Topdog/Underdog (Further Reading)

Further Reading

• Elam, Harry J., Jr., and Robert Alexander, eds., The Fire This Time: African-American Plays for the 21st Century, Theatre Communications Group, 2004.

  Taking their title from a collection of essays made famous by James Baldwin, Elam and Alexander have compiled an anthology of African-American plays that reflects a broad continuum of artistic styles and voices, from August Wilson to Kamilah Forbes and Hip-Hop Junction. Suzan-Lori Parks's In the Blood, a play about a homeless black woman and her children, is included.

• Fornes, Maria Irene, Plays: Mud, The Danube, The Conduct of Life, Sarita, PAJ Publications, 1986.

  The Cuban-American playwright Maria Irene Fornes, whose plays often engage audiences in unconventional ways, such as incorporating language instruction tapes and marionettes into a production, has been an important influence on the American theatre since the 1960s. Fornes avoids ideological constructs when composing her plays, focusing instead on the needs of her characters. Forness's avant-garde plays, stark and often lyrical, revolve around characters who search for meaning in their lives in the face of psychological tyranny.

• Mahone, Sydné, Moon Marked and Touched by Sun: Plays by African-American Women, Theatre Communications Group, 1994.

  Among the playwrights included in this anthology are Adrienne Kennedy, Thulani Davis, Kia Corthron, and Suzan-Lori Parks. Mahone emphasizes the shift that has occurred in black women's consciousness, one that has contributed significantly to the elimination of racial and sexual oppression within society. In her introductions to each work, Mahone includes in-depth interviews that illuminate the playwrights' perspectives on the role of the artist within a commercial theatre.

• Smith, Anna Deavere, Fires in the Mirror, Anchor Books, 1993.

  Based on interviews with people who witnessed New York City's 1991 Crown Heights racial riots, Fires in the Mirror presents, through a series of monologues, a wide variety of characters and insights that cast light on the racial attitudes dividing a city. By juxtaposing her characters' personalities, Anna Deavere Smith captures basic human truths in an artistic blend of theatre, journalism, and social commentary.