The Goodman Theatre in Chicago recently put up The Wooster Group’s production of Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones, in which a white actress plays a black male character, wearing blackface and employing various elements of minstrelsy.  Bennett Jones Johnson, vice president of a Chicago-based publishing company that focuses on African-American issues, takes issue with the inclusion of minstrelsy and has publicly called for a boycott of the show.  I’m not really interested in relaying his arguments, because I think they are more or less rendered moot by the fact that he’s never seen the show. That seems just crazy to me. I’ve not seen the show either, so I certainly can’t judge whether or not the elements of race that are dealt with are done so in a responsible or progressive way (although being familiar with the work of both The Goodman and The Wooster Group, I am inclined to believe that they are).  But to take a grand public stance against a work of art you’ve never seen is to misunderstand the very function of art entirely. This is not to suggest that artists should invoke sensitive or potentially offensive topics with reckless abandon and be given a preemptive ‘pass’ simply because they are operating under the title of “artist”.  But art does does have the ability to utilize even the most entrenched imagery and performance in ways that can provoke progressive and informed thought, debate, and action. To determine whether or not a work of art has successfully accomplished that feat it is necessary to experience the art, and not sufficient or productive to judge it based on its elements alone.

via Chicago Sun-Times

image via The Wooster Group

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