Instructions
Both of these works this week (Park’s play and Jones’ Dance) utilize Lincoln and his legacy to ask audiences of these works to think through Lincoln’s legacy and for Black bodies. Why do you think Lincoln is iconic for this type of work? Why is it so important that it’s Lincoln and not another historic figure? What do you notice across the two pieces from this week?
Week 9 Assignment
Based on both the play, which is Park’s Play and Jones’ Dance, mainly help the audience to grasp the details in order to gather a detailed path related to Abraham Lincoln from the Black bodies. The play The America Play is stated as “an exact replica of the Great Hole of History”. As this is the play which is a lengthy monologue of Abraham Lincoln with his broken heart about the natives who are often discriminated against the mainstream society. Here, his speeches are indulged with the form of understanding and learning on how Park’s plays are punctuated and as it is spelled in an unconventional form while evoking the about African American speech. Abraham Lincoln emancipated and stood beside the humans who were often demolished from society. Thus, he stood for Black people, so that they could get good opportunities and rights based on their own Civil Rights. As stated by Parks (2013), it is considered that Abraham Lincoln wanted slavery to be removed from American society, so that it could fetch equality to all the people in the society, while helping each other to enroll them to be subjected to further discrimination. He aimed to configure on the note how the slaves were getting freedom.
On the other hand, Lincoln played an iconic role because he was the only one who tried to develop society and wanted to bring freedom to all the slaves. He used his theory and analysis and spoke for the people so that the Slaves could be removed while all the people should get equal positions. Apart from this, he can also be considered to be an iconic figure because he knows how the Americans developed a cruel society for the slaves. According to Parks (2013), slaves used to get cruel treatment while the females were often raped and the males were killed due to small offenses. Moreover, Abraham Lincoln wanted a society with new sunshine where none were considered to be slaves anymore, while the natives would also get good opportunities like the whites. Abraham Lincoln played a vital role in history because after being elected as the President, he continued to argue to remove people from being a slave. He aimed to develop a society, which is against slavery. He is a historic figure because he was an outspoken person, who took opposition against the expansion of slavery taking place in the Western territories. Moreover, he even debated this topic publically. Therefore, on 1st January 1863 Lincoln with all his power, as the Commander in Chief produced an armed force with the Emancipation Proclamation, to free the slaves legally from any further discrimination or any cruel behavior taking place within the society, as it acted like rebel that states under future confederacy (Wilmer, 2000).
From these two pieces, this can be identified how Lincoln’s monologue is produced to narrate his speech so that he can speak on behalf of the slaves so that they can get rid of the cruelty they have been facing for centuries. These two plays mainly focus on how to perform Lincoln’s strong resemblance to his assassination, where he fought for the slaves and wanted to remove slavery.
References
Parks, S. L. (2013). The American play and other works. Theatre Communications Group.
Wilmer, S. E. (2000). Restaging the Nation: The Work of Suzan-Lori Parks. Modern Drama, 43(3), 442-452.
