Funnyhouse of a Negro

Funnyhouse of a Negro is a one-act play by Adrienne Kennedy. Funnyhouse of a Negro opened off Broadway in 1964 and won the Obie award for Distinguished Play.^[1] It shared this title with Amiri Baraka's Dutchman.^[2] 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.^[2][3] The play is studied in college and university settings more than it is actually performed.^[3]

Summary

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 Hapsburg, 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.^[4] 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.^[3]

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.^[3] The enormous, white statue of Queen Victoria is the prime example of this. The first scene is between Queen Victoria and the Duchess of Hapsburg, with the room acting as the Queen's chambers.^[5] 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.".^[5]

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.".^[5] 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,^[5] 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."^[5]

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."^[5] 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 saviors".^[5] 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."^[5] 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."^[5] 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."^[5] 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.

Symbolism

The "funnyhouse" Kennedy addresses in Funnyhouse of a Negro is the madhouse of racism.^[2] Sarah, the mulatto woman, is torn between the paradoxes of black and white, past and present, flesh and spirit.^[2] The play also dramatizes the sexual economy of racism that constructs blacks as hypersexual and culturally deficient. Additionally, Funnyhouse of a Negro demonstrates global citizenship from multiple perspectives: as Africans, as Americans, as women, and as women of color.^[6] During the time the play was written, there was a popular theme amongst playwrights surrounding a newly awakened social consciousness that was manifested via a campaign to sustain ties with Africa.

Kennedy's play presents a striking representation of whiteness. She sought to deconstruct and disempower "thing white thing" by showing audiences haunting and perverse images of whiteness.^[6] The method Kennedy uses to interrogate perceptions of whiteness is the use of whiteface. This is a signifying strategy. Kennedy references black face minstrelsy by adopting its use of transracial mimicry. Her technique revises its meaning through enactment of white, instead of black, representation.^[6] The skin tone is envisioned as "whitish yellow" or "alabaster" illustrating that "pure whiteness" is a mythic notion. Although Sarah is in whiteface, her highly visible "wild kinky hair" is highlighted, offering the audience a persistent reminder of who is beneath the mask.^[6] This is also a reminder of the inescapable integrated and miscegenated reality of blacks and whites in America. Additionally, the Queen and Duchess symbolize power but are used to de-romanticize idealized perceptions of white. They both have "kinky hair". They are white but their hair is meant to be black, demonstrating Sarah's identity conflict.^[7]

Characters

Adrienne Kennedy's interest in foreign landscapes crystallized in 1960 during a voyage aboard the Queen Elizabeth to England, France, Spain, and African.^[8] Here she received the inspiration for her complicated characters. Kennedy gathered and stored images that would later emerge in her signature mental rant, Funnyhouse of a Negro. The cameo appearances in the play include Queen Elizabeth I, the Duchess of Hapsburg, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Patrice Lumumba, Anne Boleyn, the King of France, and Chopin.^[6]

• Negro-Sarah: Sarah is the protagonist of the play. The only facts we know for certain about Sarah are that she is a student at a city college in New York studying English, she works as a librarian, and lives in a brownstone in the west 90's of Manhattan. We also know that her mother was white and her father was black. She spends the play grappling with her interracial identity, trying to latch onto her whiteness, but failing to escape her blackness. The Duchess of Hapsburg, Queen Victoria, Jesus, and Patrice Lumumba all act as manifestations of Sarah's self.
• Duchess of Hapsburg (One of herselves): The Duchess of Hapsburg represents Sarah's racist subconscious, as her character is an emblem of European colonialism. She is also a manifestation of Sarah's desired sexuality.^[3][9] She is romantically involved with Jesus in the play, and spends most of her time on stage in the Queen's chambers. She loses almost all of her hair throughout the play. Her character has traditionally been played by a black woman wearing a white mask.^[10]

Additionally, the Duchess of Hapsburg's personal history echoes the mental condition of Sarah. In 1864 Napoleon III appointed Carlota (duchess) and husband, Austrian Archduke Maximillian, to the Mexican throne.^[6] However, they were left penniless and powerless against Mexican revolutionaries. During her reign, the Duchess began to display signs of mental illness which eventually descended into full-blown schizophrenia. Her husband was tried for treason and executed by revolutionaries, meanwhile Carlota was banished to the family's castle since she was diagnosed as incurably insane.^[6] Her tragic story was portrayed in the 1939 film "Juarez" which provided inspiration for Kennedy.

