THE DREAM ON MONKEY MOUNTAIN
 |
| Antonio Fargas, Roscoe Lee Browne. |
"In Lieu of Reviews
Reviews of live theatre being impossible during these days of the pandemic, THEATRE'S LEITER SIDE
is pleased to provide instead accounts of previous theatre
seasons--encompassing the years 1970-1975-for theatre-hungry readers. If you'd
like to know the background on how this previously unpublished series came to
be and what its relationship is to my three The Encyclopedia of the New
York Stage volumes (covering every New York play, musical, revue, and
revival between 1920 and 1950), please check the prefaces to any of the entries
beginning with the letter “A.” See the list at the end of the current entry.
 |
| Esther Rolle, Roscoe Lee Browne, and company. |
THE DREAM ON MONKEY MOUNTAIN [Drama/Fantasy/Politics/Prison/Race/Religion/ West
Indian] A: Derek Walcott; D: Michael A. Schultz; CH: Mary Barnett; S: Edward
Burbridge; C: Lewis Brown; L: Ernest Baxter, Oyamo; P: Negro Ensemble Company;
T: St. Marks Playhouse (OB); 3/9/71-4/18/71 (48)
Makak (Roscoe Lee Browne), an ugly, old,
black charcoal seller, has been jailed for wrecking a bar in a frenzy on the
night of a full moon. In his cell, he dreams of God as a white woman riding a
crescent moon, encouraging him to lead the blacks back to Africa. In his
dreams, many characters appear, acted by the mulatto jailor (Ron O’Neal) and
other prisoners. The Moon Lady (Margaret Spear) represents to him, the advantages of white
culture that blacks hunger for, yet from which desire they must be released if they
are ever to be free of the white man’s yoke. Consequently, Makak slays the
goddess, symbolically freeing blacks from their white colonial oppressors.
 |
| Ron O'Neal, Roscoe Lee Browne, and company. |
West Indian dramatist Derek Walcott’s “overlong”
allegorical drama was “graced by expressive writing and some engaging acting,”
opined Harold Clurman, but Edith Oliver went further and claimed this to be “the
richest and strongest production ever done at the Negro Ensemble Company. She
called the play “a masterpiece.” It was “a beautiful, bewildering play,”
thought Clive Barnes, one he considered a highly poetic, evocative, thoughtful,
and lovely work, excellently staged, designed, and performed. Walter Kerr,
however, found the work verbose and said he was disturbed by Walcott’s “bent
for poetic digression.”
The Dream on Monkey Mountain had been produced earlier in Trinidad, and in two
regional theatre mountings. It won an OBIE for Distinguished Foreign Play. Cast members included Esther Rolle.
Previous entries:
Abelard and Heloise
Absurd Person
Singular
AC/DC
“Acrobats”
and “Line”
The Advertisement/
All My Sons
All Over
All Over Town
All the Girls Came
Out to Play
Alpha Beta
L’Amante Anglais
Ambassador
American Gothics
Amphitryon
And Miss Reardon
Drinks a Little
And They Put
Handcuffs on the Flowers
And Whose Little
Boy Are You?
Anna K.
Anne of Green
Gables
Antigone
Antiques
Any Resemblance to Persons Living or Dead
Applause
Ari
As You Like It
Augusta
The Au Pair Man
Baba Goya [Nourish the Beast]
The Ballad of Johnny Pot
Barbary Shore
The Bar that Never Closes
The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel
The Beauty Part
The Beggar’s Opera
Behold! Cometh the Vanderkellens
Be Kind to People Week
Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill
Bette Midler’s Clams on a Half-Shell Revue
Black Girl
Black Light Theatre of Prague
Black Picture Show
Black Sunlight
The Black Terror
Black Visions
Les Blancs
Blasts and Bravos: An Evening with H,L.
Mencken
Blood
Bluebeard
Blue Boys
Bob and Ray—The Two and Only
Boesman and Lena
The Boy Who Came to Leave
Bread
A Breeze from the Gulf
Brief Lives
Brother Gorski
Brothers
Bullshot Crummond
Bunraku
The Burnt Flower Bed
Butley
Button, Button
Buy Bonds, Buster
The Cage
Camille
Candide (1)
Candide (2)
The Candyapple
Captain Brassbound’s Conversion
The Caretaker
La Carpa de los Raquichis
The Carpenters
The Castro Complex
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
The Changing Room
Charles Abbott and Son
Charley’s Aunt
Charlie Was Here and Now He’s Gone
Chemin de Fer
The Cherry Orchard
The Chickencoop Chinaman
The Children
Children! Children!
Children in the Rain
Children of the Wind
The Children’s Mass
A Chorus Line
The Chronicle of Henry VI: Part 1, Part
II,
The Circle
Clarence Darrow
Cold Feet
Conditions of Agreement
Coney Island Cycle
The Constant Wife
The Contractor
The Contrast
The Constant Wife
The Country Girl
Crazy Now
The Creation of the
World and Other Business
Creeps
The Crucible
Crystal and Fox
Cyrano
Dames at Sea
The Dance of Death
Dance wi’Me/Dance with
Me
A Day in the Life of
Just about Everyone
Dear Nobody
Dear Oscar
The
Desert Song
Diamond
Studs
Different
Times
The Dirtiest
Show in Town
The
Divorce of Judy and Jane
Do It
Again!
Doctor Jazz
A Doll’s
House (2)
Don Juan
Don
Juan in Hell
Don’t
Bother Me, I Can’t Cope
Don’t
Call Back
Don’t
Play Us Cheap!
Drat!