The America Play and Other Works

by Suzan-Lori Parks

'The America Play' follows an African-American gravedigger who loves and resembles Abraham Lincoln, so much so that he also works as a Lincoln impersonator. For this reason he is referred to throughout the play as the "Foundling Father." As an impersonator he charges his customers a penny to take part in a reenactment Lincoln's assassination.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre, School, Grad School, Read For School, African American Literature

224 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1994

About the author

Suzan-Lori Parks is an award-winning American playwright and screenwriter. She was a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant in 2001, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002. She is married to blues musician Paul Oscher.

Reviews

[Marci Daniels · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd like to see some of these plays performed, but reading them makes me want to paper-cut my eye-holes.

[Simon A. Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this a lot. I wish there were more playwrights around with ideas and concepts this original and fresh. For those of you who aren't familiar, Parks' work is pretty complex, multi-layered and very postmodern, but her essays in the beginning I think do a fine job explaining her style and objectives. She uses a technique she calls "rep and rev" to recreate a fantastic faux-historical pastiche of sorts...

We need more writers like her. I want a theater revival, another golden age... The stage is such an incredible forum for story and drama and expression. I've always thought it was the highest form of art and I think Parks, with all her daring and cunning, does it justice. Trust the hype. Check this one out.

[viktor · Rating 4 out of 5]

the tumblr hole theory people gotta get on this one

[JCN · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inventive, thought-provoking, political, post-modern. Parks asks questions about time, memory, history, and the stories we tell about ourselves. The Foundling Father is a brilliant and moving character: the other characters are shells of people. The Foundling Father is too, in his own way—he’s inhabited by other people more than he inhabits himself. Minus one star because although it was more novel thirty years ago, the central theme has become a little repetitive.

[margarida · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this more than I was expecting.

[Saarem · Rating 4 out of 5]

i didn’t get it but then i think i got it so now i’m telling everyone i got it.

did you hear: he didn’t get it but then the consensus thought he thought it got and so now he’s telling everyone from a to z that he has got it down pat, got it Pat?

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sophisticated enough to get this.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

-forget the usual
-challenge the shape of things-as-they-wish-you-to-see-them
-make equations and solve them your damn self
-stay awake
-!

[Niamh · Rating 3 out of 5]

probably would like this if i watched it instead of read it
english at uni has me tweaking fr

[Phillip · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think The America Play is a really interesting text, but I would absolutely need to see it staged before I could begin to say I understand it. And I would love to see this performed.

The play raises a lot of interesting questions about history and the way that history gets redeployed, questions which are especially relevant in the current political moment as the image of The Founding Fathers is continually dredged up to support almost any position at all. The America Play draws our attention to the theatricality of this invocation by implicating the audience in a metatheatric spiral--we see 'customers' performing a ritualized 'assassination' of Abe Lincoln complete with props and costuming choices being made and discussed. And because we see this performance by people who are supposed to be just like us--customers seeking entertainment--we begin to realize our own implication in the violence of history and the violence of how history is used and conceptualized.

[Destiny Dawn Long · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that changed the way I thought. It has stuck with me as one of the most amazing books I've encountered. I started reading it because the title play was assigned in my "Modern Tragedy and Metatheater" class... but I ended up reading the whole thing cover to cover because I'd never encountered anything like it. Parks has such a gift with language--and she uses that gift to tackle important and complex subject matter in radical new ways.

I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested in post-modernism, theater (meta-theater in particular), or oppression studies.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fresh. New. Thought-provoking. Loved it. I especially loved the essays. I suspect the plays would ring so much more meaningful if viewed as opposed to read. Glad to have been introduced to a transcendent new voice in American drama.

[Haley · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you don't think you know what's happening in this play, I'm with you. It's definitely hard to get through, but that doesn't take away any of the power in Parks' writing. Honestly a play you need to sit with for a little while.

[anique · Rating 4 out of 5]

off the chain.

[Meghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

must read now.

[Donnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is some crazy shit. This collection fractures history and asks us to look at the isolated parts of our constructions. If you like a tight story its not for you at all.

[Angel · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the various plays I read for the drama lit. classes in graduate school. This was one of my favorite authors. I went on to present a conference paper on this play.

[Jillian · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've read worse. But written a paper on this using the New Critism method of analyzation... tourture.

[Phanesia Pharel · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me awhile but this collection is so interesting! I love the essays in the beginning and the plays themselves are marvelous and complex-as expected.

[Nick Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wildly imaginative and bizarre exploration of the Lincoln myth from a Black American cultural perspective.

[Miles Cochran · Rating 1 out of 5]

I only read The America Play for class.

[David Pickett · Rating 4 out of 5]

The America Play - A black man makes a living by impersonating Abe Lincoln and it takes place in The Great Hole of History.
Trippy trippy Trippy.

[Hollis · Rating 3 out of 5]

An eccentric, abstract, and demanding collection of short plays! Especially demands to be seen in performance, but the texts do still mostly work as standalone pieces.

A short thought on each piece (excluding the essays)

"Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom" - I liked this one the most, it's very weird but also somewhat easier to make sense of than the others I feel like? Idk, its hard for me to make sense of any of this, but this one had a lot more noticeable narrative movement.

"Betting on the Dust Commander" - Didn't care much for this one

"Pickling" - Nor this one

"The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World" - This play has the most direct social commentary. Deals a lot with stereotypes, how power dynamics produce the great narratives of history, and cultural trauma. Bold.

"Devotees in the Garden of Love" - Super funny. One of the funnier literary pieces I've read in awhile. Liked this a lot.

"The America Play" - Interesting. Abstract. A lot of productive movement through repetition, which is one of the major takeaways I took from Parks' experimental style. I think this one most effectively demonstrates Parks' talents and what she brings to drama.

[amyleigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't like this quite as much as The Red Letter Plays but it was still quite good. Replicas of already replicated holes, layers of impersonations and buried family secrets, trinkets, histories heirlooms. Parks grapples with questions of the business of telling history, of founding fathers and birthing nations, thinking about who gets left out of these tellings and what might happen if one impersonates, reproduces, repeats with such devotion that a radical break with what came before is bound to happen.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

The American Play *** -- This is a wonderfully strange, poetic work that feels like it would have been quite at home in the fin de siècle world of the Symbolists, or the post-war Absurdists. Identity is scattered, gathered and inherited as each character tries to find out who he or she is.

This feels more like a closet drama, however. I wish there was more clarity. There’s no list/description of characters, no description of the set, and, at best, cryptic descriptions of stage business. The intention seems to be to confuse.

[The Artisan Geek]

25/1/20
Will be reading this for The Black Lit Challenge next month!

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[M Caesar · Rating 5 out of 5]

the America play itself was fascinating. you can see lots of echoes of the pieces throughout her later works such as topdog/underdog (which is fitting given the hall of wonders segment!) but the nonfiction essays on craft and writing and writing plays and story structures at the beginning were worth the price of admission alone.

[Chekhov27 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic, fresh, original, but difficult to read. This is because the play is written in Parks' unique style. If you are having trouble reading it, I highly reccomend watching or listening to a recording of it as you read!

[Edie Hoesterey]

i didn't review this bc i rly think her plays are not meant to be read. but yay great play! i am really fascinated by her exploration of the hollowness behind nationalism and the narrative constructed around our nation's history. the plot is so confusing though

[Meredith Malburne-Wade · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Parks and love almost all her works. I struggled with this one, but I still find her work important, fascinating, difficult, and necessary.