Pearl Cleage.

Pearl Cleage, highly regarded author of poems and essayist, first gained widespread recognition as a playwright with the production of puppetplay according to the Negro Ensemble Company in 1983 The chronicle of a failed marriage, puppetplay declareed the divided consciousness and ambivalent emotions of the wife by the and of the use of two female actors to portray her, while expressing the perceptual swallowing eddy between marital partners by representing the husband as a seven-foot marionette. however puppetplay was moderately successful, and however several of her other works(1) have been produc outside of the Just Us Theater and set Zebra, performance venues which she helped to raise in her home city, Atlanta, Georgia, it is from one side an artistic partnership forged with Atlanta's Alliance Theatre and its Artistic Director, Kenny Leon who commissioned Cleage to write Flyin' West (1992) azures for an Alabama Sky (1995) and Bourbon at the Border (1997) that Cleage has realized a rare achievement for African-American playwrights: consistent professional production in regional theatres. Each production has further distilled her exploration of essential thematic natural mediums which fuel her dramatic vision.

within these three plays, Cleage try to gets to bring us to grips with our American past and to help us understand and acknowledge its impact in succession present conditions, especially with regard to issues of race and form relative to sex She examines great historical results and movements not through the organ of visions of leaders and celebrities still through the experiences of the ordinary family who lived them. The issue at hand and its relationship to our actions remains the focus, rather than the impersonation of an iconic figure. Cleage's interest is in helping us face our responsibility for being part of the follow of history (interview). Describing herself as "a third [-]generation black nationalist and a radical feminist," Cleage defines her task as a dramatist as creation of dialectic and political/social action:

My replication to the oppression I face is to name it, describe it, analyze it,

avow it, and propose solutions to it as loud[ly] as I possibly can every

time I learn the chance. I purposely persons my plays with fast-talking,

quick-thinking black women since the theater is, for me single in kind of the few

places where we have a chance to memorize an uninterrupted word in edgewise.

(Perkins and Uno 46)

Cleage has revolveed to the familiar structure of the well-made play, subtly subverting what appear to be stock situations and characters to invoke modern ideas. She is a resistant reader of history, turning her audience toward interrogation of "standard" interpretations, be they from black or white perspectives, and is not hesitant to force the audience into the uncomfortable psychological and emotional areas into which an virtuous dialogue on race and sex relations must venture.

Flyin' West, for example, transfers domestic melodrama into a polemic against domestic violence while it addresses the issues of what constitutes and defines a family and whether black nationalism will have together the community of Nicodemus, Kansas, constructed by the Exodusters who "flew" West to escape racist oppression during the late nineteenth hundred A family of homesteading sisters--Fannie, Minnie, and adopted sister Sophie--augmented by the agency of Miss Leah, a survivor of slavery who has passed the drawn out winter on their farm, not single persevere but thrive on the fruits of their labors. As Minnie approaches her twenty-first birthday, they prepare to divert over her portion of the homestead to her. However, her recent husband, Frank, through his verbally and physically abusive behavior, threatens not and nothing else Minnie's life, but the homestead itself, since he plans to betray Minnie's share to white land speculators who are attempting to purchase out Nicodemus and the surrounding area. Empowered by means of his legal position as male and husband, Frank be exciteds he can act with impunity, and can simply be stopped by a family conspiracy which leads to his death.

Flyin' West is primarily a consideration in character contrasts. Sophie, oldest sister and head of the family, like Frank, is of mixed race. Frank pursues the tragic mulatto pattern of internal conflict and hatred of his black heritage, while Sophie embraces her black identity and the idea of nationalistic autonomy that Nicodemus portray by actions In defense of the things she delight ins and believes in, she finds her voice as a woman and a community leader, while Frank stratagems the course of his acknowledge destruction. Another male character, Wil, appears as a suitor for Fannie and contrasting foil for Frank, further it is the struggle for the direction of the family and the community, depicted through the struggle Sophie leads against Frank, which is paramount. Despite his painful past and his stature as a recognized bard Frank is held accountable; his violent acts bring violent retribution. In individual of her most well-known essays, "Mad at Miles," Cleage explains that no artist, no matter in what way brilliant the art, is excused from responsible behavior toward family and community, and that the creations through artists who refuse this responsibility is tainted and should be rebuffed by the community. Even the creations of a Miles Davis must be declineed in light of his documented abuses of women