Juba Stage Play
JUBA
by Stephen Johnson
CAST:
Historian
Document #1
Document #2
Dancer / Juba
by Stephen Johnson
CAST:
Historian
Document #1
Document #2
Dancer / Juba
INTRODUCTION
Setting: A bare stage with three chairs. Juba sits on the one in the middle. Document #1 DSR, Document #2 DSL. Historian stands UC. These are base positions for the play (called homebase in script). There are two long white cloths that are used variously in the play as clothing, geographical boundaries, etc. That use is mentioned in the following text, but is best left to the imagination of the reader.
[Musical prelude, Juba dances]
[End dance and music. Historian DC. Looks out over audience.]
Historian: Juba. Is that you? Is that you? Za chew? Is--that--you?
[Lights up. Change of tone.]
When I was in Graduate School in New York City, one of my teachers brought in a guest lecturer. His name was Howard "Sandman" Sims. He was a dancer. A tap dancer from Harlem. He was a black man. I mention that because he was the only person of colour in the room at the time--and we all know that such things "signify". He walked into the classroom, cleared the desks, and, sitting down, pulled out his shoes.
"These," he said, "are my taps." He held up the bottoms of the shoes for us to see, and displayed the metal soles and heels.
"These," he said, "are my instruments.
He took out a screwdriver and worked away at the shoes, explaining to us that the sound of the tap depended on where you placed the metal plates, on the tension of the screws.
As he placed the shoes on his feet he told us where he had learned to dance. He learned on the street. He had learned from the great Chuck Green who had learned from the great John Bubbles who had learned from I don't remember who--but I'm sure that person learned from another who learned from another who. You understand.
The dancer caressed his shoes, and addressed his shoes, like the Balinese actor addresses his mask--as a living thing, about to possess him. He tied his shoes and stood up.
And he danced. Nothing fancy--a simple time step, with a few flourishes for good--measure. Nothing I could not have de-scribed in words--written down, if he'd been a little slower, or my hand and pen were just a little faster.
He stopped. He looked around the room. "There," he said. "That was for you white folks." A pause, and a smile. No offence meant or taken--just the facts. "Now," he said. "This--is--for--my--self." And he danced. It was that day, I reckon, that I first saw Juba, the world's wonder. Ladies and Gentlemen. I beg your indulgence. A brief illustrated lecture, presenting the Documents
[DocOne and DocTwo stand, move downstage briskly.]
...
DICKENS AND FOSTER
[DocOne is Foster; DocTwo is Dickens]
[Juba is in the middle, and as a body is referred to, whatever is being described--slums, dance hall. Juba by turns, noted in text, is imitative and abstract.]
Historian: Document Number One--Charles Dickens visits the slums of New York City.
Dickens: I want to go to the Tombs!
Historian: Late in the autumn of 1841 Charles Dickens, known to his fans as "Boz", visited New York City.
Dickens: I want to go to the Tombs!
Historian: He was idolized. Fêted. Fancy balls and picnics and boat tours and--
Dickens: I want to go to the Tombs!
Historian: Yes, I know. The famous prison. He wanted to see the prisons. Dickens was like that. Mr. Dickens.
Dickens: Yes?
Historian: On your way to the Tombs, wouldn't you like to see some of our very worst slums?
Dickens: Slums. Oh, yes! I want to see--[looks around, sees Juba]--the people!
Historian: Mr. Dickens, welcome to Five Points, New York's most notorious slum. Look around you. I'd like you to describe it for us.
Dickens: My pleasure. "These narrow ways, diverging to the right and left--"
[Juba moves to Dickens' words, and is violently interrupted in movement by Foster's words. It breaks the mood. Juba is upset.]
Foster: [rushing forward] "and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth."
Dickens: Excuse me?
Foster: Extraordinary language. Excellent writing. I honour you, sir.
Dickens: Thank you.
Historian: Mr. Foster. Was I expecting you?
Dickens: [Continuing] "Poverty, wretchedness, and vice, are rife enough where we are going now. I recognize the scene. The people--"
Foster: "--the coarse and bloated faces at the doors--they have their counterparts all the wide world over." Brilliant!
Dickens: Who is this? [Juba is asking Historian the same question.]
Historian: Mr. Dickens, this is George Foster, a great admirer of yours.
Dickens: Oh, yes?
Historian: He's a journalist, like yourself. A reformer.
Foster: May I say, Mr Dickens, what a pleasure it is to meet you. Honoured to have you visit our city [Juba accosts him] even this part of it.
Dickens: Thank you. Shall I continue?
Historian: Please.
Foster: By all means.
Dickens: "Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, how the patched and broken windows--
Foster: "The population of Five Points is about equally divided between blacks and whites--"
Historian: Mr. Foster!
Dickens: Excuse me, but what exactly is the meaning of this interruption?
Historian: You have to forgive Mr. Foster. He so greatly admired you, that he retraced your steps around the city, eight years after you wrote about it.
Dickens: He did?
Historian: Step for step.
Foster: I wanted to see everything you saw. "The population of Five Points is about equally divided between blacks and whites--"
Historian: Mr. Foster, let's let Mr. Dickens have his turn first.
Foster: I really think a little background is in order.
Historian: Please.
Foster: I can wait.
Dickens: Where was I?
Historian: "How the patched and broken windows--"
Foster: Brilliant!
Dickens: Ah, yes--the "slums come alive" speech. "How the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken frays."
Foster: "The blacks are the rulers in Five Points. They own the dance-houses, supply the drinks and the gambling."
Dickens: Should I leave?
Historian: Stop! Mr Foster, leave the stage.
Foster: Make me.
Historian: [He can't do it.] Just ignore him, Mr. Dickens. Look. Look, here's the dance house I was telling you about. This is where I wanted you to take us. To describe--
Dickens: On the way to the prison.
Historian: Yes, but here, first. To see a dancer.
Dickens: All right. Let me see--"Our guide has his hand upon the latch of a door, and calls to us to enter."
Foster: "That door is fastened with a wooden pin stuck in a hole by the side, like a country stable." Retraced every step, Mr. Dickens. Recorded every detail.
Dickens: "Shall we go in? It is but a moment."
Foster: "We pay a shilling and enter. It is a large, desolate-looking place, with white-washed walls garnished with wooden benches." Details.
Dickens: I am capable of detail, sir. I am paid by the word. "The landlord--"
Foster: "Pah! What an intolerable stench of brandy, tobacco, and steaming carcasses meets us at the top of the steps!"
Dickens: "--orders a dance--"
Historian: The dance. Get ready, Juba.
Dickens: "--a regular breakdown. The corpulent black fiddler, and his friend who plays the tambourine, stamp upon the boarding of the small raised orchestra in which they sit, and play a lively measure." Details, indeed. I can give you details. "Five or six couples come upon the floor--"
Foster: "Each gentleman "drawrs" his "chawr" of tobacco, deposits it carefully in his trowsers pocket, flings his arms about his buxom inamorata, and salutes her whisky-breathing lips with a chaste kiss. This extracts a scream of delight...something between the whoop of an Indian and the neighing of a horse."
[Pause. All look at Foster.] I believe I take that round?
Dickens: [Pause. Juba accosts, entreats him.] "There is a lively young negro, who is the wit of the assembly, and the greatest dancer known."
Historian: That's it, Juba. That's your cue. Now the dance.
Dickens: "He dashes in."
Historian: And dance.
Dickens: "The fiddler grins, and goes at it tooth and nail; there is new energy in the tambourine, new smiles in the landlady, new confidence in the landlord--new brightness in the very candles."
Foster: "The dancers begin contorting their bodies and accelerating their movements, until all observance of a figure is forgotten and every one leaps, stamps, screams and hurras on his or her own hook."
Dickens: "Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-cut; snapping his fingers, rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting the backs of his legs in front--spinning about on his toes and heels like nothing but the man's fingers on the tambourine--"
Foster: "Away they go--a fat and shiny blackamore with his arm around the waist of a slight young white girl, whose painted cheeks and hollow glaring eyes tell how rapidly goes on the work of disease and death."
Dickens: "dancing with two left legs, two right legs, two wooden legs, two wire legs, two spring legs--all sorts of legs and no legs--what is this to him?"
