Robert Cohen - Theatre, Brief Version-McGraw-Hill Education (2016)

Theatre 81
A black slave named “Hero,” (played by Sterling K. Brown) is attacked by the white Colonel (Ken Marks), who declares
that “I am grateful every day that God made me white,” in Suzan-Lori Parks’ Civil War drama, Father Comes Home From
the Wars. This thrilling 2014 production at the New York Public Theater includes parts 1, 2 and 3 of what Parks plans to
become a nine-part epic drama, modeled in part on Homer’s The Odyssey. The production was directed by Jo Bonney
and co-produced by the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, MA. © Sarah Krulwich/New York Times/Redux
surprisingly warm and inviting gesture, given the bleak
and dense texture of her work. And her latest work, the
critically acclaimed Father Comes Home From the Wars
(Parts 1, 2, and 3), reflects the openness of her public
performance: while still retaining her trademark abstract
touches and lyrical, otherworldly language, this play follows
a more traditional structure. Indeed, its narrative
derives from one of the most traditional works in the
literary canon, The Odyssey. Parks transplants Homer’s
story from ancient Greece to Civil-War-ravaged America
to turn a primal, mythological event into the tale of
a slave who enlists to fight with the Confederate Army.
While universal in her themes, the specificity of
Parks’ work has long focused on the black experience in
America, in all of its trauma—slavery, lynchings, poverty,
discrimination, minstrelsy, and racism. In her hands,
such horrors become both grotesque and beautiful,
terrifying and sublime. With the speech of Mrs. Aretha
Saxon from Mutabilities, for example, Parks vividly—
but in an indelible style—describes the process of packing
human cargo into the Brooks, an English slave ship.
Six seven eight nine. Thupp. Ten eleven twelve
thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen. Thupp. Seventeen.
Eighteen nineteen twenty twenty-one. And uh little
bit. Thuuup. Thuup. Gotta know thuh size. Thup. Gotta
know thuh size exact. Thup. Got people comin. Hole
house full. They gonna be kin? Could be strangers.
How many kin kin I hold. Whole hold full. How many
strangers. Depends on thus size. Thup. Size of thu
space. Thuup. Depends of thuh size of thuh kin.
Pendin on thuh size of thuh strangers. Get more mens
than womens ssgonana be one number more womens
then mens ssgonna be uhnother get animals thuup
get animals we kin pack em thuup. Tight. Thuuup.
Thuuuup. Mmmmm. Thuuup.