Four Dynamite Plays

by Ed Bullins

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 068806020X
• ISBN13: 9780688060206
• Release Date: June 1972
• Publisher: William Morrow
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Powerful & Moving

With the new Michigan University anthology of Ed Bullins' work just published, perhaps this will help recharge interest in this powerful dramatist's work. "Four Dynamite Plays" is a collection of 3 one-acts and a screenplay copyrighted in 1971. It starts with "It Bees Dat Way" where Bullins breaks theatrical barriers as well as racial ones. Stage directions indicate that the play should be given to a 25-person audience that is predominately white. Bullins has the characters interact with the white audience members by having characters pick their pockets or try to seduce audience members. As written, the audience departs before the play ends. The most powerful drama here for me is "Death List" with the two characters being Blackman & Blackwoman. Blackman sits working with his rifle that he cocks menacingly at intervals as he lists various real-life prominent black people and declares them as "Enemy of the Black People." People like U.S. Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, Representative John Conyers, Mayor Richard Hatcher of Gary, Indiana & Vernon Jordan are sleighted for assassination for their collaboration with whites in an effort to establish a black nation. Blackman's wife pleads with him to spare their lives, saying that their actions are not worthy of death. The play builds to a spooky crescendo as Blackman leaves, hands filled with bags of explosives amid the sounds of approaching police sirens. We then hear a single shot offstage and assume Blackman did not make it to his car. The play is undoubtedly dated, but expresses the rage of inequality. "The Pig Pen" is an interesting drama with 11 characters with Pig Pen being an actual pig dressed as a police officer. The peppered dialogue creates a frenetic domestic scene where gender differences and differences in temperament are accentuated. Bullins' screenplay "Night of the Beast" portrays a black army intent on having Harlem secede from the United States. Its military revolutionary tone is violent and chaotic. I cannot find that it was ever made into a film. As a dramatist, Ed Bullins deals with Black themes in a powerful moving way. Enjoy!