the octoroon summary

If there are three dates, the first date is the date of the original In May 1860, Mattison met with Picquet to help her raise money to free her mother from bondage. Three years later, in 1850, Louisa married Henry Picquet. Minnies banter with Kacie Rogers Dido and bickering with Leea Ayers Grace provide choral commentary with a jaded Gen X twist. George says he can overcome the obstacle (43), but Zoe protests that they cannot be together. Dissatisfied with ongoing Methodist support for slavery, on November 1st of 1861 Mattison formally withdrew from the church and became a pastor of St. John's independent Methodist church. Synopsis A Black playwright is struggling to find his voice among a chorus of people telling him what he should and should not be writing. Word Count: 361. Upon his return to the ministry in 1856, Mattison took an active part in the anti-slavery movement. When Zoe speaks to George to tell him that, he confesses his love for Zoe instead. McClosky, however, outbids her for Zoe; George is restrained from attacking him by his friends. Bachelor. eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. Rather than execute this, the actors explain and act out what happens. Picquet was sold to Williams of New Orleans and her mother was sold to Texas. Salem Scudder, a northerner who has been serving as the plantation's overseer, bears some responsibility for the poor state of affairs at Terrebonne. [9] Prior to the first performance, Alexis Soloski for The Village Voice published an email from cast member Karl Allen who wrote, "the play has transformed from an engaging piece of contemporary theatre directed by Gavin Quinn to a piece of crap that wouldn't hold a candle to some of the community theater I did in high school". The auction begins and MClosky aggressively bids on Zoe, winning her. At the end of the narrative Mattison includes his own "Conclusion and Moral of the Whole Story." Branden Jacobs-Jenkins An Octoroon is a whirlwind of images and dialogue that leaves no one out of the conversation and makes no apologies for asking the hard questions. [6], The sensation scene of the original play is deconstructed in act four. During this time, she was "accused of being an imposter" and fraud because of her skin color (p. 43) On one particular occasion, some of the gentlemen Picquet inquired upon for donations sternly asked her, "You are a colored women? online is the same, and will be the first date in the citation. date the date you are citing the material. The most overt of this is Zoes status as an Octoroon, a person who is one-eighth black. The auctioneer arrives, along with prospective buyers, McClosky among them. Stealing a lantern, he sets fire to the steamship that had the slaves on board. Charles McNulty is the theater critic of the Los Angeles Times. 13 According to the formulaic plot that defined the octoroon genre, the enslaved mixed-race beauty was understood to be the product of a sexual relationship between a white male slaveholder and an enslaved woman of African descent. He accompanied her until she was successful in raising nine hundred dollars and bought her mother's freedom. McClosky desires Zoe for himself, and when she rejects his proposition, he plots to have her sold with the rest of the slaves, for he knows that she is an octoroon and is legally part of the Terrebonne property. He comes across a therapist who recommends adapting his favorite play, The Octoroon by Dion Boucicault, as a jumping off point out of his writers block. Cook, who wanted to sleep with Picquet, asked her to wait on him at night, yet each time Picquet evaded his bedroom thanks to the protection of Mrs. All Picquet wanted was to "get religion" (p. 22). This outdoor production is an ideal way of easing back into this most public of art forms, free of any pandemic misgivings about breathing the same air of fellow theatergoers. The slaves PETE, MINNIE, and DIDO are sold to a steamboat captain, RATTS. Landmark court cases in the Southern states eventually erased the legal proscription against such unions, but the legacy of Zoes predicament still casts its long shadow over the affairs of the heart. eNotes Editorial. Zoe and George are alone, and George confesses his love for her. 2023 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Though she remained enslaved and unmarried, Julia bore him two daughters. publication in traditional print. George, upon arriving at the plantation from Europe, begins to fall in love with her. MClosky overhears their conversation, but still vows hell have her if it costs [him] [his] life (44). land of the palmetto and the pine, From Blue Ridge Mountain down to Mexic's sea; Sweet with magnolia and cape jessamine, And thrilled with song,thou art the land for me! Back at Terrebonne, Zoe returns but with a sad heart, as she knows that she and George can never be together. The play starts with the director telling the audience, in a hilarious way, what inspired him to . She is of mixed racial heritage, with one great-grandparent who was black. The play then ends with a final image of Wahnotee standing triumphantly at Pauls grave over MCloskys dead body. How to End "The Octoroon", John A. Degen, Learn how and when to remove this template message, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Octoroon&oldid=1114317331, This page was last edited on 5 October 2022, at 22:08. date the date you are citing the material. I envy not the proud old Florentine The classic beauties of his Italy; Give me but here to have my glory dream, 'Mid fragrant woods and fieldsby lake and stream. Given its 19th century Southern setting, the play is also filled with numerous examples of racial discrimination beyond the institution of slavery, even by the plays more sympathetic characters. This is no easy task, and the cast has mixed results. Jacobs-Jenkins himself took on the role of Br'er Rabbit and Captain Ratts.