Tucson Daily Citizen from Tucson, Arizona • Page 42

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40) issue of The Dra-ma Review (TOR), formerly the Tiilane Drama Review. You can't miss it. The cover is titled "Black Theatre." The magazine will cost you $2.00, but it may be the best $2.00 investment you ever made. Aside from some scattered pages of comment, the entire magazine is a collection of, on the whole, very short one-act plays by black writers about black people. This special issue of The Drama Review was put together under black editorship, without restriction.

Ifc might, therefore, be assumed that it speaks for the viewpoint of the majority of black people. Since literature is generally an excellent insight into the attitudes and feelings of the people it represents, this collection of playlets is a frightening body of work. From a purely critical viewpoint, most of the plays are atrociously written and don't even deserve the designation of "play." Most of them are tracts in the guise of drama, written without insight into character, without plot and without a semblance 'of humor. But, they do provide insight into black people as a group rather than as individuals. And they are almost all meated by one oppressively overlying emotion, "Hate!" The "Hate" is so strong that it overrides every other consideration.

It dwarfs Hitle- rian hatred. There is no ratio- nality, no logic. Nothing is negotiable. The "burn, baby, burn" boys are out in force. All whites bear the brunt of tihe hatred and though some are worse than others (the Hitlerian parallel is strongly present with definite indications of anti semitism), none is worth saving.

It's kill or be killed, only, if you're black, don't be killed. This is pure racism at its very worst, but time the shoe is on the other foot. Is this the way white attitudes appear to blacks? If this black racism stops at the printed page or in a theatre, it serves a worthwhile purpose. It puts a mirror up before the white hatemongers. But if black racism goes beyond the printed page, it accomplishes nothing.

The white reaction will be fear, verging on panic, quickly followed by massive retaliation which, in turn, will lead to retaliation. As long as this sort of spiral exists, things can only deteriorate. Black writers, artists and intellectuals have long complained that white people writing about black people don't "tell it like it.is," that they are unable to draw believable black characters. Ironically, for the most part, the black writers represented here are unable to draw believable black characters. They are too busily engaged in soap box agitation to be concerned with the form they have chosen with which to state their case.

This is not "art as a weapon," for the simple reason that it is not art. This is the Johnny-One-Note approach. Black is good, white is evil, Negro is Uncle Tom. If these plays do represent mass thinking on the part of America's black people, then the nation requires an immediate and very tough gun con. trol law.

Without such a law anyone who does not own or acquire a gun is possibly committing suicide. But, do these plays represent the majority? I must hope that, whatever justifiable grievances the black citizens have against the white, sanity wfll prevail. There is a glimmer of hope, even in the magazine. There is a lovely little play, "Papa's Daughter" by Dorothy Ahmad, which is concerned with a family situation. The family is black, but most important, they are human.

Unlike the other plays which promise or threaten race violence or wanton destruction, this play illustrates that things other than race relations occupy some people's minds. One other play, "Old Judge Mose Is Dead," by Joseph White, makes its point with ironic wit. It pulls no punches, but when grievances are told in this manner, listened to. In any case, get a copy of this magazine and read it all the way through. I guarantee, whatever your inclinations, it will give you a lot to think about.

The Drama Review Is published quarterly by the School of the Arts, New York University. Inquiries should be addressed to The Drama Review, New York University, Washington Square. New York, N.Y. 10003T By Harold Stern INTER-PRESS FEATURE WRITER PAGE 10 TUCSON DAILY CITIZEN SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 1968.