Customer Reviews

Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Aside from the controversy of the dispute between Hughes and Hurston, I deal with the story and play itself.

The play "Mule Bone" is based on "The Bone of Contention," a 1930 short story by the Queen of Black Folklore (ZNH) based on a folktale from her hometown of Eatonville Fla. about two men who fight over a turkey. One uses a Mule bone to assault the other, and the town's Black Baptists and Methodists split over the issue as Mayor Joe Clarke tries to settle the matter.

The play by Hughes and Hurston is similar, only the two men are now a song and dance team fighting over the affections of a local vamp and an epilogue is added to the ending.

Overall, it's mildly amusing. It does a decent job in capturing some subtleties of Black rural life in 1930 such as the courting rituals and the "dozens" insults between the Black Baptists and Methodists (one Baptist insults a Methodist as a "half-washed Christian." Anyone familiar with the competing theologies will have a good laugh at this one). But those familair with Hurston's work will see a lot of "The Eatonville Anthology" and the later "Mules and Men" here. Nothing really outstanding to the Hurston fan, but worthy of a few chuckles.

However, had this play been performed in 1930, I doubt very seriously that it would have been considered as revolutionary as the authors intended. It would have surely set off a firestorm of controversy. Given the fact that few literate Blacks who attended plays wanted anything to remind them of their rural Southern origins, this play would have been damned and dismissed by the African-American elite and white liberals of the day. While the heavy dialect, the use of the n-word, the casual attitude toward domestic violence, the illiteracy and pompousness of many characters, etc. were realistic aspects of Black rural life at the time, this was a side of Black life that many feared would be exploited by bigots to prevent their inclusion into mainstream society. In fact, I have read where these issues accompanied the play upon its actual performance in 1991.

But even a so-so effort by Hughes and Hurston proves to be far more interesting than many other efforts by others at the time.

We are fortunate that this play was finally produced well over 50 years after it was written. Hurston and Hughes wrote an interesting play that needs a bit of fine tuning in order to be a truly great play. If they had been able to stage this production in the 1930s, the play could have really changed the ways that African-American culture is expressed through musical comedy. One of their great contributions is their use of actual stories and traditional songs from African-American folklore in this play, and the collective ear of Hurston and Hughes in presenting the voices of black people really creates an authentic sound to the dialogue. Unfortunately, disputes between Hurston and Hughes kept them from staging the play, an ironic development since the play is a satiric look at factionalism within a small community. With historical hindsight, this play adds to our understanding of the Harlem Renaissance and the work of two great writers. It's also very much worth reading in relation to Hurston's other writing, especially _Mules and Men_.

This is a fascinating play that is definitely worth reading, but if you buy (or rather download, given that it's free) this Kindle version, be forewarned - it's missing the entire third act!

The Mule-Bone: A Comedy... by, Zora Neale Hurston
Funny Play
I really got a kick out of this play. The sayings reminded me of a friend I lost recently, who would always say these down home sayings. I asked her more than once if she was from down south and she told me she was from Baltimore. Sure seemed like she was back woods Florida and this play!
Zora Neale's characters are real. They say the things I've heard many times from people I know. I laughed out loud while reading; "Yo head look like it done wore out three bodies. Talkin' `bout me smellin' you smell lak a nest of grand daddies yo'selfr."
There are several story lines in this play. One was about the rivalry of the Methodist and the Baptist in this small town. Another was the rivalry between two young men over the town "hussey". Among others. The ending was disappointing; I wanted it to go on, but it looked as though the whole town was ready to come to blows and my imagination needed to do something...

This was another Kindle "free" book, thanks Kindle.