[14]. She is the so-called illegitimate (not produced by marriage) daughter of a plantation owner named Mr. Peyton and one of his slaves on this. MClosky announces that Terrebonne is for sale and plots to steal Zoe; because she is an octoroon, she is a piece of property and therefore a part of the estate. She was born to a slave, but her father, Randolph, was a free man and her master. A spectacular collision of the antebellum South and 21st-century cultural politics, An Octoroon twists a funhouse world of larger-than-life stereotypes into blistering social . Pete pleads for MClosky to not be lynched, so George demands that M'Closky be taken away, not revenged by Wahnotee, but M'Closky escapes and sets fire to the boat. NYT Critic . The time is now for the American play, and An Octoroon is just one of many groundbreaking works by women and writers of color. He comes across a therapist who recommends adapting his favorite play, The Octoroon by Dion Boucicault, as a jumping off point out of his writer's block. He hoped to use Picquet's experiences to prove the moral corruption of slavery at the General Conference of the Methodist Church in Buffalo. Just getting the production up and running in this new outdoor playing area was miracle enough. ), Matthew Lawrence says his agency dropped him after he refused to strip for director, Ed Sheeran blasts music expert for criminal testimony in Marvin Gaye copyright trial, Roman Polanski and the woman he pleaded guilty to raping pose together 45 years later, Paul Stanley of KISS dives into debate over transgender acceptance versus kids transitioning, Has the Justin Timberlake Its Gonna Be May meme passed its expiration date? Return to North American Slave Narratives Home Page, Louisa Picquet, the Octoroon, or, Inside Views of Southern Domestic Life, Speaking Lives, Authoring Texts: Three African American Women's Oral Slave Narratives, Work Here, Rest Hereafter: Or, The Life and Character of Rev. Sara Krulwich/The New York Times. 683 Words; 3 Pages; Open Document. Scenes are presented on StageAgent for educational purposes only. Picquet solicited for donations to reach the one thousand dollar price, and in her travels asking for donations, she made it all the way to New York City where she met the Reverend Hiram Mattison. At about two months old, Picquet and Ramsey were sold to David R. Cook from Jasper County, Georgia. This pocket Bluetooth printer lets you print your precious memories before they hit Instagram. When Cook got in trouble with creditors he fled with his slaves to Mobile, Alabama. He has no children with his wife, but he has one daughter, a young woman named Zoe, who is one-eighth blackthe octoroon of the plays titleand who he fathered with a slave (who must have been a quadroon, a person with one-quarter black heritage). The second date is today's If there are two dates, the date of publication and appearance Act II begins with Scudder showing off his camera, when Pete, an older slave, enters to say the estate has officially been put up for sale. Time & Place. It isnt pretty. The Reverend Hiram Mattison (1811-1868) was born on February 8, 1811, in Norway, Herkimer County, New York. Dora then reappears and bids on Zoe she has sold her own plantation in order to rescue Terrebonne. Because of her close appearance to the master's white infant child, she and her mother, Ramsey, were sold to Cook. Through Brechtian elements such as direct address, Jacobs-Jenkins explores "the idea that you could feel something and then be aware that youre feeling it". Also, he emphasizes that the defining point of this "whole narrative is the deep moral corruption which it reveals in the families concerned, resulting from the institution of slavery" (p. 50). He soon meets and falls in love with an "octoroon", a young woman who is one-eighth black. She is beautiful, educated, kind, and polished. The Octoroon debuted in London just several months after the beginning of the Civil War. George reveals his love to Zoe, who loves him too, and the fact that she is the daughter of a slave does not deter him. Last Updated on June 19, 2019, by eNotes Editorial. This issue arose because at first glance Picquet looked to be "a white lady" (p. 5). (Check schedule for exceptions.) This much-celebrated work by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins toys with the machinery of melodrama, a form that relies on the elaborate sets and over-the-top spectacle of the illusionist stage. MClosky asks Scudder to help him, but he instead simply gives him his bowie knife and leaves him to his own defenses. Those qualifications have much to offer, but what An Octoroon needs is an auteur whos alert to the way the tempo and visual composition of a scene can shape its meaning. Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of The Octoroon by Dion Boucicault. Those who could move beyond Bells sentimental conception of the tragic mulatto might have contemplated the wider implications of this degree of miscegenation within the dominant social structures of the time. Ends Sept. 19Info: (323) 663-1525 or www.FountainTheatre.comPrice: $25 $45; Pay-What-You-Want on Monday nights, subject to availability.Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes. Summary In 1828, Louisa Picquet (1828-1896) was born near Columbia, South Carolina to fifteen year old Elizabeth Ramsey, a quadroon slave, and John Randolph, Ramsey's white master, which made her an octoroon, or an individual with one black and seven white grandparents. Scudder tells Pete to go listen to what the men say about the house, while Mrs. Peyton enters and says shell remain at the house until the law compels her to leave. The founding director of the Hutchins Center is Henry Louis Gates Jr., who is also chairman ofThe Root. Jacobs-Jenkins knows Boucicaults play cant be redeemed, but he challenges us to see whats there. Word Count: 465. [13] The cast featured Chris Myers as BJJ, in triple roles: the black playwright, George Peyton and M'Closky; Danny Wolohan as Dion Boucicault, Zo Winters as Dora, and Amber Gray as Zoe. During this time, he wrote to Methodists in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales in an attempt to stamp out slavery from the Methodist Episcopal Church by circulating petitions to collect signatures. The Octoroon or The Lily of Louisiana is a dark tale of crime, race and slavery. MClosky vows to own that Octoroon (37) and get the mailbag before Paul and Wahnotee, so that he may steal the letter and prevent the Peytons from saving their estate. In 1828, Louisa Picquet (1828-1896) was born near Columbia, South Carolina to fifteen year old Elizabeth Ramsey, a quadroon slave, and John Randolph, Ramsey's white master, which made her an octoroon, or an individual with one black and seven white grandparents. Louisa Picquet, the Octoroon: or Inside Views of Southern Domestic Life (1861) is not so much a narrative as a series of Picquet's first-person answers to Mattison's questions, which seem to have transcribed verbatim, along with his own commentary. Our summaries and analyses are written by experts, and your questions are answered by real teachers. Boucicault adapted the play from the novel The Quadroon by Thomas Mayne Reid (1856). She is the so-called illegitimate (not produced by marriage) daughter of a plantation owner named Mr. Peyton and one of his slaves on this plantation, which is called Terrebonne. Lafouche comes to run the auction of the property and announces Zoe will be sold. The show that I decided to watch was "An Octoroon" directed by Branden Jacobs Jenkins. [2] Among antebellum melodramas, it was considered second in popularity only to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852).[3]. publication in traditional print. She may even be unaware of her status before being so reduced. Key Information Character Solon Show The Octoroon Gender Male Age Range Adult, Mature Adult Role Size Ensemble Time & Place mid 1800's, louisiana, plantation terrebonne, mississippi river Tags african-american slave server cook good-natured loyal ensemble southern creole accent Analysis African-American, Southern Creole Accent. Mature Adult. The Octoroon Dion Boucicault 2.66 431 ratings47 reviews This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Besides race, what are some representations of slaves and slavery that are not complicity with the dominant ideology of this time? Start your 48-hour free trial to get access to more than 30,000 additional guides and more than 350,000 Homework Help questions answered by our experts. In Mobile, Picquet describes her love interest with a "colored man more white than [she was]" (p. BJJ stops the action of the play. Eventually, Zoe takes the poison and runs off. Hired out by Cook to the Bachelor family, Picquet labored in Mrs. Decent Essays. Paulwith the mailbagsstops to take a photo of himself with Georges camera. "The Octoroon - Characters" eNotes Publishing In race-conscious societies, the prospect of racial mixture could threaten the precarious stability of the dominant order. Between his knavery (according to Scudder) and Scudders own folly, the rest of the plantation is likely to be sold off to cover debts. BJJ, Playwright, and Assistant explain the significance of the fourth act, the sensation scene in melodrama. The Octoroon Summary. The Oxford English Dictionary cites The Octoroon with the earliest record of the word "mashup" with the quote: "He don't understand; he speaks a mash up of Indian, French, and Mexican." Scudder and Pete enter to tell the group of MCloskys guilt when MClosky enters and is quickly rushed on by Wahnotee. Picquet recalls that slaves were stripped of their clothes to be appraised and then sold to the highest bidder. The citation above will include either 2 or 3 dates. In the American version, the tale ends tragically with Zoes suicide as she realizes that any future with George as man