The Blacks
Blacks, The (Les Nègres) Author: Jean Genet
First Performance: 1959, Paris
Published: 1958
First English Translation: 1960
Genre: Drama in 1 act; French prose
Setting: Colonial Africa, 20th c.
Cast: 8m, 5f
On an upper level, a court sits in judgement on those below. The members of the court, played by blacks wearing white masks, are: the Queen, her Valet, the Governor, the Judge, and the Missionary. On the lower level, four black couples in formal dress dance around a catafalque. Archibald, the master of ceremonies, steps forward and introduces the cast, who are, he explains, only actors. He reveals that the catafalque contains the body of a white woman they have murdered. Deodatus Village, who loves the prostitute Stephanie Virtue, claims to have strangled the victim, a smelly old...
[The entire page is 343 words long]
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