| A Black Mass | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Amiri Baraka |
| Date premiered | 1966 |
| Original language | English |
A Black Mass is aplay written byAmiri Baraka and performed at Proctor's Theatre inNewark, New Jersey in 1966. Baraka also recorded a version of the play withSun Ra's Myth-Science Orchestra in 1968.[1] The play is based on the religious doctrine ofYakub as taught by theNation of Islam, and it describes the origin ofwhite people according to this doctrine.[2]
A Black Mass, written at the beginning of Baraka's involvement inblack nationalism and theBlack Arts Movement, was a turning point in the artist's career. Conceived as a form of "action literature", the play aimed to raise thepolitical consciousness ofBlack Americans.[3] Baraka had learned of the Yakub myth fromMalcolm X, whose assassination in 1965 likely provided further inspiration for the work.[4]
This play is a visceral experience through the use of music and lighting, beginning in a "Jet blackness" accompanied with the "Music of eternal concentration and wisdom" composed bySun Ra, which represent a prelapsarian state of non-threatening darkness.[5] Baraka inverts the idea that white symbolizes goodness and black symbolizes wickedness, so that the images of beauty and life are associated with blackness.[6] As Jacoub, the protagonist of the play, creates the "White Beast" that will become the ancestor to the white race, this peaceful blackness is soon contrasted with scenes of pandemonium, in which the room is filled with unsettling melodies and the sounds of banging and screeching (provided in the original production by Sun Ra's Myth Science Arkestra).[7] To add to the audience's unease, the actors are not confined to the stage: the "Beast" leaps among the spectators, screaming "White! White! White!" and "Me! Me! Me!"[8]
The play ends on a call to arms against this newly created affront against nature:
And so Brothers and Sisters, these beasts are still loose in the world. Still, they spit their hideous cries. There are beasts in our world, Brothers and Sisters. There are beasts in our world. Let us find them and slay them. Let us lock them in their caves. Let us declare the holy war. The Jihad. Or we cannot deserve to live. Izm-el-Azam. Izm-el-Azam. Izm-el-Azam.
— Amiri Baraka,Four Black Revolutionary Plays: All Praises to the Black Man (1969)
The final statement, which means "May God have mercy," is repeated continuously until the lights go dark.[9]
The Baraka playA Black Mass is based on the Nation of Islam's Yacub myth.
The creature vomits and screams, 'slobberlaughing' its way through the audience..
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