American Literature Commons^™

James Baldwin, Performance Theorist, Sings The Blues For Mister Charlie, Koritha Mitchell

Koritha Mitchell

James Baldwin worked tirelessly to expose the myths that allowed Americans to delude themselves. Scholars have long recognized this as the driving force of his fiction and non-fiction, but this mission was also very much linked to Baldwin's conception of theater. This essay culls Baldwin's theater theory from his non-fiction, especially his seldom-discussed The Devil Finds Work (1976). Baldwin believed that theater could "re-create" people by helping us to re-discover our human connection, and he believed that stage actors could show the way. Baldwin's respect for stage actors develops over time, however. He reaches his conclusions only after realizing—in hindsight—how …