Les Blancs (19 page)
Authors: Lorraine Hansberry
TSHEMBE
Y
OU
will stay on, then?
MADAME
At my age, one goes home only to die. I am already home.
TSHEMBE
Yes, of course. When you first came here, did you know that you would stay here and die here?
MADAME
Yes, I think so. One knows, doesn’t one? When the ship steamed into Bremmer Pool and I saw the African Coast for the first time, I did indeed feel that strange foetal moment when, for some reason or other, we know that our destinies are being marked. (
Laughing a little
) Doesn’t always turn out like that, of course. But those are the times we remember, so it seems true enough. Torvald was twenty-seven; resplendent in his helmet and a new pair of boots. Steaming down to Africa! Ah, we were something in our circle in that day. “Going out to Africa,” people would say, “Ahhhh, ahhhh …” and then wonder if they should give us a coin or two. (
Gentle reflective laughs punctuate all of these allusions
) And then, there we were: Torvald and me, a cello and forty crates of hymnals. I was twenty-eight, had two pairs of culottes made of fine Egyptian linen, shots for malaria and a helmet of my own—and what else might one need for any adversity in life!?
TSHEMBE
What was he like then, Madame?
MADAME
It is not all legend. He was a good man, Tshembe, in many ways. He did some amazing things.
TSHEMBE
(
He rises abruptly and crosses away
) Then why did he let my mother die like that?
MADAME
Because, my child, no man can be more than the man he is. He was a White Man in Darkest Africa—not God, but doing God’s work—and to him it was clear: the child was the product of an evil act, a sin against God’s order, the natural separation of the races. Its fate was for God to decide. He never forgave me for interfering.
TSHEMBE
I do not think most missionaries’ wives would have delivered that child …
MADAME
He never spoke of it again after that night—nor, as you know, acknowledged the existence of Eric. (
She sits forward rigidly
) Well, he
couldn’t
give in, don’t you see, Tshembe? He was helpless. Eric was the living denial of everything he stood for: the testament to three centuries of rape and self-acquittal. He
wanted
the child dead;
wanted
your mother to die! (
She closes her eyes
) Do you—hate us terribly, Tshembe?
TSHEMBE
(
Gently, crossing behind her and placing his hands on her shoulders
) Madame, I have seen your mountains. Europe—in spite of all her crimes—has been a great and glorious star in the night. Other stars shone before it—and will again with it. (
Lightly, smiling at his own imagery
) The heavens, as
you
taught me, are broad and can afford a galaxy.
MADAME
And what of
your
mountains, Tshembe? Your beautiful hills. What will you do now?
TSHEMBE
What will I
do?
Madame, I know what I’d like to do. I’d like to become an expert at diapering my son … to sit in Hyde Park with a faded volume of Shakespeare and come home to a dinner of fried bananas with kidney pie and—(
He is fighting the tears now as a terrible anguish rises within him
)—turn the phonograph up loud, loud, until the congo drums throb with unbearable sweetness—and then hold my wife in my arms and bury my face
in her hair and hear no more cries in the night except those of my boy because he is cold or hungry or terribly wet. (
He hesitates
)
I’d
like—I’d like my brothers with me. Eric—and Abioseh. Do you remember when we were boys, Abioseh and I? How many times we … (
He cannot go on
) I want to go
home
. It seems your mountains have become mine, Madame.
MADAME
Have they, Tshembe?
TSHEMBE
I think so. I thought so. I no longer know. I am one man, Madame. Whether I go or stay, I cannot break open the prison doors for Kumalo. I cannot bring Peter back. I cannot … (
He breaks off
) I am lying, Madame. To myself. And to you. I
know
what I must do …
MADAME
Then do it, Tshembe.
TSHEMBE
(
Desperately
) But when I think of … (
He lowers his head to touch the top of hers
)
Help me, Madame
.
MADAME
You have forgotten your geometry if you are despairing, Tshembe. (
She strains forward and rises
) I once taught you that a line goes on into infinity unless it is bisected. Our country needs
warriors
, Tshembe Matoseh. Africa needs warriors. Like your father.
TSHEMBE
(
Staring at her
) You knew about my father …
MADAME
Warriors
, Tshembe. Now more than ever. Goodbye, child. Now leave me with my husband.
(
She sits, worn out by the effort
.
TSHEMBE
observes and absorbs
)
TSHEMBE
Good night, Madame.
(
He turns on his heel as only very resolute men can do and exits
)
MADAME
(
Reaching out and ending the light of one of the candles at the bier
) Well, now … the darkness will do for this hour, will it not?
(
She settles back, both hands on her cane, to keep the vigil and await some final episode. As the lights dim
,
ABIOSEH
enters the compound and starts in
)
Dimout
SCENE 9
In the darkness—the laughter of a hyena and the sounds of night as in the Prologue
.
It is not long after. The Mission is bathed in moonlight. Ceiling lanterns flicker in the parlor, where
MADAME
sits as before
.
ABIOSEH
stands by the coffin
.
ABIOSEH
Madame, your husband was an extraordinary human being, above race, above all sense of self. I know he would have approved of what I did. (
MADAME
says nothing
) There was no other way to handle the terror. Madame, don’t you agree? (
MADAME
says nothing. He crosses down and sits on the veranda edge
) Well, it will be over for good now. If men choose violence they will be met by violence. Am I right, Madame? (
MADAME
says nothing
) Those who live by the sword … (
He suddenly pauses, regarding the night
) What a marvelous light. How beautiful this day has been. How beautiful the night … Ah, but how I wish you could have seen the sunset! That was always your favorite time, was it not, Madame? Today it looked as if the edge of the earth was melting. God was raining down glory.
