Analysis Of Eleanor Traylor's Two Afro-American Contributions To Dramatic Form

In her essay, Two Afro-American Contributions to Dramatic Form, Eleanor Traylor defends her argument that there are two early contributions to black American theatre that are often overlooked when discussing the topic. Both minstrel shows and the slave narrative give their audiences a sense of hope and desire for freedom. They may go about this in entirely different ways, but were acquired by the same method; taking ideas for black people and slaves.
Minstrel shows began as a black tradition, but were stolen and redone by white people in blackface. When discussing the origin of the minstrel performances, Traylor explains that they began as masked, dance performances in Africa. This was an age-old tradition taken over by white people within the theatre system in America. When these pieces became popular, they also introduced a new level of racism into our culture, …show more content…
Northerners were mystified by these performances because they were so awful, they could not even imagine what it must be like to experience these stories first hand. Without these two major developments in black theatre, there wouldn't be much for people to base their performances off of today. These were two of the most emotionally taxing and historically complex theatre developments that still influence the way we write and perform theatre today. After learning what the basis of Traylor's argument was and its significance, it seems quite effortless to apply this to how I will be reading theatre pieces from now on. Reading this article made me really think of where we get some of our most popular theatre pieces. A large majority of what we have been exposed to is tainted in at least one way or another. This doesn't mean that it was necessarily a stolen idea from somewhere, but simply that it has inevitably been tainted by other cultures or other people in some