cosy efficiency that always holds the attention. It is a sweet old love story about hard, dusty times in a hard, dusty place.
What did black people think and talk about in 1918? We are so used to the black stereotypes thrust on us by the white literature of the time or to the films of a period just a little later that it is difficult to judge the credibility of a black play deliberately set more than half a century ago, almost midway between Abolition and now.
Miss Childress very carefully suggests the stirrings of black consciousness, as well as the strength of white bigotry....
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