• Queen Victoria Regina (One of herselves): Queen Victoria Regina represents Sarah's deep obsession with whiteness, as well as her repressed sexuality.^[3] Her character also lives on stage in the form of a statue. Like the Duchess of Hapsburg, she is also an emblem of European colonialism.^[10] She is portrayed in exactly the same manner as the Duchess, played by a black woman with a white mask. She also loses her hair throughout the course of the play. Historically, Queen Victoria was the Queen of England from 1837–1901, and the empress of India from 1876-1901. Queen Victoria exemplifies the height of British colonial rule and the fragile life of a royal figure. She was a symbolic rather than political leader. Unfortunately, she suffered familial distress and debilitating depression during her reign.^[6] The Queen's life symbolizes another form of masking. It is a mask of power that obscured the virtual weakness of a constitutional monarchy.^[6]
• Jesus (One of herselves): Jesus, traditionally depicted as an emblem for Christianity, represents Sarah's disdain for her father.^[9] However, Kennedy's Jesus rebukes modern representations of a white, beautified Jesus.^[6] He is traditionally portrayed on stage by a black actor with either a white mask, or painted yellow skin.^[10] Jesus is described as a "dwarf, dressed in white rags and sandals.^[6] He leads the selves into the jungle to kill Patrice Lumumba. He also loses his hair throughout the course of the play. As a historical figure known for his martyrdom, Jesus's character is an integral element in the play's dealing with racial identity and sacrifice.^[11]

Furthermore, this character challenges notions surrounding Christianity's holiness. Kennedy's Jesus violates insistence on binary constructs like good-evil, white-black, and normal-abnormal.^[6] This embodiment of dichotomies addresses the problematic role of Christianity within the lives of the enslaved and colonized. While Christianity symbolizes comfort and liberation, it is also a source of persecution and oppression.^[6] Jesus also represents for Sarah feels about herself: stunted, deformed and needy.^[7] Additionally, he is the last of her inner selves to lose his hair, thereby sealing Sarah's fate.

• Patrice Lumumba (One of herselves): Patrice Lumumba represents Sarah's self-hatred, and he is also a manifestation of Sarah's father.^[9] He carries an ebony mask throughout the play, constantly alluding to African traditions.^[10] He also loses his hair throughout the course of the play. However, Lumumba reveals the secret to hair within the play. He proclaims, "For if I did not despise myself then my hair would not have fallen.^[7] Historically, Patrice Lumumba was the Prime Minister of the Republic of Congo from June 1960 to December 1960. He was executed by a firing squad, and both the United States and United Kingdom have been accused for conspiring in his murder. He was an activist for independence, and with a death so influenced by imperialism, his character is the ultimate opposite of Queen Victoria and The Duchess, who both embody such imperialism.
• Sarah's landlady (Funnyhouse Lady/Mrs. Conrad): The landlady is a white woman who runs Sarah's boarding house, and is one of the only two characters in the play to actually exist in the reality of the play. She delivers monologues to the audience regarding Sarah's life, making her a crucial character for the audience, as she is one of the few people who offers a more objective view of Sarah. She discovers Sarah's hanging body at the end of the play.
• Raymond (Funnyhouse Man): Raymond lives in the boarding house with Sarah, and she calls him her boyfriend.^[5] Raymond is a white Jewish young man.^[7] Raymond likes Sarah because of her race which she has a problem with. Sarah asserts, "I would like to lie and say I love Raymond. But I do not. He is very interested in Negroes".^[7] He is the other character who exists in an objective reality (with the Landlady). He is with the Landlady at the end of the play when she discovers Sarah's body, and ends the play by saying that her father never actually committed suicide. He also appears in the play for a scene as the 'Funnyhouse Man' with the Duchess, revealing the role he plays in Sarah's subconscious.
• The mother: While Sarah's mother is never formally introduced in the play, she appears in the opening dreamlike sequence, as well as two other scenes in which she yells about being raped by Sarah's black father, claiming that she should have never let a black man touch her. Her mother represents all that is good and a victim of "blackness"^[7] The Landlady reveals that the mother has lost all of her hair and lives in an insane asylum. She also haunts Sarah in her nightmares.^[5]

Themes

Funnyhouse of a Negro primarily deals with the theme of racial identity, touching on elements of mixed ancestry, as seen through the four manifestations of Sarah's self. The play's fundamental structure (its lack of plot, surrealistic elements, etc.) is influenced by various different cultural artistic movements, giving a basis to this theme of mixed ancestry. The play uses masks, hair, and its set and props in order to evoke all of the mixed cultures the play represents. In casting the 'white' characters with black actresses, Kennedy utilizes her own form of reverse minstrelsy in order to fully represent Sarah's racial identity crisis on stage.^[10]

White idolizations is also extremely prominent. Aside from the fact that her other selves are a ghostly white color, the way she worships her mother for her light skin and long hair points to an obsession with a wanted white identity. She even states within the play that the only ‘acceptable’ part of her is her yellow skin, which resembles her mothers. This idea also ties in with her obsession with her hair. Her hair is curly and wild, a very prominent showcase of her blackness. This may be a reason why hers, her mothers, and her other selves all lose their hair. Sarah’s need to meet the white standards of society and not have and black features or qualities overtake her life and are the driving forces behind her actions and thoughts.

