| The Emperor Jones | |
|---|---|
 Charles Sidney Gilpin inThe Emperor Jones in 1920 | |
| Written by | Eugene O'Neill |
| Date premiered | November 1, 1920 (1920-11-01) |
| Place premiered | Provincetown Playhouse New York City, U.S. |
| Original language | English |
| Subject | A Black porter attains power in the West Indies by exploiting the superstitions and ignorance of an island's residents. |
| Genre | Tragedy |
| Setting | A West Indian island not yet self-determined, but for the moment, an empire. |
The Emperor Jones is a 1920 tragic play by AmericandramatistEugene O'Neill that tells the tale of Brutus Jones, a resourceful, self-assuredAfrican American and a formerPullman porter, who kills another black man in a dice game, is jailed, and later escapes to a small, backward Caribbean island where he sets himself up as emperor. The play recounts his story in flashbacks as Brutus makes his way through the jungle in an attempt to escape former subjects who have rebelled against him.
Originally calledThe Silver Bullet,[1] the play is one of O'Neill's major experimental works, mixingexpressionism andrealism, and the use of an unreliable narrator and multiple points of view. It was also an oblique commentary on theU.S. occupation of Haiti after bloody rebellions there, an act of imperialism that was much condemned in O'Neill's radical political circles in New York.[2]The Emperor Jones draws on O'Neill's own hallucinatory experience hacking through the jungle while prospecting for gold inHonduras in 1909,[3] as well as the brief, brutal presidency ofHaiti'sVilbrun Guillaume Sam.[4]
The Emperor Jones was O'Neill's first big box-office hit. It established him as a successful playwright, after he won thePulitzer Prize for Drama for his first play, the much less well-knownBeyond the Horizon (1920).The Emperor Jones was included inBurns Mantle'sThe Best Plays of 1920–1921.
The Emperor Jones is about Brutus Jones, a Black American Pullman porter who escapes to an island in the West Indies. In two years, Jones makes himself "Emperor" of the place. A native tried to shoot Jones, but the gun misfired; thereupon Jones announced that he was protected by a charm and that only silver bullets could harm him.
When the play begins, he has been Emperor long enough to amass a fortune by imposing heavy taxes on the islanders and carrying on all sorts of large-scale corruption. Rebellion is brewing. The islanders are whipping up their courage to a fighting point by calling on the local gods and demons of the forest. From the deep of the jungle, the steady beat of a big drum sounded by them is heard, increasing its tempo towards the end of the play and showing the rebels' presence dreaded by the Emperor. It is the equivalent of the heart-beat which assumes a higher and higher pitch; while coming closer it denotes the premonition of approaching punishment and the climactic recoil of internal guilt of the hero; he wanders and falters in the jungle, present throughout the play with its primeval terror and blackness.
The play is virtually a monologue for its leading character, Jones, in a Shakespearean range from regal power to the depths of terror and insanity, comparable toLear orMacbeth. Scenes 2 to 7 are from the point of view of Jones, and no other character speaks. The first and last scenes are essentially a framing device with a character named Smithers, a white trader who appears to be part of illegal activities. In the first scene, Smithers is told about the rebellion by an old woman, and then has a lengthy conversation with Jones. In the last scene, Smithers converses with Lem, the leader of the rebellion. Smithers has mixed feelings about Jones, though he generally has more respect for Jones than for the rebels. During the final scene, Jones is killed by a silver bullet, which was the only way that the rebels believed Jones could be killed, and the way in which Jones planned to kill himself if he was captured.
The Little Formless Fears; Jeff; The Negro Convicts; The Prison Guard; The Planters; The Auctioneer; The Slaves; The Congo Witch-Doctor; The Crocodile God
The expansive personality and style of speech seen in Brutus Jones was modeled on Adam Scott, an African-American and close friend of O'Neill's. Scott tended bar at O'Neill's favorite tavern, at the rear of Holt's Grocery on Main Street, in his hometown ofNew London,Connecticut.[5] In their biography of O'Neill,Arthur andBarbara Gelb report that,
Scott's imperious personality so impressed O'Neill that he later borrowed it forThe Emperor Jones. While the play was also derived from other sources, it was Scott's bravado, his superstition and his religious convictions that imbued the character of Brutus Jones.[5]
The Emperor Jones was first staged on November 1, 1920, by theProvincetown Players at theProvincetown Playhouse in New York City.[6]Charles Sidney Gilpin, a respected leading man from the all-blackLafayette Players) ofHarlem, was the first actor to play the role of Brutus Jones on stage. There was some conflict over Gilpin's tendency to change O'Neill's use of the word "nigger" to Negro and colored during the play. This production was O'Neill's first real smash hit. The Players' small theater was too small to cope with audience demand for tickets, and the play was transferred to another theater. It ran for 204 performances and was hugely popular, touring in the States with this cast for the next two years.