Foster: "A man naked as at the first moment of his birth, whirls shouting and yelling away with a brutal-looking woman, once evidently a queenly beauty. Away they whirl in a most disgusting and revolting manner. Bah! Stop this!"
[Sound and dance stop, lighting changes. Foster, and not the Historian, has stopped the scene. This is noted by everyone. Juba and Foster confront.]
"This is the great dance-house of the Five Points--What a commentary upon the authorities of the city."
[Juba gives Foster what he doesn't want to see.]
No, now, you see. Look at that. He has completely discarded all the conventions of dance as we know it. No, if he were able to experience the world through his mind and soul, instead of his--well, loins, then--. I mean, the use of the lower body.
[Juba shows him the lower body.]
Now, I really must object --object to this behaviour.
[Juba swaggers away from Foster.]
"This is certainly the most ----. Bah! Let us get out, my senses refuse to behold longer such scenes."
[Turns back.]
Historian: [And Juba turn to Historian, wanting him to take charge again.] I--I know. The dance. Mr. Dickens. I'm so sorry about that disgusting display. A terrible man. Can you continue? Please.
Dickens: [Who has been horrified? Is dejected, disillusioned? In an ironically depressed tone.] And in what walk of life, or dance of life, does man ever get such stimulating applause as thunders about him--as he leaps gloriously on the bar-counter, and calls for a drink. [He turns his back.]
[Foster and Dickens are now facing SL and SR away from Juba. Juba and Historian are in the middle. React to each other. A neutral scene to end Dickens:]
Historian: What is the dance hall like?
Foster: Eyes are on me, everywhere. Will they tempt, will they kill?
Dickens: Too many people. I stand against the wall, un-noticed. I--am not used to seeing all these coloureds.
Historian: What is the dance like?
Foster: A gross parody. A dangerous mockery. A dirty joke.
Dickens: All the filth of the street and the room and the life, all disappeared as I watched. How can he dance with that kind of joy, in this place?
Historian: Why did you come here?
Foster: To defeat the devil, one must understand him.
Historian: Really?
Foster: [A snicker.] All right--eight years later, it was called "Dickens Place," to attract the tourists.
Dickens: I--I was just on my way to see the prison.
...
Setting: A bare stage with three chairs. Juba sits on the one in the middle. Document #1 DSR, Document #2 DSL. Historian stands UC. These are base positions for the play (called homebase in script). There are two long white cloths that are used variously in the play as clothing, geographical boundaries, etc. That use is mentioned in the following text, but is best left to the imagination of the reader.
[Musical prelude, Juba dances]
[End dance and music. Historian DC. Looks out over audience.]
Historian: Juba. Is that you? Is that you? Za chew? Is--that--you?
[Lights up. Change of tone.]
When I was in Graduate School in New York City, one of my teachers brought in a guest lecturer. His name was Howard "Sandman" Sims. He was a dancer. A tap dancer from Harlem. He was a black man. I mention that because he was the only person of colour in the room at the time--and we all know that such things "signify". He walked into the classroom, cleared the desks, and, sitting down, pulled out his shoes.
"These," he said, "are my taps." He held up the bottoms of the shoes for us to see, and displayed the metal soles and heels.
"These," he said, "are my instruments.
He took out a screwdriver and worked away at the shoes, explaining to us that the sound of the tap depended on where you placed the metal plates, on the tension of the screws.
As he placed the shoes on his feet he told us where he had learned to dance. He learned on the street. He had learned from the great Chuck Green who had learned from the great John Bubbles who had learned from I don't remember who--but I'm sure that person learned from another who learned from another who. You understand.
The dancer caressed his shoes, and addressed his shoes, like the Balinese actor addresses his mask--as a living thing, about to possess him. He tied his shoes and stood up.
And he danced. Nothing fancy--a simple time step, with a few flourishes for good--measure. Nothing I could not have de-scribed in words--written down, if he'd been a little slower, or my hand and pen were just a little faster.
He stopped. He looked around the room. "There," he said. "That was for you white folks." A pause, and a smile. No offence meant or taken--just the facts. "Now," he said. "This--is--for--my--self." And he danced. It was that day, I reckon, that I first saw Juba, the world's wonder. Ladies and Gentlemen. I beg your indulgence. A brief illustrated lecture, presenting the Documents
[DocOne and DocTwo stand, move downstage briskly.]
