{"id":40197,"date":"2015-03-02T01:18:29","date_gmt":"2015-03-02T01:18:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=40197"},"modified":"2015-03-02T01:21:29","modified_gmt":"2015-03-02T01:21:29","slug":"review-an-octoroon-a-branden-jacobs-jenkins-comedy-about-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=40197","title":{"rendered":"Review: \u2018An Octoroon,\u2019 a Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Comedy About Race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/02\/27\/theater\/review-an-octoroon-a-branden-jacobs-jenkins-comedy-about-race.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>Review: \u2018An Octoroon,\u2019 a Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Comedy About Race<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\" target=\"_blank\">The New York Times<\/a><br \/>\n2015-02-26<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/topics.nytimes.com\/top\/reference\/timestopics\/people\/b\/ben_brantley\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Ben Brantley<\/strong><\/a>, Chief Theater Critic<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"nyt_video_player\" title=\"New York Times Video - Embed Player\" src=\"http:\/\/graphics8.nytimes.com\/bcvideo\/1.0\/iframe\/embed.html?videoId=100000003536079&amp;playerType=embed&amp;articleId=100000003538411\" width=\"480\" height=\"373\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Walking on a stage covered with cotton balls is a tricky business. It\u2019s all too easy to slip into a pratfall. And forget about running or dancing or hopping like a bunny, as the characters sometimes unwisely attempt in \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/sohorep.org\/an-octoroon\" target=\"_blank\">An Octoroon<\/a>,\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tcg.org\/publications\/at\/issue\/featuredstory.cfm?story=7&amp;indexID=44\" target=\"_blank\">Branden Jacobs-Jenkins\u2019s<\/a> coruscating comedy of unresolved history, which opened on Thursday night at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tfana.org\/season-2015\/soho-reps-octoroon\/overview\" target=\"_blank\">Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But it feels right that the people occupying this production, first seen last year at Soho Rep, should be required to move on what might be called terra infirma. For Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins has deliberately built his play on slippery foundations, the kind likely to trip up any dramatist, performer or theatergoer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAn Octoroon,\u201d you see, is all about race in these United States, as it was and is and unfortunately probably shall be for a considerable time. That\u2019s race as a subject that no one can get a comfortable hold on.<\/p>\n<p>Directed by Sarah Benson, in a style that perfectly matches its mutating content, \u201cAn Octoroon\u201d is a shrewdly awkward riff on <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dion_Boucicault\" target=\"_blank\">Dion Boucicault\u2019s<\/a> \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=36987\" target=\"_blank\">The Octoroon<\/a>\u201d (notice the change in article), a 19th-century chestnut about illicit interracial love. Boucicault\u2019s melodrama was a great hit in its day but is now almost never performed, except possibly as a camp diversion for private amusement.<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire review <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/02\/27\/theater\/review-an-octoroon-a-branden-jacobs-jenkins-comedy-about-race.html\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Review: \u2018An Octoroon,\u2019 a Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Comedy About Race The New York Times 2015-02-26 Ben Brantley, Chief Theater Critic Walking on a stage covered with cotton balls is a tricky business. It\u2019s all too easy to slip into a pratfall. And forget about running or dancing or hopping like a bunny, as the characters sometimes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1196,8,20],"tags":[18497,18487,18486,1627,2640,2327],"class_list":["post-40197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-an-octoroon","tag-ben-brantley","tag-branden-jacobs-jenkins","tag-dion-boucicault","tag-new-york-times","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}