I've been heterosexual my whole life and now I find out I'm oppressing
someone if I write about it. This is life played as Moliere.
Maybe kids in my classes in the early Seventies weren't upset by A
Doll's House--which really IS a disturbing play. I assigned a rather
rude comedy by Michel de Ghelderode, a play called "Pantagleize," about
a fashion journalist caught in a political revolution. Ghelderode called
it "the farce to make you sad." Problem? Pantagleize's personal servant
is a black man named Bamboola. Yep, it's that bad. THAT time I got
responses, heated and angry ones. All the students were white. I saw the
play at Queens College in 1964, and Bamboola was played by a man from my
acting class, Milton Earl Forrest, who really was black. Okay, the play
is nasty--but like Christopher Marlowe's plays, it tears at everyone,
not just the one black character. It satirizes militarism, business,
revolutionaries, and women. It's not NICE. The kids pitched a fit and, I
am sure, remember me to this day as that jerk who assigned an offensive
play that featured a black character. However, nobody turned me into the
Department.
I should have taught "The Jew of Malta."
Ken
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