...
DICKENS AND FOSTER
[DocOne is Foster; DocTwo is Dickens]
[Juba is in the middle, and as a body is referred to, whatever is being described--slums, dance hall. Juba by turns, noted in text, is imitative and abstract.]
Historian: Document Number One--Charles Dickens visits the slums of New York City.
Dickens: I want to go to the Tombs!
Historian: Late in the autumn of 1841 Charles Dickens, known to his fans as "Boz", visited New York City.
Dickens: I want to go to the Tombs!
Historian: He was idolized. Fêted. Fancy balls and picnics and boat tours and--
Dickens: I want to go to the Tombs!
Historian: Yes, I know. The famous prison. He wanted to see the prisons. Dickens was like that. Mr. Dickens.
Dickens: Yes?
Historian: On your way to the Tombs, wouldn't you like to see some of our very worst slums?
Dickens: Slums. Oh, yes! I want to see--[looks around, sees Juba]--the people!
Historian: Mr. Dickens, welcome to Five Points, New York's most notorious slum. Look around you. I'd like you to describe it for us.
Dickens: My pleasure. "These narrow ways, diverging to the right and left--"
[Juba moves to Dickens' words, and is violently interrupted in movement by Foster's words. It breaks the mood. Juba is upset.]
Foster: [rushing forward] "and reeking everywhere with dirt and filth."
Dickens: Excuse me?
Foster: Extraordinary language. Excellent writing. I honour you, sir.
Dickens: Thank you.
Historian: Mr. Foster. Was I expecting you?
Dickens: [Continuing] "Poverty, wretchedness, and vice, are rife enough where we are going now. I recognize the scene. The people--"
Foster: "--the coarse and bloated faces at the doors--they have their counterparts all the wide world over." Brilliant!
Dickens: Who is this? [Juba is asking Historian the same question.]
Historian: Mr. Dickens, this is George Foster, a great admirer of yours.
Dickens: Oh, yes?
Historian: He's a journalist, like yourself. A reformer.
Foster: May I say, Mr Dickens, what a pleasure it is to meet you. Honoured to have you visit our city [Juba accosts him] even this part of it.
Dickens: Thank you. Shall I continue?
Historian: Please.
Foster: By all means.
Dickens: "Debauchery has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, how the patched and broken windows--
Foster: "The population of Five Points is about equally divided between blacks and whites--"
Historian: Mr. Foster!
Dickens: Excuse me, but what exactly is the meaning of this interruption?
Historian: You have to forgive Mr. Foster. He so greatly admired you, that he retraced your steps around the city, eight years after you wrote about it.
Dickens: He did?
Historian: Step for step.
Foster: I wanted to see everything you saw. "The population of Five Points is about equally divided between blacks and whites--"
Historian: Mr. Foster, let's let Mr. Dickens have his turn first.
Foster: I really think a little background is in order.
Historian: Please.
Foster: I can wait.
Dickens: Where was I?
Historian: "How the patched and broken windows--"
Foster: Brilliant!
Dickens: Ah, yes--the "slums come alive" speech. "How the patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken frays."
Foster: "The blacks are the rulers in Five Points. They own the dance-houses, supply the drinks and the gambling."
Dickens: Should I leave?
Historian: Stop! Mr Foster, leave the stage.
Foster: Make me.
Historian: [He can't do it.] Just ignore him, Mr. Dickens. Look. Look, here's the dance house I was telling you about. This is where I wanted you to take us. To describe--
Dickens: On the way to the prison.
Historian: Yes, but here, first. To see a dancer.
Dickens: All right. Let me see--"Our guide has his hand upon the latch of a door, and calls to us to enter."
Foster: "That door is fastened with a wooden pin stuck in a hole by the side, like a country stable." Retraced every step, Mr. Dickens. Recorded every detail.
Dickens: "Shall we go in? It is but a moment."
Foster: "We pay a shilling and enter. It is a large, desolate-looking place, with white-washed walls garnished with wooden benches." Details.
