Synopsis

After the birth of Jeff and Michelle's son, Jeff is invited to join the local White Supremacy group (The Knights) in Sharpsburg, Maryland while his wife, Michelle, suffers from postpartum depression. In order to join, Jeff must take an ancestry test to prove his all-white heritage, but the test reveals that Jeff has African ancestry. Jeff’s friend Poot agrees to doctor the results for him, but the truth about Jeff’s ancestry is discovered and Jeff and Michelle become victims of hate crimes perpetrated by their own community. Gerald, an African American reporter living in Baltimore, sees a Facebook post about Jeff’s situation and decides to go to Sharpsburg with his daughter Chris to investigate. Through the course of interviewing Jeff, Gerald and Chris discover that Michelle has hung herself with the Confederate flag and Jeff has been living in the house with her dead body for a full week.

Annotation

This play is incredibly relevant to the world and climate in which we currently live. I would be interested to see how this play could be incorporated into an American History syllabus as part of an examination of how complex, multifaceted, and prevalent racism is in America. It would also be great for a social justice unit in any class. The play depicts a normalization of racism in a way that I think is somewhat unfathomable to people who live in large, metropolitan cities. It is an important reminder of how overtly racism and bigotry persist in our country today. Racism exists in institutionalized, systemic, and implicit ways, which we often examine, discuss, and unpack in liberal and academic circles (which is incredibly important work to do). However, I think that within these circles there is also an idea that on the whole our world is shifting towards being more liberal, more tolerant, and more aware. When we read a play like Amerikin we see a community in which overt, direct racism is common and unremarkable.

This play is also a fascinating examination of identity and representation. What does it mean when you become the subject of your own racism? What happens when your entire community turns against you? What do we gain from putting a White Supremacist at the center of a narrative about racism where he ultimately becomes its victim?

*Caveat: this play, especially the second act, is still a work-in-progress and is currently being workshopped at Primary Stages.

Sample Activity

Amerikin offers students a unique opportunity to study a play that is still a work-in-progress. During a playwriting unit, students could work with this play to examine and analyze play structure and character development, paying particular attention to the second act. Things change drastically between the first and second act (including the addition of two new characters), and the action progresses much more quickly in the second act than it did in the first. Have students pick one character to track throughout the second act. Students then write three major points of action for that character (one at the beginning, middle, and end of the act). These do not have to be written into the text, in fact at least one should be an original i.e. not explicitly in the text (but contextually viable) point of action as imagined by the student. Students can then choose to write either a monologue for that character at one of the three designated points of action or they can write a Facebook post from that character's point of view about something going on in the world of the play. Students then perform their monologue or share their Facebook post with the class.

Discussion/Essay Questions

Initial Reactions

• What are your initial reactions to this play?
• Why do you think you had those reactions?
• What surprised you?

Why this play? “He’s just a good guy with some bad ideas” - Amerikin

In an interview about Amerikin, Chisa Hutchinson says that the villain of this play is racism.

• Why do you think Chisa Hutchinson chose to de-vilify the people who perpetrate racism and make them its victims?
• What do you think the goal of writing a play from this perspective was?
• Do you think it was successful?

Representation

The very core of Jeff’s being is challenged when he receives his ancestry results. Michelle is disgusted by her own “impure” baby and horrified by herself for being bigoted against her baby. The entire community turns against Jeff and Michelle when they discover that Jeff is not “one of them” like they thought he was.

• How does Amerikin make you think about identity and representation?
• To what extent are we allowed to construct our own sense of self and identity and to what extent are our constructions of identity influenced by how others and society see us?
• What are the consequences when tension exists between how we represent ourselves and how we are viewed or perceived?