Sarah's selves are divided by female and male characters, exhibiting her own internal divide not only between black and white, but between femininity and masculinity.^[3] This tool helps relay the theme of both mental and literal imperialism in the play, as Sarah's own mind and body are violated by foreign elements. The female fragments of Sarah's self are white European elegance and royalty, while the black fragments of herself are incredibly masculine martyrs. In contrasting Sarah's conflicting genders and races so deeply, Kennedy adds enormous complexity to Sarah's conflicting racial identity.

The theme of death is also incredibly prominent in the play. All of Sarah's selves are dead historical figures, and Sarah is haunted by the image of her father's death and mother's plight into insanity because of his touch. Sarah also reveals her own desire to kill her father. She also seeks to kill the blackness inside of her. The father is portrayed in a way in which his very touch is fatal, driving Sarah's mother to lose her sanity and ultimately drive Sarah to her own suicide.^[3] The opening sequence of the play immediately presents deathly imagery, as the white curtain is described as being made of "a cheap material and a ghastly white, a material that brings to mind the interior of a cheap casket."^[5]

Sexuality is also prevalent in the play, as Sarah is repulsed by, and fears to form any sort of union with, her father.^[3] She expresses fear of being raped by her father, because she believes he raped her mother, as well. As the product of rape, Sarah's view of healthy sexual relationships is very stunted.^[3] Sexuality reveals itself in the play through the Duchess and Jesus' interactions, as well as her interaction with Sarah's boyfriend, Raymond. The Duchess acts as the ultimate expression of Sarah's sexuality.^[3]

Hair is a very important theme in Funnyhouse of a Negro. Hair defines the characters, marks their evolution, and illustrates Sarah's fate.^[7] Sarah's "wild kinky hair" is the only part of her physical make-up that identifies her as black.^[7] Her hair underscores the idea Sarah tried to disavow—then kill—the African American part of her heritage.

Psychological Aspects

Funnyhouse of the Negro is a perfect example of how someone can have deep emotional and mental damage from something that didn’t directly involve them. Sarah was deep in her own head the large majority of the play. Sarah had massive amounts of self-hate because of her skin color and what it represented in her life. It represented her father; the man who raped her mother, the man who was a monster. The fact that her father later killed himself because of her ultimate rejection only pushed her farther into her mind. The effects of having no one around to support her or explain to her what really happened between her mother and father after her mother’s rape (the end of the story alludes to the fact that the story Sarah knew may not have been true), caused Sarah to create multiple versions of herself to make sense of what was happening to her. Sarah could have had two major mental disorders. Both multiple personality disorder and schizophrenia make sense based off evidence in the play. The audience can’t tell whether or not she’s speaking out loud when she interacts with these characters, which is one of the major differences between the two. While the play is obviously spoken out loud, it is hard to distinguish whether or not we’re experiencing all of this through her head or if it’s happening in real time, in the real world. Either way, Sarah has some serious mental and emotional issues that ultimately lead to her death.

Performance history

Professional:

• East End Theater, NYC, January 1964^[12]
• Signature Theatre Company, NYC, October 1995^[13]
• Classical Theatre of Harlem, February 2006^[14]

College performances:

• Harlem School of the Arts Theatre, 2006^[15]
• Brown University, October 2008^[16]
• Brandeis University, February 2010^[17]
• Columbia University, Fall 2012^[18]
• The Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University, Spring 2017^[19]

Role in the Black Arts Movement and future influence

The Black Arts Movement in America was the "aesthetic and spiritual sister to the Black Power concept."^[4] The movement was dominated by masculine influences, giving it an element of violence. Adrienne Kennedy contributed her female voice to this movement by using the tactics of artists involved in the movement, like reinventing language and forms, and giving a voice to marginalized black women, as well. After Funnyhouse of a Negro won the Obie Award for Distinguished Play in 1964, Kennedy's work gained force not only within the Black Arts Movement, but also among aspiring black female playwrights. Ntozake Shange, Aishah Rahman, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Robbie McCauley were all influenced by Kennedy's work.^[20] Critics have also noted that Kennedy's plays, specifically Funnyhouse of a Negro and its successor, The Owl Answers, offer "a plea for a more compassionate relationship between men and women in the black community," but the play also "urges black women artists to chart their own course — if necessary, even without approval from black male artists."^[20] The work also plays on the importance of mental health and stability. Sarah’s story is a cautionary tale. While Sarah’s circumstances may be slightly unique, the effect could happen to anyone. Kennedy’s play shows the vulnerability of the black woman, something that had not been shown and is still rare in popular writings and media. It shows that black women suffer from their circumstances and that they are also susceptible to mental instability. Funnyhouse of a Negro brought attention to the pain of every day woman and it helps modern day society see black woman in a new light separate from the stereotypical and harmful “independent black woman who needs no one” image.

Awards and nominations

Obie award for Distinguished Play, 1964^[1]

See also

• The Owl Answers
• Black Children's Day

References