THE ADRIENNE KENNEDY PROJECT
A 2021 fordham university class
Image Citation: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division, The New York Public Library. “The West Broad Street public school for Negroes.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1913. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47df-9da4-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
he brought her heart back in a box
Students at a school for “colored” children perform The Massacre at Paris, the bloody Elizabethan history play by Christopher Marlowe, a play chosen for them by white landowner and businessman Harrison Aherne, who is the biological father of several of them. Adrienne Kennedy’s most recently published and produced play, He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box, is the story of Kay and Chris and the haunted history of Montefiore, Georgia, the town they come from.
Image Citation: Rare Book Division, The New York Public Library. “Secunda ossium tabula [Human skeleton inspecting a skull and in deep thinking]” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1545. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dd-f261-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
sleep deprivation chamber
A college theater production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, directed by Teddy, the son of writer Suzanne Alexander. Teddy has recently been assaulted by a police officer in front of his father’s home in Virginia and then arrested and accused of provoking it. He is going to trial, and his mother is breaking down. She has compiled letters from many prominent friends to send to the governor, describing her “outstanding black American family.” Teddy must answer for his own assault in a trial that replays his trauma.
Image Citation: Rare Book Division, The New York Public Library. “Secunda ossium tabula [Human skeleton inspecting a skull and in deep thinking]” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1545. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dd-f261-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
Image Citation: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. “Subway car. New York, NY” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1940 – 1979. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/0d8cdeb0-12c5-0133-7212-58d385a7bbd0
the owl answers & funnyhouse of a negro
Two plays, which Kennedy originally planned as one. In Funnyhouse of a Negro, Negro/Sarah is tormented by nightmare visions of her multiple Selves: the Duchess of Hapsburg, Queen Victoria Regina, Jesus, Patrice Lumumba. In The Owl Answers, “SHE who is CLARA PASSMORE who is the VIRGIN MARY who is the BASTARD who is the OWL” is prevented from visiting her “GODDAM FATHER who is the RICHEST WHITE MAN IN THE TOWN who is the DEAD WHITE FATHER who is the REVEREND PASSMORE.” In the end, she calls for God and becomes the Owl, cooing “Ow…” in a tree.
Image Citation: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. “The Campus, Ohio State Univ., Columbus, Ohio” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1898 – 1931. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-a412-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
the ohio state murders
The writer Suzanne Alexander has been invited to return to her alma mater, Ohio State, to give a talk about her work. She is asked about the source of the violent imagery in her plays. She recounts the story of her time at Ohio State, which she remembers as a series of “disparate dark landscapes.” Her English professor, Robert Hampshire, taught Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles which interested her greatly. She wanted to be an English major but is told “there were no “Negro” students in the English department.” We hear passages of Tess of the D’Urbervilles, including several after Tess’s rape.
Image Citation: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. “The Campus, Ohio State Univ., Columbus, Ohio” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1898 – 1931. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-a412-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
Image Citation: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. “[Diary entries :] La Havre, France Aug 1, 1918 cont.; [photograph depicting the harbor at Halifax, N.S.]” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1918. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dd-ed86-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
PEOPLE WHO LED TO MY PLAYS
A scrapbook-style memoir of Kennedy’s childhood and youth, ending with the production of her first play in 1964. Small vignettes and fragments titled by names of people she knew, people she read about, people she saw in films and theater. Though written in direct prose, many circle a mystery.
This was the first Kennedy text we read and became an early “key” to the plays. Many images, scenes, experiences, and feelings that repeat in the plays are represented here.
Image Citation: General Research Division, The New York Public Library. “Ré [Ra], Ri, Pré, Phré, ou Phri. (Helios, le Soleil).” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1823 – 1825. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-5bb4-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
SUN: A play for malcolm x inspired by his murder
A play in verse. A man and the sun. Orbiting. The sun is Red, Yellow, Orange. Images of the moon; of flowers and water; of a madonna and a child; of Italy; of the man’s body, his head, his heart, his tendons; of the infant Jesus; of an embryo in a woman’s uterus. “Two trees on the/bank of a stream/I still dream.” A “great collision of flying limbs.” The man “vanishes into a tiny red sun…Red sun turns black.” Darkness.
Image Citation: General Research Division, The New York Public Library. “Ré [Ra], Ri, Pré, Phré, ou Phri. (Helios, le Soleil).” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1823 – 1825. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-5bb4-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
WHERE TO NEXT?