MADAME
Glory, Abioseh?
ABIOSEH
(
The irony is lost on the man wrapt in his own reflections
) Do you remember the stories you used to tell us to explain the sunset? (
Smiling with warm remembrance
) I believed those stories with all my heart, Madame. But not Tshembe. No, not Tshembe. (
TSHEMBE
enters unseen, wearing the robe his father had last worn to the Mission, and walks slowly to
MADAME
) My brother wouldn’t have it
that the sun was eaten by a giant who rose out of the ocean. Remember? (
TSHEMBE
places his hand on
MADAME
’s
shoulder and she covers it with hers, but says nothing
) He had to know exactly what happened to the sun when it went down, and where it went. He always—
(
Sensing his brother’s presence
,
ABIOSEH
looks up, regards
TSHEMBE
for a moment and then, with fateful premonition, begins to back away as
TSHEMBE
advances
.
ABIOSEH
turns
.
WARRIORS
appear over the rise and at the edges of the stage, rifles in hand. Among them is
ERIC—
who blocks the way
.
As
ABIOSEH
turns back to him
,
TSHEMBE
takes out the pistol he has been concealing in his robe and considers it, not so much seeking courage as thoughtfully, then levels it. For a moment the two brothers stand facing each other, aware of all the universal implications of the act; the one pulls the trigger, the other falls, and with a last effort at control
TSHEMBE
crosses to the body, kneels and gently closes
ABIOSEH’
s eyes
.
In the same moment, shouts and shots are heard offstage. A crouching
SOLDIER
rushes past, shooting as he goes—the
WARRIORS
open fire and, caught in the crossfire
,
MADAME
staggers erect, hit
.
TSHEMBE
whirls and races to catch her as
ERIC
throws a grenade into the Mission. There is an explosion, the
WARRIORS
run off—and
TSHEMBE
stands alone
,
MADAME
in his arms. As flames envelop the Mission, he sinks to the ground, gently sets her body beside that of his brother and, in his anguish, throws back his head and emits an animal-like cry of grief as—in a pool of light facing him,—the
WOMAN
appears
)
Curtain
It is one measure of
Les Blancs’
success that on opening night no less than six reviewers found it pertinent to discuss not simply the play, but the state of mind of the audience. An audience so personally involved, so visibly affected that if one closed one’s eyes one might have imagined that this was not the Broadway of the seventies—the Broadway of the lethargic listeners—but the impassioned theater of the thirties. Or perhaps the Abbey Theatre of Sean O’Casey. In
The Village Voice
, critic Arthur Sainer described the scene:
Much feeling at the Longacre Sunday night.… A sense of emotional investment throughout the audience—black, white audience—partly a celebration of the spirit of the playwright, partly a response to the nature of the material. Much cheering … some scattered heckling, and a disturbance at the back of the house … At best, an audience feeling something at stake.… [in a play] that manages to speak where the century is discovering it lives.
*
On the radio, Alvin Klein, bored by what was to him “pervading
dullness and didacticism” of the play, pondered an audience that “seemed to be divided into two different clapping camps,” while Rex Reed in
The Sunday News
was more direct:
The opening night audience responded violently. Every time the whites were insulted on stage, the blacks applauded. When Mr. Mitchell finally called Mr. Jones a hypocrite, the whites applauded. One black militant was led from the theatre screaming.…
Les Blancs
is, if you’ll forgive me, too black and white.
In this context, Richard Watts in the New York
Post
considered that “it must surely be a sign of the author’s fairness” that the audience seemed “equally divided” in its charged responses to what was happening on stage, while Lee Silver in the
Daily News
congratulated the producer for his “courage,” compared the playwright to “the great Bernard Shaw,” and described
Les Blancs
as “a most absorbing drama” that “had last night’s audience cheering.… ”
It remained, however, for a black reviewer, Clayton Riley,
The New York Times’
sometime critic of black theater, to link the reactions of the crowd unabashedly to his own, analyzing, in somewhat different terms, the “camps” to which the others had referred. To Riley,
Les Blancs
was not just “a piece of theater” but an event that had become for him:
… an incredibly moving experience. Or, perhaps, an extended moment in one’s life not easily forgotten.… in a commercial theatre that takes such pains to protect us from knowing who and what and where we are in 20th-century America.…
“Moving” in
that
fashion. In such a way as to polarize an opening night audience into separate camps, not so much camps of color, of Black and White, although that, too, was part of it. The play divides people into sectors inhabited on the one hand by those who recognize clearly that a struggle exists in the world today that is about the liberation of oppressed peoples, a struggle to be supported at all costs. In the other camp live those who still accept as real the soothing mythology that oppression can be dealt with reasonably—particularly by Black people—if Blacks will just bear in mind the value of polite, calm and continuing use of the democratic process.
… Somewhere, past performance, staging and written speech, resides that brilliant, anguished consciousness of Lorraine Hansberry, at work in the long nights of troubled times, struggling to
make sense out of an insane situation, aware—way ahead of the rest of us—that there is no compromise with evil, there is only the fight for decency. If even Uncle Sam must die toward that end,
Les Blancs
implies, then send
him
to the wall.
If what Riley surmised was true, then it might help to explain why the reactions of many tended to extremes:
John Simon in
New York:
… the result is unmitigated disaster.
Les Blancs
(the very French title in what is clearly a British African colony testifies to the utter confusion) is not only the worst new play on Broadway, of an amateurishness and crudity unrelieved by its sophomoric stabs at wit, it is also, more detestably, a play finished—or finished off—by white liberals that does its utmost to justify the slaughter of whites by blacks.… It is a malodorous, unenlightening mess.