James de Jongh, who put stories of slavery onstage, dies at 80
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Friday, November 22, 2024


James de Jongh, who put stories of slavery onstage, dies at 80
A photo provided by The New Federal Theatre of Ebony Jo-Ann and Glynn Turman in the American Place Theater’s 1982 production of James de Jongh’s “Do Lord Remember Me” in New York. de Jongh, a scholar and playwright best known for fashioning oral histories left by formerly enslaved people in the 1930s into “Do Lord Remember Me,” a 1978 stage work that painted an unflinching picture of the human cost of slavery, died on May 5, 2023 in the Bronx. He was 80. (The New Federal Theatre via The New York Times)

by Neil Genzlinger



NEW YORK, NY.- James de Jongh, a scholar and playwright best known for fashioning oral histories left by formerly enslaved people in the 1930s into “Do Lord Remember Me,” a 1978 stage work that painted an unflinching picture of the human cost of slavery, died May 5 in the Bronx, New York. He was 80.

Robert deJongh Jr., a nephew, said the cause was cardiac arrest.

De Jongh was a longtime member of the English department faculty at City College and the City University of New York Graduate Center, where he specialized in African American literature and the literatures of the African diaspora. But briefly in his early career, he had been an actor, and he continued to maintain an interest in the theater. In 1975, together with Carles Cleveland, he wrote his first play — “Hail Hail the Gangs!” — about a Black teenager who joins a Harlem gang.

“I wanted to go in a completely different direction for the second play,” he told the public-access cable channel Manhattan Neighborhood Network in a recent interview.

He was drawn to a book called “The Negro in Virginia,” a collection of interviews with formerly enslaved people started by the Federal Writers’ Project, part of the Works Progress Administration under the New Deal, and completed in 1940 by the Virginia Writers’ Project. At first, he said, his idea was to construct a fictional story using that material as background, but as he delved further into archives of interviews at the Smithsonian Institution and elsewhere, his thinking changed.

“Many of them were quite eloquent, were quite moving, were quite touching, and some of them were in, really, the voices of the people themselves,” he said. “In other words, the interviewers had actually recorded word for word, rather than simply summarizing the content of what they said. And those words were striking.”

He realized that he could create a play made primarily of the recollections of the men and women who had experienced slavery firsthand, augmented by the words of Nat Turner, the leader of an 1831 slave rebellion, and by some gospel and work songs. The result was “Do Lord Remember Me,” which premiered in 1978 at the New Federal Theater on East Third Street in Manhattan, with a cast that included Frances Foster, a leading actress of the day.

“The play, strongly felt and single-minded, has an impact far greater than one would receive from reading historical documents,” Mel Gussow wrote in his review for The New York Times. “The seven actors, portraying slave owners as well as slaves, transport us, showing us the auction block in our nation’s past — when people were a commodity for speculation — linking arms and embracing a collective consciousness.”

A revised version was staged in 1982 at the American Place Theater in midtown, with a cast that included Ebony Jo-Ann and Glynn Turman. In a fresh review, Gussow called it “a moving evocation of shared servitude.”




The play, which has been restaged a number of times over the decades, has dashes of humor and a theme of triumphing over adversity. But it is also blunt in its language and its depiction of the cruelties of slavery, the kind of historical realism that is being erased from educational curricula in some schools and libraries today. In one scene, a woman shares the backstory of her facial disfigurement: As a child, she was punished for taking a peppermint stick by having her head placed beneath the rocker of a rocking chair and crushed.

In the interview with Manhattan Neighborhood Network, de Jongh said that although was not a particularly religious man, he saw creating the play as a sort of calling.

“Somehow, I felt I had a task,” he said, “and the task had found me.”

James Laurence de Jongh was born Sept. 23, 1942, in Charlotte Amalie on the island of St. Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands. His father, Percy, was the commissioner of finance for the government of the Virgin Islands, and his mother, Mavis E. (Bentlage) de Jongh, was an assistant director for the U.S. Customs Service and ran a poultry farm and plant store.

James de Jongh attended Saints Peter & Paul Catholic School on St. Thomas and then Williams College in Massachusetts, where he appeared in theatrical productions and earned a bachelor’s degree in 1964. He received a master’s degree from Yale in 1967 and a doctorate from New York University in 1983.

De Jongh continued to act for a time after his days at Williams College, but teaching was his vocation beginning in 1969, when he spent a year as an instructor at Rutgers University. The next year, he joined the CUNY faculty; he remained there for decades and added the Graduate Center to his portfolio in 1990. He took emeritus status in 2011.

De Jongh wrote numerous academic articles on Black theater, the art scene in Harlem and related subjects, and in 1990, he published a scholarly book, “Vicious Modernism: Black Harlem and the Literary Imagination.” He also served on the board of the New Federal Theater, whose current artistic director, Elizabeth Van Dyke, called him “a quiet, gracious powerhouse.”

De Jongh, who lived in the Bronx, leaves no immediate survivors.

The 1982 production of “Do Lord Remember Me” was also presented to inmates at Rikers Island; according to news accounts, it was the first complete professional production staged at the prison. De Jongh attended and found the inmates more boisterous than traditional theatergoers.

“There was an element of risk in the entire situation,” he told the Times that year. “The audience reacted with anger as well as humor. It was not just a play about remembering — their own freedom was circumscribed.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.










Today's News

May 22, 2023

Gallery 19C announces sale of paintings by Jean-Léon Gérôme and Fernand Pelez to the Musée d'Orsay

New exhibition at Hamburger Kunsthalle: 'Vija Celmins │ Gerhard Richter: Double Vision'

The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Republic of Italy, Sicilian Region, announce new reciprocal loan agreement

The George Adams Gallery opens comprehensive survey of Robert Arneson's work

"Samuel Ross: COARSE" currently on view at Friedman Benda art gallery

Sydney Contemporary, Australasia's Premier Art Fair announces return to Carriageworks this September

Amsterdam is a canvas for artistic talent at Amsterdam Art Week 2023 from 31 May - 4 June

Wanrooij Gallery in Amsterdam presents Dutch creator RAIDER

Pola Sieverding is now presenting 'Contact Zone' at the art gallery signs and symbols

The Warhol appoints Aaron Levi Garvey Chief Curator

Juergen Teller: The Master V, the newest installment of his light-hearted homages to his heroes

Lindy Lee: A tree more ancient than the forest it stands in

Martin Amis, acclaimed author of bleakly comic novels, dies at 73

Fragile, Handle with Care: Giampiero Romanò's first solo exhibition in Dubai

Post War & Contemporary Art to feature significant Joan Mitchell painting & more

Hortensia Mi Kafchin presenting solo exhibition 'Years of Bad Hair'

On 'The Blog Era,' resurrecting rap media history

Review: Gustavo Dudamel leads his New York Philharmonic

James de Jongh, who put stories of slavery onstage, dies at 80

Daylight Books to release 'Done Doing Time: Portraits of Life After Prison' by Hinda Schuman

'Thinking of You' by Turkish artist Firat Neziroğlu now on view at C24 Gallery

Auction records set for four Louis XVI works of art

New exhibition at the Currier premieres work focusing on environmental and human rights issues

Listing the best casino paintings in the world

Why Primo Roofers is Philadelphia's Top Choice for Roofing Solutions

5 Ways Art and Gambling Work Together




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful