“One of my tasks as a playwright is to locate the ancestral burial grounds, dig for bones, find bones, hear the bones sing, write it down.”
–Suzan-Lori Parks
The above quote, by one of the best contemporary playwrights still writing today, best describes the raw and unapologetic style in which Parks writes her plays. Known mostly for her urban-placed stories about the African-American community, Parks is renowned for writing about life in the ghetto, racism, slavery, poverty and sexism.
Born to an army colonel and a school teacher, Parks knows what it was like to grow up an army brat. She lived in six states in her youth, before attending high school in Germany. This Pulitzer Prize-winning writer has no regrets about her mobile upbringing, saying “I had a great childhood. My parents were really into experiencing the places we lived. (1)
She began writing as a child with a daily newspaper she created called the Daily Daily. Her experience with theatre began at the Drama Studio in London, where she studied acting. She later studied writing at Yale and Hampshire College, where she worked closely with James Baldwin. (1)
Parks is the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002 for her play, Top Dog/Underdog. She’s received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the New York State Council on Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She also won the Whiting Writer’s Award in 1992.
Parks rejects what she calls “theatre of schmaltz,” the term she uses to describe plays with linear structures and realistic characters. (2) She writes with “repetition and revision,” a term she borrowed from jazz and poetry. Music and language have an ongoing presence in Park’s theatrical world. She uses language to demonstrate naturalistic speech, and exploits the rhythmic and musical sounds of words.
In contrast, she does not try to incorporate hidden meaning or metaphor into her work. She discourages her audience from looking past the words and actions that appear on stage. “If you want to send a message,” she says, “go to Western Union.” (2)
One commentator summed up the bulk of Park’s works with: “Suzan-Lori Parks has become a forerunner among contemporary black writers as she uses her plays to define blackness outside the white gaze.” (3) I believe it is safe to say that Parks writes plays not through anyone’s gaze but through her own unique kaleidoscope of broken colors.
Sources:
(1) Bedford/St. Martin’s. Suzan-Lori Parks: Biography. 1998-1999. Bedford/St. Martin’s. 14 Mar 2007.
(2) Craig, Carolyn Casey. Women Pulitzer Playwrights: Biographical profiles and analyses of the plays. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2004.
(3) Shannon, Sandra. “What is a Black Play?” Theatre Journal. 57.4 (2005).
Further reading:
Roach, Joseph. “The Great Hole of History: Liturgical Silence in Beckett, Osofisan, and Parks” The South Atlantic Quarterly. 100.1 (2001).
Robertson, Campbell. “What Do You Get if You Write a Play a Day? A Lot of Premieres.” New York Times. 10 Nov.
Hogue, Bev. “Naming the Bones: Bodies of Knowledge in Contemporary Fiction.” Modern Fiction Studies. 52. 1 (2006).
I am the author of the new The Artist’s Gryphon website. It is a site dedicated to forgotten or lesser-known artists, such as playwrights, directors, actors, authors, poets, etc. I began this site because there are too many great artists whose names simply are not circulating, and my aim is to make them do so. Come see my site!! Tell me what you think!!
Tags: African, dog, Parks, Playwright, Pulizter, Top, Woman
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