SHE LIKE GIRLS

Synopsis: Kia Clark, a 16-year-old African American girl, has never considered herself to be anything other than straight, but she can’t stop having dreams about her classmate Marisol Feliciano, a 16-year-old Latina girl. Kia and Marisol enter into a semi-secret relationship after Kia helps Marisol through breast cancer, and toxic homophobic rumors about them quickly spread at their school. Kia is taunted for being gay and punches her aggressor, leading to her first suspension from school, and when Marisol’s mother finds out that Marisol is gay she beats Marisol and throws her out of the house. Kia finally embraces her sexuality and attends an LGBTQ support group recommended to her by her English teacher. In the final scene, Kia confronts a man who is sexually harassing her from his car, telling him that she is a lesbian and she is not interested in him; as the fight escalates, the man pulls out a gun and shoots her.

Note: This play was inspired by the real life murder of Sakia Gunn, a 15-year-old African American lesbian girl who was stabbed by a man in Newark, New Jersey after she rejected his propositioning and told him she was gay.

Analysis:This is a fantastic play for discussing and examining the danger, pervasiveness, and toxicity of homophobia, specifically in a high school environment. Kia’s “ideal” match is her best friend Andre who is not only male but is also African American. Kia instead falls for Marisol, who is Latina and female – therefore she not only challenges the norms of sexuality, but also crosses racial barriers in her relationship. Furthermore, Andre expects that by being sexually aggressive with Kia he will win her over in a stereotypical supposition of “no means yes.” Andre’s masculinity is so fragile that he cannot handle the fact that one of his teachers is gay (and at one point even says to Kia that he is more okay with women being gay than with men). Andre sees his homophobia as an assertion of his masculinity, rather than as toxic, bigoted, and hateful. The play does an excellent job of highlighting how the insidious heteronormativity in their school environment and culture normalizes and escalates this already pervasive and aggressive homophobia. This play could be used in any high school literature, drama, or even health class. It would be an excellent tool through which students could examine the ways in which toxic heteronormative narratives dominate their worldview and unpack how powerful, derogatory language is harmful and even deadly. From a playwriting perspective, it would also be interesting to analyze how the play was inspired by an historical event and whether or not that contextualization, which is only relevant in the basic set-up and the last scene of the play, serves the play and why?

DEAD AND BREATHING

Summary: Carolyn Whitlock is a haughty, upper class 68-year-old woman suffering from uterine cancer; she has been in hospice for years and desperately wants her newest nurse Veronika to assist her in ending her life. Carolyn arranges to leave Veronika her entire estate – 87 million dollars, plus her house – on the condition that Veronika agrees to help her die. Veronika is a devout Christian and her moral opposition to this conflicts her; however, she agrees to go through with it on one condition: that Carolyn first accepts Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. When Veronika accidentally mentions she attended St. Benedict’s – an all boy’s school – Carolyn is horrified to discover that Veronika is transgender. Carolyn must overcome her bigotry and unfounded disgust towards Veronika, because Veronika is still her only hope if she wants to die.

*This play has two possible endings: in the first ending, just before Veronika administers the needle to kill Carolyn, the phone rings – it is Carolyn’s doctor informing her that her most recent tests came back clean and she is cancer free. In the alternate ending, Veronika goes through with the assisted suicide and the play ends with the phone ringing, unanswered.

Analysis: This play could be effectively utilized in a variety of contexts. This is a challenging play for any director to take on: the play begins with a fully-nude woman being bathed on stage, the central tension shifts drastically about halfway through the play, and two ending options are provided. This would be a fantastic play to grapple with in a directing course – how can this play be effectively staged? How do we give adequate attention to the journey and experience of both women without making either one a caricature? What do we do when given a choice of how to end the play? It would also be interesting to examine from a playwriting perspective: what are you putting at stake when you write a play with alternate endings? Why do that? From a literature standpoint, what are the central themes of this play? How do the two women, who are both morally opposed to one another in some way, find reconciliation? How can a person learn to move past their own narrow worldview when it no longer benefits them to be close-minded (i.e. when their lives (or deaths) depend on it)?

Comprehensive List of Works

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Bibliography