So, another from the annals of rehearsal. Query posed to production dramaturg Faedra, and the reply follows. No, not all of our “du jour” questions are this interesting, rich, or rewarding—nor are our answers, always.

STEW/LEFTOVER DRAMATURGY RESPONSE – 3.18.2010

Question:

p. 42 Toledo’s “But the stew they eat, and the stew your grandpappy made, and all the stew that you and me eat, and the stew Mr. Irvin eats…ain’t in no way the same stew”.  Irene interested in your take on this.

Response:

So, I think that the whole idea of “stew” is the collection of life experiences we must confront (and “consume”)—it’s what we encounter and, thus, “take in” that makes us who we are, collectively and individually.

And then, in extending that to the “leftovers” discussion,  I think one of the clearest (and convenient!) explications is offered by the celebrated Wilson scholar Harry J. Elam, Jr., in his 1996 essay, ‘‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom: Singing Wilson’s Blues”:

“Wilson advocates and agitates for African American social consciousness and black nationalistic self-determination through his art. Accordingly, Toledo instructs the band members as to their status as products of the economics of slavery. These are lessons that Wilson wants all African Americans to understand. In his powerful, poetic and humorous analogy of a stew, Toledo explains that African Americans are historical leftovers. ‘‘See we’s the leftover. The colored man is the leftovers. Now what the colored man gonna do with himself? That’s what we waiting to find out. But first we gotta know we the leftovers.’’ For Wilson, African American advancement can only come after African Americans recognize their leftover status, appreciate the legacies and lessons of slavery and realize and express their Africanness. In Ma Rainey unfortunately, Toledo’s words do not activate an increased social awareness in the brash young trumpeter, Levee, nor in the other band members.”

So, certainly, that passage is about activating one’s nationalistic consciousness and that can only be done if one “knows thyself.” In fact, that’s one idea I talked about in the interview used for CENTERSTAGE’s  Joe Turner’s Come and Gone playbill and I think it serves just as well in our consideration of Ma Rainey:

“I do believe that a major message for African Americans in Wilson ‘s plays is to “Know Thyself.” Part of this is about knowing and appreciating your past: understanding the obstacles overcome by those that came before you as well as recognizing the wealth of your culture and the contributions it has made to society-at-large.”

With all that said, however, I’d like to add this additional thought in relation to “leftovers”:

        I think it’s important to remember, especially in an African American cultural context, that Toledo’s comparison of black folks as a “leftover” not be perceived as a pejorative observation (his critique is not that black folks are leftovers, but that we don’t recognize our own leftover status).

        We have to remember that a good deal of African American cultural history is indebted to the reality of “leftovers.” Whether we are talking chitterlings (chittlin’s) or quilts, we are talking about cultural products that were divined out of “making something out of nothing”—about taking the discarded and the dregs, the second-hands and the cast-offs—and transforming them into that which was not only functional, but desirable. That tradition of innovation and revitalization is the same spirit that has informed everything from African American vernacular to the artistic impulses of Jazz music—traceable in various forms of expression, it all goes back to a spirit of riffing and revising—taking an originating source/object and making something anew.   BUT you’ve got to understand what you have in hand in the first place before you canaspire to new possibilities…

-Faedra