and wife could never be. Through the playful lens of theater, An Octoroon invites us to take a good long look at the cultural history of slavery. The narrative begins with a description of Piquet's physical appearance as a passable mulatto to emphasize that despite "at first view, [looking like] an accomplished white lady," she was denied of any rights or liberty given to white women because of her African ancestry (p. 5). George defends him and demands a fair trial, while MClosky reluctantly takes the role of prosecution. FreeBookNotes found 4 sites with book summaries or analysis of The Octoroon. The group also discusses Zoe, who lives at the estate and is the judges illegitimate child, although Mrs. Peyton loves [her] as if shed been her own child (26). The female "tragic octoroon" was a stock character of abolitionist literature: a light-skinned woman, raised in her father's household as though she were white, until his bankruptcy or death has her reduced to a menial position and sold. An Octoroon By Brandenkins Summary. The production was critically acclaimed, winning an Obie Award for best new American play in 2014 (a tie with his previous play, Appropriate). The Octoroon or, Life in Louisiana; A Play in Five acts Author: Dion Boucicault Release Date: June 24, 2014 [EBook #46091] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OCTOROON *** Produced by Roger Burch, from scans obtained from the Internet Archive THE . The production ran from January 29 to February 27, 2016. Forget musicals. Abolitionist John Brown was hanged just three days before the play's debut, which is seen as one of the catalyst events that started the Civil War. Suspense the melodramatists best friend is sent up even as its savored. [24], The Canadian premiere of An Octoroon was produced by The Shaw Festival for its 2017 season. Present in An Octoroon is the illusion of suffering and actual suffering. George offers to take her to a different country, but Zoe insists that she stay to help Terrebonne; Scudder then appears and suggests that George marry Dora. Scudder tells them that all could be saved if George marries Dora, but says he knows that Zoe and George are in love. MClosky steals the letter, leaving before Wahnotee finds Pauls dead body and smashes the camera to pieces in grief. All monologues are property and copyright of their owners. 1 May 2023 . Jacobs-Jenkins developed his take on The Octoroon while he was a Dorothy Strelsin Fellow at Soho Rep in the 2009/10 season. George goes to Dora and begins to propose to her; while he is doing so, however, he has a change of heart and decides not to lie to her. New York, NY, Escape To Margaritaville Although she claims its because someone is sick, she actually wants to use the liquid to poison herself. So, instead of giving up, he decides to play the white male roles himself. At the time her narrative was transcribed, despite the kind donations of many people, Mattison explains to the reader that Picquet had been unable to raise enough money to free her mother. Mattison wants the reader to remember that this story "is no fiction" and that what has been written is "worthy of the most implicit belief" (p. 49). Bells conflation of the carved simulacrum of the nude female slave with the theatrically inspired concept of the mixed-race woman glosses the reality of slavery with a more broadly nuanced commentary on the role of race in the self-definition of an entire culture. The Octoroon explores themes of slavery and racial identification and discrimination, although it does not fully commit to either side of the slavery debate. eNotes.com, Inc. To that end, every now and again an actor dressed as a rabbit makes a surreal cameo. She, however, gets her father to buy the plantation in order to save it, George, and Zoe, but Zoe is sold off separately to MClosky after a huge bidding war between him and the Sunnysides. The position of the octoroon along the edge of this fragile divide afforded some degree of maneuverability, often termed passing. Before the abolition of slavery, however, such light-skinned mulattoes faced the even more likely prospect of a life in bondage. This is the origin story of the play were watching, but BJJ is an unreliable narrator. [2] In a 2018 poll by critics of The New York Times, the work was ranked the second-greatest American play of the past 25 years. Extremely popular, the play was kept running continuously for years by seven road companies. Chapter-by-chapter summaries and multiple sections of expert analysis, The ultimate resource for assignments, engaging lessons, and lively book discussions. The last word, an important colloquialism, was misread by the typesetter of the play. Despite her deep concern for Ramsey's welfare, she found happiness in her marriage to Henry Picquet, a mulatto. It contains elements of Romanticism and melodrama. This shuffle of identities is insouciantly performed as a minstrel carnival. [6], An Octoroon had a workshop production at Performance Space 122 from June 19 July 3, 2010, featuring Travis York, Karl Allen, Chris Manley, Ben Beckley, Gabe Levey, Jake Hart, Margaret Flanagan, Amber Gray, Mary Wiseman, LaToya Lewis, Kim Gainer, and Sasheer Zamata. New York: The Author, 1861. BJJ is focused on a play, The Octoroon, but runs