Although Gilpin continued to perform the role of Brutus Jones in the US tour that followed the Broadway closing of the play, he eventually had a falling out with O'Neill. Gilpin wanted O'Neill to remove the word "nigger," which occurred frequently in the play, but the playwright felt its use was consistent with his dramatic intentions. Further, O'Neill defended the language as consistent with the behavior and speech of Adam Scott, the character's inspiration.[7] When they could not come to a reconciliation, O'Neill replaced Gilpin with the young and then unknownPaul Robeson, who previously had only performed on the concert stage. Robeson starred in the title role in the 1925 New York revival (28 performances) and later in the London production.
Robeson starred in the summer production in 1941 at the Ivoryton Playhouse, Ivoryton, Ct.
The show was again revived in 1926 at the Mayfair Theatre in Manhattan, with Gilpin again starring as Jones and also co-directing the show withJames Light. The production, which ran for 61 performances, is noted for the acting debut of a youngMoss Hart as Smithers.
TheFederal Theatre Project of theWorks Progress Administration launched several productions of the play in cities across the United States, including a production with marionettes inLos Angeles in 1938.[8]
In 1980Richard Negri directed a production at theRoyal Exchange, Manchester withPete Postlethwaite and Albie Woodington.
The Wooster Group started to develop a production of the play in 1992 through a series ofwork in progress showings. The finished piece opened in 1993 atThe Performing Garage.[9] As part of itspostdramatic aesthetics, this staging was notable for having an actor play the part of Jones who was female, white, and performed in blackface (Kate Valk). Blackface had been a suggestion for the original production, which O'Neill vetoed.
In 2005Thea Sharrock directed the play, withPaterson Joseph in the title role, for theBush Theatre in London. The audience looked down into a sand-filled pit. The claustrophic effect was admired byMichael Billington[10] among others. The production transferred to the Olivier auditorium atThe National Theatre, London, in 2007.
New York'sIrish Repertory Theatre staged a 2009 revival, which received positive reviews.John Douglas Thompson portrayed Jones.
The play was adapted for a 1933feature film starringPaul Robeson and directed byDudley Murphy, an avant-garde filmmaker of O'Neill'sGreenwich Village circle who pursued the reluctant playwright for a decade before getting the rights from him.
Louis Gruenberg wrotean opera based on the play, which was premiered at theMetropolitan Opera in New York City in 1933. BaritoneLawrence Tibbett sang the title role, performing inblackface. Paul Robeson's 1936 filmSong of Freedom features a scene from the opera with Robeson singing the role of Jones. This has sometimes resulted in a confusion that the 1933 film of O'Neill's play is a film of the opera.
In the UK,BBC Television produced an adaptation in 1938, starringRobert Adams, andanother in 1953, starringGordon Heath.
Several revivals were made in the 1950s when Robeson himself was blacklisted, denied his passport by the State Department and his films — including the 1933 film — recordings and performances were banned in the United States; these new productions were implicitly in defiance of the persecution and suppression of this great star byMcCarthyism and theFBI from 1950 until 1958, and part of a worldwide effort of artists to lift the ban.
First, the legendary New York actorOssie Davis starred in atelevision adaptation for theKraft Television Theatre in 1955 — this at a time when black faces were rarely seen on American television sets.
In 1956Heitor Villa-Lobos wrote a ballet based on the play that was commissioned by The Empire Music Festival of New York, and danced byJosé Limón's company, most of them inblackface — Limón himself a revered teacher atJuilliard and breakthrough performer of color.
A live British television production byABC Television for the first season of itsArmchair Theatre series was seen on UK television on March 30, 1958.[11] It features African-American singerKenneth Spencer, and was directed by the Canadian directorTed Kotcheff and adapted by the American "beat" novelistTerry Southern in his first screenwriting job. Unlike other British television versions, it still exists, and has been released on DVD.
It wasadapted for Australian television in 1960.
An experimental video by Christopher Kondek andElizabeth LeCompte showcases the production of the play by the New York-based performance troupeThe Wooster Group, starringKate Valk andWillem Dafoe.
Media related toThe Emperor Jones at Wikimedia Commons
The full text ofThe Emperor Jones at Wikisource