A Documentary History of the African Theater.

George A. Thompson, Jr. A Documentary History of the African Theater. Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1998. 267 pp. $54.95.

For more than 100 years theatre folk have known of the existence in New York City of the African Theatre established by Mr. Brown, a former ship's steward, in the 1820s. First mentioned by Lawrence Hutton as just another eccentricity among his Curiosities of the American Stage (1890), the troupe attracted little attention from scholars as being worthy of further investigation. Decades later, Columbia University professor George C. D. Odell took a more objective approach when he included notices of the same African Theatre in his voluminous compilation titled Annals of the New York Stage (1927-39). Odell also published a print of the theatre's leading actor, James Hewlett, in the character of Shakespeare's Richard III. However, as the company's existence was short-lived and notices were buried piecemeal in the third of an eleven-volume publication, the African Theatre remained of little interest save for short summaries in reference books.

In 1945, along came the black scholar Fannin Belcher, Jr., who wrote his doctoral dissertation for Yale University, The Place of the Negro in the Evolution of the American Theatre. Referring to the "African Company," Belcher noted that, since the Hutton and Odell publications, no new information had surfaced about the company. It happened that, in addition to founding and managing the theatre, Mr. Brown had also written and produced an historical drama set in the Caribbean, making him the first known black playwright. There was need to identify him precisely. Belcher proposed, after checking the New York City Directory, that Mr. Brown's first name was probably (but not conclusively) James. He was wrong. In the years that followed several other first and second names were offered by various scholars, none of them being wholly accurate.

It took the Black Power Movement of the late 1960s and '70s to ignite renewed interest in black culture, foster an upsurge of black theatre groups and a significant increase in new black plays, as well as a search for origins. The momentum would carry into the 1980s when, for instance, the National Conference on African American Theatre in its fourth annual meeting at Morgan State University would choose for its theme African American theatre companies, past and present. Out of this ferment would come Carlyle Brown's innovative play "The African Company presents Richard III," seen at the Arena Stage, Washington, D.C., in 1992, and six years later the painstakingly researched and attractively formatted Documentary History of the African Theatre by librarian and historian of New York City, George A. Thompson, Jr.

Thompson's text comprises three major parts: an Introduction, the Documents, and, where necessary, Commentaries appended to the Documents. A substantial introductory essay of fifty pages sets the milieu in which the African Theatre functioned, gives reasons for its several relocations, introduces the principal players, and attempts to evaluate their individual contributions. The theatre survived for a mere three seasons and produced some sixteen plays (including short after-pieces to the main offerings), among which were three plays of Shakespeare and at least four others that were either anti-colonialist or anti-slavery.

Following the Introduction are the Documents, the texts of which are placed in shaded format to make them immediately obvious. Some are no more than one or two lines, others run to two or three pages; all provide important evidence of a name, an address, a playbill, a newspaper critique or commentary, an eyewitness account of a performance, or the report of a court trial. In all the Documents number 134, whereas prior to Thompson's book only eighteen contemporary references were available. The third segment of text is made up of Commentaries that help to clarify obscure references in the Documents. An appendix provides a list of plays presented at the African Theatre and a roster of actors' names--fifteen men and an equal number of women who appeared with the company--along with the roles they played. One male juvenile is also named, and the manager's full name is established as William Alexander Brown.

Of particular interest is the role played by the manager of the prestigious Park Theatre, Stephen Price, who sought to destroy the African Theatre by using thugs from a circus to create disturbances during its performances. Somewhat allied with Price for his own political interest was Noah Webster, editor of the National Advocate newspaper, minor playwright, and sheriff. By a curious omission, the most celebrated alumnus of the African Theatre, Ira Aldridge, is not listed among the roster of actors, the author having raised doubts about his appearance with the company. It is hard to believe that Aldridge, a strong-willed youth obsessed with the stage, would not have found means to participate in some way with the only black theatre in town, despite his father's expressed wishes against it.

It is no reflection on the author's industry to admit that the full story of the African Theatre and its company of actors, musicians, and backstage personnel remains incomplete, and perhaps will never be fully known. What William A. Brown did after his theatre closed and he left New York is not positively known, although it is possible he was the Mr. Brown who started a black theatre in Albany as reported by later writers. Similarly, the unpredictable James Hewlett as last heard of in Trinidad, where he advertised forthcoming appearances in his one-man show, but nothing further is known of him. Even Aldridge, the subject of an absorbing biography by Herbert Marshall and Mildred Stock, is still being studied for his European tours, which apparently were not thoroughly covered in the biography.

There is much to be explored and retrieved if we are faithfully to record the full story of the African American theatre. Thompson's book has made a significant contribution toward achieving that goal, and for that we are indeed grateful.