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''Funnyhouse of a Negro'' is a one-act play by Adrienne Kennedy. She was born Adrienne Lita Hawkins on September 13, 1931 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.〔MLA Carter, Steven. "ADRIENNE KENNEDY (1931– )." African American Dramatists: An A-to-Z Guide. Ed. Emmanuel S. Nelson. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2004. ABC-CLIO eBook Collection.〕 However, she grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. Christianity played an important role in Kennedy's childhood. However, after her parents' divorce, Kennedy began having distorted images of Jesus, which worked their way into ''Funnyhouse of a Negro''.〔 Adrienne Kennedy attended Ohio State University where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1952.〔 During her time at the university, Kennedy was subject to racist hostility and discrimination which also provided inspiration for the play. Kennedy began play writing in 1951 but did not receive recognition until she joined Edward Albee's Playwright's Workshop in New York in 1962.〔Robinson, Alice M., Vera M. Roberts, Milly S. Barranger, and Carolyn Karis. Notable women in the American theatre: a biographical dictionary. New York u.a.: Greenwood Pr., 1989. Print.〕 It was here that the play was written and produced by Albee. Adrienne describes her writing as "an outlet for inner, psychological confusion and questions stemming from childhood. I don’t know any other way. It’s really figuring out the ‘why’ of things".〔Hill, Errol, and James Vernon Hatch. A history of African American theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Print〕 ''Funnyhouse of a Negro'' opened off Broadway in 1964 and won the Obie award for Distinguished Play.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.villagevoice.com/obies/index/1964/ )〕 It shared this title with Amiri Baraka's ''Dutchman''.〔 The play was written during the Black Arts Movement in the "theater of the absurd" and is set within the mind of the central character, Sarah.〔 The play is studied in college and university settings more than it is actually performed.〔 The play tells the story of a young black woman named Sarah who lives in New York City. The play focuses on Sarah's internal struggle with her racial identity. She spends a great deal of time grappling with her feelings about her mixed ancestry—she worships her white mother and despises her black father. In order to demonstrate this complicated mental battle, Kennedy transforms the stage into a manifestation of Sarah's mind, and she uses various historical figures as representations of Sarah's black and white heritage. These character's are described as extensions of Sarah's self. The figures include Queen Victoria, the Duchess of Habsburg, Patrice Lumumba, and Jesus Christ. The play was written during The Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and early 1970s. The Black Arts Movement had a strong masculine element in its work and mission, making Kennedy's powerful female voice a rarity for the time. With the central conflict of ''Funnyhouse of a Negro'' taking place in Sarah’s mind, we gain access to the true anxiety, entrapment, and alienation of what it felt like to be a black woman in America at this time. In this specific case, we zoom in on the obsession with whiteness and the anguish that comes with conflicting ancestry, and we ultimately witness the complete fragmentation of Sarah’s self, examining both her white self and black self.〔 The use of historical figures to represent various identities is Kennedy’s specific tool—a tool that adds a recognizable element to this completely foreign world for the audience. Thinking about the masking in this play is also a fundamental element in understanding the play’s exploration of racial identity, especially when considering it in the context of minstrelsy and its deeply rooted history in America.〔 The fact that black actresses in masks play Queen Victoria and the Duchess is reflective of Sarah’s disconnection between her two identities, much like minstrel performers who had to strip themselves of their identities in order to please white audiences. When these “white” parts of Sarah’s self lose their hair, they lose part of their blackness and sexuality. This binary between skin and masks ultimately asks the question: what is artificial and what is original in the play? These elements help us examine what it psychologically feels like to be trapped in a body you’ve been conditioned to hate. == Plot summary == The play begins with a dreamlike sequence of a woman in a white nightgown with long, dark hair crossing the stage. The woman (who we later learn is Sarah's mother) carries a bald head in her hands as a white curtain opens, revealing Sarah's bedroom. The entire play takes place in Sarah's mind. Sarah's room acts a symbol for her idolization of whiteness.〔 The enormous, white statue of Queen Victoria is the prime example of this. The first scene is between Queen Victoria and the Duchess of Habsburg, with the room acting as the Queen's chambers.