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Three Plays Lawing and Jawing; Forty Yards; Woofing
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24 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 4, 2009
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About the author
Zora Neale Hurston
191 books5,657 followersNovels, including
Their Eyes Were Watching God
(1937), and nonfiction writings of American folklorist Zora Neale Hurston give detailed accounts of African American life in the South.
In 1925, Hurston, one of the leaders of the literary renaissance, happening in Harlem, produced the short-lived literary magazine Fire!! alongside Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman shortly before she entered Barnard College. This literary movement developed into the Harlem renaissance.
Hurston applied her Barnard ethnographic training to document African American folklore in her critically acclaimed book Mules and Men alongside fiction Their Eyes Were Watching God . She also assembled a folk-based performance dance group that recreated her Southern tableau with one performance on Broadway.
People awarded a Guggenheim fellowship to Hurston to travel to Haiti and conduct research on conjure in 1937. Her significant work ably broke into the secret societies and exposed their use of drugs to create the Vodun trance, also a subject of study for fellow dancer-anthropologist Katherine Dunham, then at the University of Chicago.
In 1954, the Pittsburgh Courier assigned Hurston, unable to sell her fiction, to cover the small-town murder trial of Ruby McCollum, the prosperous black wife of the local lottery racketeer, who had killed a racist white doctor. Hurston also contributed to Woman in the Suwanee County Jail , a book by journalist and civil rights advocate William Bradford Huie.
In 1925, Hurston, one of the leaders of the literary renaissance, happening in Harlem, produced the short-lived literary magazine Fire!! alongside Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman shortly before she entered Barnard College. This literary movement developed into the Harlem renaissance.
Hurston applied her Barnard ethnographic training to document African American folklore in her critically acclaimed book Mules and Men alongside fiction Their Eyes Were Watching God . She also assembled a folk-based performance dance group that recreated her Southern tableau with one performance on Broadway.
People awarded a Guggenheim fellowship to Hurston to travel to Haiti and conduct research on conjure in 1937. Her significant work ably broke into the secret societies and exposed their use of drugs to create the Vodun trance, also a subject of study for fellow dancer-anthropologist Katherine Dunham, then at the University of Chicago.
In 1954, the Pittsburgh Courier assigned Hurston, unable to sell her fiction, to cover the small-town murder trial of Ruby McCollum, the prosperous black wife of the local lottery racketeer, who had killed a racist white doctor. Hurston also contributed to Woman in the Suwanee County Jail , a book by journalist and civil rights advocate William Bradford Huie.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 27, 2014
Quick Read
I wish Zora Neale was still here so she could finish writing these plays. Her ability to make Black life come alive is rivaled by no one.
I wish Zora Neale was still here so she could finish writing these plays. Her ability to make Black life come alive is rivaled by no one.
February 26, 2026
3.75⭐️
This was an unedited ebook available through Project Gutenberg (not an option on listed editions), which included typos from the original text. That, combined with the intentional language quirks used by Hurston made for interesting and sometimes momentarily confusing read.
The first play, “Lawing and Jawing” was a concerning but entertaining look into the courtroom of an acerbic judge with a penchant for pretty girls. It was funny, but I’d bet there was more truth to it than we’d like to believe.
The second play, “Forty Yards,” was a few football words that seemed pointless and held zero entertainment value for me.
The third play, “Woofing,” was the best. Characters named Good Black and Cliff sit on Good Black’s porch pondering a checkerboard. Good Black’s wife, Woman, is inside, trying to get her husband to get off his ass and do some work. As the an assortment of neighbors buzz around, having various comical interactions with them, husband and wife bicker. A few quotes made me laugh, but this was one of my favorites: “Yo’ mouth exhausting like an automobile.” I had to rethink that for a second, then I said, “Good one!” aloud to him.
This was an unedited ebook available through Project Gutenberg (not an option on listed editions), which included typos from the original text. That, combined with the intentional language quirks used by Hurston made for interesting and sometimes momentarily confusing read.
The first play, “Lawing and Jawing” was a concerning but entertaining look into the courtroom of an acerbic judge with a penchant for pretty girls. It was funny, but I’d bet there was more truth to it than we’d like to believe.
The second play, “Forty Yards,” was a few football words that seemed pointless and held zero entertainment value for me.
The third play, “Woofing,” was the best. Characters named Good Black and Cliff sit on Good Black’s porch pondering a checkerboard. Good Black’s wife, Woman, is inside, trying to get her husband to get off his ass and do some work. As the an assortment of neighbors buzz around, having various comical interactions with them, husband and wife bicker. A few quotes made me laugh, but this was one of my favorites: “Yo’ mouth exhausting like an automobile.” I had to rethink that for a second, then I said, “Good one!” aloud to him.
January 9, 2019
Only the first play feels complete, but I love Zorah Neal Hurston’s gift for listening to her neighbors and transcribing it into beautiful prose. I wish more of this made it to the stage, and the theater, like literature, would have been all the richer for it.
August 2, 2020
Humorous! Loved Lawing and Jawing the best!
April 21, 2012
Cute stories. Especially loved the banter in Forty Yards - "draining ugly from the river for 6 months" had me cracking up...
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews