Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of The Octoroon by Dion Boucicault. Soho Rep's An Octoroon. The slaves PETE, MINNIE, and DIDO are sold to a steamboat captain, RATTS. Hiram Mattison, New York: N. Tibbals and Son, 1870. When Paul goes missing, Wahnotee is the first person blamed for Paul's death, until it is revealed that M'Closky is responsible. He and Zoe admit to their love of each other; a heartbroken Dora leaves. In 1867, she moved her family to New Richmond, Ohio where she stayed until her death in 1896. 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. 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. One of the plantations overseers, Scudder, enters and informs them that the estate is in a darned bad condition (25), and has been mortgaged to a Yankee, Jacob McCloskey (MClosky), who now owns one-half of the estates land. Narrative context is dispensed with to focus on the essential plight of the victim, a process often leavening compassion with a less chaste voyeurism. This is no easy task, and the cast has mixed results. The play was first produced in 1859, at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York City, and was both controversial because of its sympathetic and human portrayal of slaves before the civil war, and extremely popular from the moment it premiered. Indeed, seeing a show alfresco at the Fountain is in many ways a more relaxing experience than seeing one in the theaters cramped indoor space. Take a look at our library of free scenes . At the time of its presentation at the annual exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1868, Bell stood at the height of his career. With the judge's death, Zoe loses his protection, and her. DORA convinces her father to buy Terrebonne. Their family included Henry's four year old daughter, Harriet, and Louisa's eight year old daughter, Eliza. Text for each Image of the Week is written by Sheldon Cheek. He produced a huge number of plays of which the exact number is between 135 and 400 titles (Kosok,82). Note: When citing an online source, it is important to include all necessary dates. Jacobs-Jenkins developed his take on The Octoroon while he was a Dorothy Strelsin Fellow at Soho Rep in the 2009/10 season. 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. Where: The Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave., L.A.When: 7 p.m. Fridays-Mondays. In An Octoroon, the projection of a "lynching photograph" is an attempt towards an actual experience of finality. After 17 years leading L.A.s most important theater company, and after last years racial reckoning, Michael Ritchie says its time to pass the torch. The Octoroon explores themes of slavery and racial identification and discrimination, although it does not fully commit to either side of the slavery debate. Playwright taunts BJJ, and laments how theatre has changed since his death. During the early decades of the 19th century, she maintained an enduring liaison with the Kentucky politician Richard Mentor Johnson. An Octoroon, the play that drew us together, is a tricky work to pull off under optimal conditions, and I worried how this postmodern riff on Dion Boucicaults musty The Octoroon would fare under the moonlight, amid the blare of car mufflers and police helicopters. In a far less theatrical sense, women in mixed-race relationships continued to suffer the combined opprobrium of state and society far into the 20th century. 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. "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 doesn't fully comprehend. Similar classifications were octoroon for one-eighth black (Latin root octo-, means "eight") and quintroon for one-sixteenth black. Assistant announces that the boat explodes. Female. Though she remained enslaved and unmarried, Julia bore him two daughters. Later, her husband Henry served in the Union Army until receiving a medical discharge, leaving Louisa as the household's sole provider. His battles with the church arent over, How Palm Springs ran out Black and Latino families to build a fantasy for rich, white people, 17 SoCal hiking trails that are blooming with wildflowers (but probably not for long! Bachelor. Just getting the production up and running in this new outdoor playing area was miracle enough. In 1850, Mattison became a Professor of Astronomy at Falley Seminary in 1850. They have realized that Paul is missing, and most believe him dead. This role is played by Matthew Hancock, who while delivering a sprawling monologue, applies whiteface in preparation of taking on the roles of both George and MClosky. He almost proposes to Dora to get her fortune and save Terrebonne, but he cannot bring himself to lie. The Octoroon who is hiding in some bushes nearby, sacrifices her chances of freedom by leaping into the water and rescuing the young girl. George Peyton, the owners nephew, has come to assist the widow Peyton with her business. Later, Mattison returned to the Methodist Episcopal Church in Jersey City and remained with the congregation until his death on November 24th, 1868. Download the entire The Octoroon study guide as a printable PDF! The Octoroon or The Lily of Louisiana is a dark tale of crime, race and slavery. George leaves to go hunting and calls a young slave boy, Paul, who brings his Native American friend Wahnotee. Harder to overcome will be the discovery by MClosky, the villainous overseer who now owns half the estate, that Zoes freedom papers are not valid and therefore shes to be sold with the rest of the enslaved. An Octoroon is a play written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Hiram Mattison, Louisa Picquet, the Octoroon: or Inside Views of Southern Domestic Life. [10] Vallejo Gantner, artistic director of PS 122 along with theatre critics Elisabeth Vincentelli and Adam Feldman, argued that although it was not unethical to publish the email, it may not have been "nice" to publish it. His design for the narrative was moralistic and therefore he focuses many of his questions on Picquet's identity as a sexual victim and concubine. Literally, anything can happen. To start off it seemed like a comedy but then quickly turned to a melodrama. Jacob McClosky, the man who ruined Judge Peyton, has come to inform George and his aunt (who was bequeathed a life interest in the estate) that their land will be sold and their slaves auctioned off separately. All scenes are property and copyright of their owners. Upon learning of Pauls murder, they immediately believe Wahnotee did it and vow to lynch him (48) if he is found. After various slaves are auctioned off, George and the buyers are shocked to see Zoe up on the stand. [2] Among antebellum melodramas, it was considered second in popularity only to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). For its form he turned to a another carved vision of abject captivity, the highly praised Greek Slave by the expatriate American artist Hiram Powers. 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. In comparison, a quadroon would have one quarter African ancestry and a mulatto for the most part has historically implied half African ancestry. [24], The Canadian premiere of An Octoroon was produced by The Shaw Festival for its 2017 season. Just as McClosky points out the blood on Wahnotee's tomahawk, the oldest slave, Pete, comes to give them the photographic plate which has captured McClosky's deed. Set on the fictional Terrebonne Plantation in Louisiana, The Octoroon depicts life in the American South with honesty and empathy. The word octoroon signifies a person of one-eighth African ancestry. But the productions scattered tone leaves everyone looking unsettled. 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. A Black playwright is struggling to find his voice among a chorus of people telling him what he should and should not be writing. Shakespeare in the Woods 2023 Season 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. Time & Place. 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. Back at Terrebonne, Zoe returns but with a sad heart, as she knows that she and George can never be together. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, An Octoroon (New York: Onstage Press, 2014), 121. This guide details the original Boucicault script and associated productions. Before long it was widely reproduced on a smaller scale as one of Mintons ceramic Parian-ware figurines, as well as in bronze replicas. Mattison glosses over this violence, stating that "it is too horrible and indelicate to be read in a civilized country" (p. 15). The title of the play refers to a character named Zoe. 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. After Williams sickened and died, Picquet describes her relief at his passing; to celebrate her freedom from sexual abuse and "sin", she attended church that very Sunday (p. 22). MClosky asks Scudder to help him, but he instead simply gives him his bowie knife and leaves him to his own defenses. Boucicault's manuscript actually reads "Indian, French and 'Merican." When Dora finds out, she is very angry at them and asks her father to buy the plantation, which he does. In an act of desperation she drinks a vial of poison, and Scudder enters to deliver the good news that McClosky was proven guilty of murdering Paul and that Terrebonne now belongs to George. Summary of The Octoroon. Mature Adult. By 1863, the London Art Journal reported that Bells statue was well under way, though its formal exhibition took place only several years later, in 1868. Stealing a lantern, he sets fire to the steamship that had the slaves on board. 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. 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. Wahnotee tracks him down and confronts him; in the ensuing struggle, Wahnotee kills McClosky. Already a member? If there is a The Octoroon SparkNotes, Shmoop guide, or Cliff Notes, you can find a link to each study guide below. Devoid of any actual references to plot or the characters identity, the figure stands naked, chained and ready for sale to the highest bidder. Mary Elizabeth Braddon. This led Jacobs-Jenkins to see doubles and pairs in Boucicault's play, through relationships between characters e.g. What ensues is an upside down, topsy-turvy world where race and morality are challenged and intensified. An extremely beautiful young slave girl, who is treated like a member of the family, Zoe is kind, generous, and adored by every man who lays eyes on her. MClosky enters, and upon seeing Paul sitting on the mailbag, he uses Wahnotees tomahawk to kill Paul. The auctioneer arrives, along with prospective buyers, McClosky among them. 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. Mr. Peyton believed that he had freed his daughter, Zoe, but because he had already incurred a lien on the property, she wasnt his property to free. date the date you are citing the material. Therefore, Mattison implores the reader to contribute to the cause if they "can sympathize with this daughter of affliction and victim of relentless oppression, and will rejoice in the opportunity of doing something to help alleviate her sorrow" (p. 48). [7][8] It was originally directed by Gavin Quinn of the Irish theatre company Pan Pan, but Jacobs-Jenkins took over the role after Quinn quit several weeks into rehearsals. Scenes are presented on StageAgent for educational purposes only. Mrs. Peyton informs her nephew George, who has just returned from Europe, that he is the heir to the Terrebonne estate. Plot contrivances and scenic coups, musical bombast and sentimental treacle, desperate poses and flamboyant gestures the genres hallmarks are deployed with an anachronistic difference in An Octoroon. The plays language darts from Boucicaults exaggerated Southern cadences to Jacobs-Jenkins modern urban slang. The Octoroon was a controversial play when it debuted, given its focus on slavery when the pre-Civil War United States was engaged in a heated debate over the institution. Gain full access to show guides, character breakdowns, auditions, monologues and more! Enfolded in the mortgage melodrama of a Louisiana plantation is a love story involving George, the young romantic heir of the estate, and the illegitimate daughter of the dead patriarch, Zoe, who was raised at Terrebonne as part of the family.

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