The Dutchman

By Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones)

Dutchman is an emotionally charged and highly symbolic version of the Adam and Eve story, wherein a naive bourgeois black man is murdered by an insane and calculating white seductress, who is coldly preparing for her next victim as the curtain comes down. The emotionally taut, intellectual verbal fencing between Clay (the black Adam) and Lula (a white Eve) spirals irrevocably to the symbolic act of violence that will apparently repeat itself over and over again. Jones/Baraka's play is one of mythical proportions, a ritual drama that has a sociological purpose: to galvanize his audience into revolutionary action.

About Playwright(s)

Self-identity

Country of publication

Cast Information

Cultural background of characters

Total number of characters

Minimum number of actors

Female roles

Male roles

Transgender roles

-

Non-Binary Gender Non-Conforming roles

-

Gender unespecified roles

-

Age of characters

Actor-Friendly Parts

Monologue level

Monologue details

contains monologue for young African American man

Scene level

-

Scene details

-

Production and Publication

First produced

1964, Cherry Lane Theatre, New York City

Publication year

1971

Published by

Harper Perennial

ISBN

9780688210847

Published in tandem with 'The Slave' through Concord Theatricals.

Published in tandem with 'The Slave' through Concord Theatricals.

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