into issues staging it because the white actors quit, so he applies whiteface in order to play them himself. I wondered if I might be moved to tears at my return to the theater, but instead I felt grateful and relieved that human ingenuity wasnt thwarted by a virus. The Octoroon is appropriately considered a sensation drama, though it received the label retrospectively. Text for each Image of the Week is written by Sheldon Cheek. The narrative goes on to recount an exchange of letters between Picquet, her mother, and Ramsey's slave owner in Texas. Zoe tells George: Of the blood that feeds my heart, one drop in eight is blackbright red as the rest may be, that one drop poisons all the blood (43). Here, Picquet was hired out by Cook as a nurse and domestic help to a Mr. "Bachelor" whose wife ran the boarding house where Cook stayed. Narrative context is dispensed with to focus on the essential plight of the victim, a process often leavening compassion with a less chaste voyeurism. The audience is catapulted into a space that plays to their stereotypes and questions our societys relationship to humanity and our history. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Coming to an L.A. stage: Proof were in a golden age of American playwriting, Michael Ritchie will retire from Center Theatre Group and make space for a new voice, Hollywood writers strike over streaming pay after talks fail, Models and climate activists hit the streets to protest the star-studded 2023 Met Gala, Gordon Lightfoot, mournful Canadian singer-songwriter, dies at 84, Tim Bachman, founding guitarist of Bachman-Turner Overdrive, dies at 71. Johnson openly acknowledged these children and provided the girls with a superior education and marriage to prominent white men. As indicated by the inscription on the base of the statue, she is instead an octoroonthat is, an exceptionally light-skinned person of mixed race, technically defined as one-eighth black and the rest white. To settle his debts, the creditors made Cook sell his slaves, so at thirteen, Picquet was separated from her mother, who was sold to Colonel Albert Clinton Horton of Wharton, while Picquet went to New Orleans with Mr. John Williams. An Octoroon begins with a prologue, in which a surrogate for the author, BJJ, introduces himself to the audience as a Black playwright, a label he doesnt fully comprehend. Among the summaries and analysis available for The Octoroon, there are 1 Full Study Guide, 2 Short Summaries and 1 . Mara Klein as Zoe is tragically demure in a sweet yet one-note manner. His parents, Solomon and Lydia Mattison, raised him and his eleven siblings in the Methodist Episcopal Church. The title refers to a person who is one-eighth black. Later, Mattison returned to the Methodist Episcopal Church in Jersey City and remained with the congregation until his death on November 24th, 1868. Mrs. Peyton hopes that the letter shes awaiting from Liverpool will save the estate, as it concerns a debt owed to her husband that may now be paid back. When Boucicaults play premiered at New Yorks Winter Garden Theatre in 1859, it was a controversial hit, angering both pro- and anti-slavery factions. Zoe heads out to the slave quarters to ask Dido for poison. Sign up today to unlock amazing theatre resources and opportunities. He and Zoe admit to their love of each other; a heartbroken Dora leaves. Boucicault portrayed Wahnotee, and in his play Jacobs-Jenkins explores the connection between a person and their identity as artist. The play, which follows many conventions of melodrama, was deemed to be too tragic when performed in the United Kingdom, and the ending was changed to feature Zoe and George leaving for England to get married in a land without miscegenation laws. Pete sends Paul to go find a letter that would promise enough money to save Terrebonne. The Octoroon; or, Life in Louisiana by Dion Boucicault premiered in New York City on December 6, 1859. Jacobs-Jenkins reframes Boucicault's play using its original characters and plot, speaking much of Boucicault's dialogue, and critiques its portrayal of race using Brechtian devices. Everything was handled with extraordinary care and concern, from the ticketless check-in to the spacing of the quite comfortable chairs. This page is not available in other languages. [15] In his review for The New York Times, Ben Brantley called the play this decades most eloquent theatrical statement on race in America today.[16] The production transferred to Theatre for A New Audience's Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn and ran from February 14, 2015 to March 29, 2015. The Octoroon auction scene The plantation and townsfolk attend the auction of Terrebonne and all of its slaves. Dora Sunnyside, the daughter of another local planter, falls in love with George. The title of the play refers to a character named Zoe. Boucicault's manuscript actually reads "Indian, French and 'Merican." After sparring with Scudder over their role in the Peytons downfall and offering Zoe the chance to be the mistress of her own plantation (she refuses), MClosky goes through the judges desk and finds Zoes free papers, realizing that due to the judges debts, Zoe, an Octoroon, is still a slave.

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