Katori Hall

The beginning of the blurb about this book starts with the clause, “An important new voice for African American theater.” While I might understand what the author of the blurb means- African Americans have been underrepresented in theater in so many ways and somehow left out of American canon- I don’t see why it is necessary. Katori Hall is an important voice in theater because Katori Hall doesn’t write like anyone else, and no one else writes like Katori Hall.
In this volume, her characters are all African American and from the South, mostly Memphis. She writes the dialect and the speech patterns and slang so accurately, so poetically, that when I am alone I sound out the phrases sometimes so I can here the difference between my parts of the South and the people Katori Hall is from and brings to life in these pages.

The plays are brutal. Not gratuitously so, but necessarily so. Because of that, it makes it difficult for me to use them in class. (I teach Performing Arts.) I wish I could, though, because the characters and situations would resonate with my students. Perhaps we can at least use the intro, written by Ms.Hall, to discuss playwriting. Even her Introduction is appealing and engrossing.

Looking forward to reading the next volume.… (meer)