Dickens: I am capable of detail, sir. I am paid by the word. "The landlord--"
Foster: "Pah! What an intolerable stench of brandy, tobacco, and steaming carcasses meets us at the top of the steps!"
Dickens: "--orders a dance--"
Historian: The dance. Get ready, Juba.
Dickens: "--a regular breakdown. The corpulent black fiddler, and his friend who plays the tambourine, stamp upon the boarding of the small raised orchestra in which they sit, and play a lively measure." Details, indeed. I can give you details. "Five or six couples come upon the floor--"
Foster: "Each gentleman "drawrs" his "chawr" of tobacco, deposits it carefully in his trowsers pocket, flings his arms about his buxom inamorata, and salutes her whisky-breathing lips with a chaste kiss. This extracts a scream of delight...something between the whoop of an Indian and the neighing of a horse."
[Pause. All look at Foster.] I believe I take that round?
Dickens: [Pause. Juba accosts, entreats him.] "There is a lively young negro, who is the wit of the assembly, and the greatest dancer known."
Historian: That's it, Juba. That's your cue. Now the dance.
Dickens: "He dashes in."
Historian: And dance.
Dickens: "The fiddler grins, and goes at it tooth and nail; there is new energy in the tambourine, new smiles in the landlady, new confidence in the landlord--new brightness in the very candles."
Foster: "The dancers begin contorting their bodies and accelerating their movements, until all observance of a figure is forgotten and every one leaps, stamps, screams and hurras on his or her own hook."
Dickens: "Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-cut; snapping his fingers, rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting the backs of his legs in front--spinning about on his toes and heels like nothing but the man's fingers on the tambourine--"
Foster: "Away they go--a fat and shiny blackamore with his arm around the waist of a slight young white girl, whose painted cheeks and hollow glaring eyes tell how rapidly goes on the work of disease and death."
Dickens: "dancing with two left legs, two right legs, two wooden legs, two wire legs, two spring legs--all sorts of legs and no legs--what is this to him?"
Foster: "A man naked as at the first moment of his birth, whirls shouting and yelling away with a brutal-looking woman, once evidently a queenly beauty. Away they whirl in a most disgusting and revolting manner. Bah! Stop this!"
[Sound and dance stop, lighting changes. Foster, and not the Historian, has stopped the scene. This is noted by everyone. Juba and Foster confront.]
"This is the great dance-house of the Five Points--What a commentary upon the authorities of the city."
[Juba gives Foster what he doesn't want to see.]
No, now, you see. Look at that. He has completely discarded all the conventions of dance as we know it. No, if he were able to experience the world through his mind and soul, instead of his--well, loins, then--. I mean, the use of the lower body.
[Juba shows him the lower body.]
Now, I really must object --object to this behaviour.
[Juba swaggers away from Foster.]
"This is certainly the most ----. Bah! Let us get out, my senses refuse to behold longer such scenes."
[Turns back.]
Historian: [And Juba turn to Historian, wanting him to take charge again.] I--I know. The dance. Mr. Dickens. I'm so sorry about that disgusting display. A terrible man. Can you continue? Please.
Dickens: [Who has been horrified? Is dejected, disillusioned? In an ironically depressed tone.] And in what walk of life, or dance of life, does man ever get such stimulating applause as thunders about him--as he leaps gloriously on the bar-counter, and calls for a drink. [He turns his back.]
[Foster and Dickens are now facing SL and SR away from Juba. Juba and Historian are in the middle. React to each other. A neutral scene to end Dickens:]
Historian: What is the dance hall like?
Foster: Eyes are on me, everywhere. Will they tempt, will they kill?
Dickens: Too many people. I stand against the wall, un-noticed. I--am not used to seeing all these coloureds.
Historian: What is the dance like?
Foster: A gross parody. A dangerous mockery. A dirty joke.
Dickens: All the filth of the street and the room and the life, all disappeared as I watched. How can he dance with that kind of joy, in this place?
Historian: Why did you come here?
Foster: To defeat the devil, one must understand him.
Historian: Really?
Foster: [A snicker.] All right--eight years later, it was called "Dickens Place," to attract the tourists.
Dickens: I--I was just on my way to see the prison.
...