How Did Eleanor Traylor Contribute To Afro-American Theatre

In the essay Two Afro-American Contributions to Dramatic Form, Eleanor Traylor talks of the roots and traditions that were brought to the original American theatre from black African-Americans. The importance of knowing where devices and ideas come from is important in all things, but in theatre we sometimes seem to overlook these things. Instead of discovering where our entertainment comes from, we as a society look at the believability or even the fantasy of the thing and then leave our opinion at face value. Discovering where the stories originated and how they have transformed is just as important to current theatre. In her essay Traylor shows evidence of minstrel shows being developed by black slaves and then taken by white people and adapted for the theatre. Traylor states, "When the lore, songs, dance and masking rituals of African slaves made their entrance on the stage, a native American dramatic form was born (Traylor 49)." This is showing us that African-Americans brought us our first "original" piece of American theatre. This was "burgled" from the Afro-American slaves by "white actors in corked-black-face (Traylor 49)." These shows have a lot of improvisation and are described almost as performance art, but the

People in the North would be outraged by the atrocities that are spoken of and shown in these types of shows. Yet the slave narrative was honest. This is the literal depiction of the African-American people and their traditions that they brought to this American country. Although these shows were darker at times there was also a comedy aspect that was brought in. The combination of the plight of the slaves and the comedy in situations made it unclear exactly which genre this type of theatre would fall in. Traylor says, "…several genres enmeshed and a new way of relating experience manifested itself in the slave narrative (Traylor