〔 This gives us an immediate glimpse into the permeability of the set—it constantly takes on new forms for its various inhabitants. The two women primarily discuss whiteness, as Queen Victoria states, "My mother was the light. She was the lightest one. She looked like a white woman.". These women's words are not their own; they are the words of Sarah. The Queen and Duchess completely embody Anglo-American culture, and they therefore act as an extreme manifestation of Sarah's white self. Their conversation is interrupted by the woman from the opening sequence's incessant knocking, yelling about how she should have never let a black man touch her. This is how we first learn of Sarah's hatred towards her black father. The scene then shifts into one of Sarah's monologues, and ends with a comment from the Landlady: one of the only characters who exists outside of Sarah's imagination, and therefore one of the only manifestations of reality in the play. The Landlady helps the audience understand Sarah's situation, explaining how her father killed himself when Patrice Lumumba was killed. She says that Sarah hasn't left her room since her father's death, and that Sarah claims her father did not actually hang himself, but rather, she "bludgeoned his head with an ebony skull that he carries about with him. Wherever he goes, he carries black masks and heads.".〔 The scene ends with the Landlady's remarks about how Sarah's hair has fallen out from her anxiety, and how she always knew she wanted to be someone else. This first scene introduces us to the motif of hair throughout the play. There is also a persistent knocking sound in the background for the rest of the play, which represents the father's attempts to get back into Sarah's life. The following scene is between the Duchess and Raymond, the funnyman of the Funnyhouse. The two characters discuss the Duchess' 'father,' who is actually Sarah's father, as the Duchess is an extension of Sarah's self. They call the father a "wild beast" who raped Sarah's mother,〔 and compare his darkness to the mother's whiteness. Finally, the Duchess reveals that the mother is currently in an asylum, completely bald. This explains the significance of the opening sequence of the play, in which the mother walks across the stage holding her bald head. In this scene between the Duchess and Raymond, we also learn that the Duchess' hair is falling out in chunks. This means that Sarah's hair is falling out, as well, because her white self cannot coexist with her black self. The next scene simply contains a speech by Patrice Lumumba, a manifestation of Sarah's black self. His character is unknown to the audience, and he holds a mask in his hands. The speech discusses how Sarah is haunted by her bald mother in her sleep, blaming Sarah's father for her plight into insanity, saying, "Black man, black man, my mother says, I never should have let a black man put his hands on me."〔 The next scene begins with a movement sequence between The Duchess and Queen Victoria, in which they discover that the Queen's hair has fallen out on her pillow, and the Duchess tries to place hair on her head. As they continue to pantomime, Patrice Lumumba's character returns for another monologue, in which he gives more information about Sarah's life. We learn that Sarah is a student at a city college in New York, and how she dreams of being surrounded by European antiques and have white friends. He also explains that her father was given mixed messages from his parents: his mother wanted him to go to Africa and save the race, while his father told him " the race was no damn good."〔 This internal racial conflict deeply influences Sarah. The speech ends with the claim that the father 'tried' to hang himself in a Harlem hotel, but leaves a certain ambiguity as to whether or not his suicide actually occurred. The next scene is between the Duchess and Jesus in the Duchess' palace. They are both bald and express their fear surrounding the loss of hair. The following scene begins with a movement sequence between the Duchess and Jesus, similar to that of The Duchess and Queen Victoria, in which the two characters sit on a bench, attempting to brush the shreds of hair left on their heads. When they finally speak, they discuss how the father won't leave them alone. The Landlady enters and tells a story about how Sarah's father asked her for forgiveness for being black, and she would not give it. The scene ends with Jesus telling the Duchess how he plans on going to Africa to kill Patrice Lumumba. The next scene takes place in a jungle, taking over the entire stage. Sarah's bedroom is still in the background, though. Jesus appears, surrounded by the rest of the characters, all with nimbuses on their heads, " in a manner to suggest that they are saviours".〔 The group speaks in unison about how they believed their father to be God, but he is black. They speak of how his darkness killed the lightness (Sarah's mother), and haunted Sarah's conception. Finally, they say that they are bound to the father unless he dies. They all rush to the grass in unison and repeat their chants, as the mother enters. They enact a conversation between Sarah and her father, in which he seeks forgiveness for being black, and Sarah asks him why he raped her mother, and then states how she wants to "bludgeon him with an ebony head."〔 All of the characters run around the stage laughing and screaming, out of victory, until the blackout. As the final scene begins, a new wall drops onto the stage. A white statue of Queen Victoria acts as the representation of Sarah's room. Sarah appears in the light, ''"standing perfectly still, we hear the KNOCKING, the LIGHTS come on quickly, her FATHER'S black figure with bludgeoned hands rushes upon her, the LIGHT GOES BLACK and we see her hanging in the room."''〔 The Landlady and Raymond enter, noticing Sarah's hanging body. The Landlady remarks on the sadness of Sarah's situation, when Raymond suddenly says, "she was a funny little liar."〔 He then says that her father never actually hanged himself, but rather, he is a doctor and married to a white woman, living the life that Sarah's always dreamed of having. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Funnyhouse of a Negro」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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