Totem Voices: Plays from the Black World Repertory
edited by Paul Carter Harrison
(Grove Press, 1989, paperback, 245 pages)
Harrison identifies the rhythmic, onomatopoetic, incantatory use of language in cultures as diverse as South Africa and the South Bronx as the unifying–and liberating–aesthetic principle of modern black dramaturgy. The collection includes Wole Soyinka’s The Strong Breed, Pepe Carril’s Shango De Ima, Derek Wolcott’s Ti-Jean and His Brothers, Zakes Mofokeng’s A New Song, Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf, Charles Fuller’s Zooman and the Sign, August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Paul Carter Harrison’s Ameri/Cain Gothic.
