De-Constructing Uncle Tom was performed entirely in blackface minstrelsy by a diverse group of actors during The Atlas Theater’s Intersections Festival. (Photo by Shantella Y. Sherman)
When The Conciliation Project founder Tawnya Pettiford-Wates decided to explore a deconstruction of the archetype Uncle Tom from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s controversial novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” it’s doubtful she knew the impact her work would have. Staged entirely in blackface minstrelsy, De-Constructing Uncle Tom provides an historical trajectory of the tall-tale, originally published in 1852. The hour-long production demonstrates how the racial stereotypes Stowe manufactured continue to adversely position Black families, churches, athletes, and youth, in the white American consciousness.
Pettiford-Wates said that the untold history of the nation’s racial past compels audiences to question their own education and knowledge of history. By presenting such lessons in minstrel character the company strikes at deeply-held belief systems and unrealized prejudices. Admittedly, the blackface proves overwhelming at first, forcing viewers to look beyond the grotesqueness of saucer eyes and big red lips, against coal-black skin. The challenge is to see and acknowledge the people beneath the caricature.
“I didn’t like the blackface… it made me feel embarrassed, but I understand why. I’ve read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and it was painful to read Black people described like we were animals. There was no humanity in work. I brought my son with me to the show because I wanted him to understand that society’s perceptions of you can be a dangerous,” said Jamal Rayford. “He’s fifteen and looked me dead in the face and said, “White people wear masks too because they’re afraid.”
As a part of the performance’s epilogue, the company of actors remove their make-up in the presence of the audience. The process, called de-masking, is one of the production’s most prolific moments, shared between the actors and audience as a moment of solidarity. This de-masking is occurring regularly in popular culture – undertaken recently by actresses Viola Davis and CCH Pounder on primetime television shows, How to Get Away with Murder and The Sons of Anarchy.
De-Constructing Uncle Tom was performed entirely in blackface minstrelsy by a diverse group of actors during The Atlas Theater’s Intersections Festival. (Photo by Shantella Y. Sherman)
“The lies live behind the masks. So when you symbolically wipe off the mask, you expose the lie,” Pettiford-Wates said following a recent performance at The Atlas Theater’s Intersections Festival. “That’s not to say that people can’t put it right back up again, that’s why I say consciousness has to be intentional. That’s why you have to intentionally take it off.”
Pettiford-Wates said that taking off the blinders and seeing the truth — even though painful and ugly, is necessary to the nation’s healing.
Audience member Cheryl Dyson said that this ritualistic removal of make-up and wigs by African- American women in popular television shows and the actors in the play help disabuse Americans of lying about race and establishing new barriers.
“De-Constructing Uncle Tom shows that although they’ve been modernized over the years, few white people view African Americans today outside of the characteristics of Uncle Tom, Mammy, and Topsy. Removing the masks symbolizes a refusal to keep up the pretense by Black people. It is scary for the larger society because it simultaneously exposes whites, and systems of oppression we’ve come to accept as normal,” Dyson said.
The Conciliation Project (TCP) has an 11-year history of facilitating difficult conversations around race and racism through the use of theatre. The Richmond-based social justice theatre company partners with organizations and communities to engage in the long process of healing our nation’s historic past.