Funny House of a Negro Full Play Kennedy

The world doesn't allow Black and white excellence to coexist, as shown in Adrienne Kennedy's most popular piece, Funnyhouse of a Negro. In the preface of the play, Kennedy lists places she walked while writing this play including the Primrose Hill in London with the thought "(hadn't Karl Marx walked there?)" immediately following. It's hard to contextualize the world in our minds, like the idea that someone noteworthy walked in the same place we did, that they used to not be noteworthy, that privilege and societal backgrounds hurt us from living equally in the same place. Only in a puzzling world like Funnyhouse can figures like Queen Victoria and Patrice Lumumba live on the same stage as Sarah, a Black woman, with the same intention: untangling the intergenerational erasure of history. A trip to the New York Public Library's Picture Collection can easily document this gradual assimilation and erasure of prideful Black culture.

Through art and other media, the Black community is led to believe that being Black means being inferior in every sense of the word. If they stood on their own, everything would crumble. When she assumes the role of the Duchess of Hapsburg, Sarah declares, "For as we of royal blood know, black is evil and has been from the beginning" (Kennedy 14). European nobility has always held power over the Black community and has attempted to strip the community of its power through the enforcement of European principles. Art from the 18th century, such as Thomas Jones Barker's "The Secret of England's Greatness," depicting Victoria bestowing a bible to an ambassador from East Africa is an example of this. The ambassador is arching his back and looks a bit concerned by Victoria's stern stare. It looks like an act of submission to a foreign doctrine. Samuel Jennings' painting "Study For Liberty" (c. 1792) displays a similar message from the American perspective of a well-dressed white woman known as the 'Indian Queen' that is presenting the arts and sciences to the Black community. According to her, this is being done to encourage emancipation, but from the distance of the two parties and the body language, there seems to be an ulterior motive. It's not really about the people's freedom but encouraging the Black community to mold into her version of what emancipation looks like. Later in time, a painting from the 19th century, George Rochegrosse's "The Conquest of Africa by France" (c. 1896), has a similar idea of the African community in beautiful colored silks backing away with eyes locked on a slender white woman leading an army of men dressed in pure white. Despite the calming lavender and pastel surroundings of Africa, the men in white stand out the most in the painting as the monkeys on the lower border scatter away in fear. In each of these paintings, the white party is in the commanding, oppressive position. They're actively ignoring the rich lifestyles that the Black community already possessed without the white interference. By pushing their texts and bodies onto their territory, the European forces are insinuating that they are willing to show everyone the 'right way' to do things.  With the adopted belief of inferiority comes the erasure and mistreatment of truth. At the end of Funnyhouse, Sarah's death results in Landlady and Raymond, the two antagonistic non-Black characters, tackling the responsibility of completing the narrative. They disregard her death, choosing instead to observe and fuel their own gossiping about her family's history. While the play opened in Sarah's room with every character connected to her, the play ends with a lack of authority and ownership, a power vacuum from Sarah's suicide that Landlady and Raymond can take advantage of. With Sarah dead, there's no one left to vouch for her, allowing the story of her own life to escape her. Even when there are paintings depicting Black power, like Richard Evans's portrait of the sole King of Haiti Henri Christophe (c. 1816), the history is often left untaught in White-dominated education systems. Other times, an extra measure is taken to ignore or write off the painting as something wrong. Thomas Stothard's "The Voyage of the Sable Venus" (c. 1801) that mimics Botticelli's famous "Birth of Venus" with a graceful black model was ignored entirely by critics when presented in galleries. The general consensus, populated by a white majority, ignores the regal presence of Blacks since it doesn't fit their classic image of nobility adopted by the European monarch. That's why when ads from 2005 showcase luxury and fantasies of "If you had been a princess 3000 years ago," it's no surprise that the Black slave is groveling at the pretty white woman's feet to sell soap. Kennedy's Funnyhouse can never exist in reality just as black and white power can't coexist.

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Works Cited

Barker, Thomas J. The Secret of England's Greatness. 1861, Picture Collection, New York Public Library.

Evans, Richard. Portrait of Henri Christophe, King of Haiti. 1816, Picture Collection, New York Public Library.

Jennings, Samuel. Study For Liberty Displaying the Arts and Sciences, or The Genius of America Encouraging the Emancipation of the Blacks. 1792, Picture Collection, New York Public Library.

Kennedy, Adrienne. "Funnyhouse of a Negro." The Adrienne Kennedy Reader, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN, 2001, pp. 10-26.

Palmolive Soap. 1916, Picture Collection, New York Public Library.

Rochegrosse, Georges-Antoine. The conquest of Africa. 1896, Picture Collection, New York Public Library.

Stothard, Thomas. The Voyage of the Sable Venus. 1801, Picture Collection, New York Public Library.

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Source: https://theadriennekennedyproject.ace.fordham.edu/gonzalez-funnyhouse-2/