{"id":49213,"date":"2016-09-25T23:16:50","date_gmt":"2016-09-25T23:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=49213"},"modified":"2016-09-25T23:16:50","modified_gmt":"2016-09-25T23:16:50","slug":"meta-melodrama-branden-jacobs-jenkins-appropriates-dion-boucicaults-the-octoroon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=49213","title":{"rendered":"Meta-Melodrama: Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Appropriates Dion Boucicault\u2019s The Octoroon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/article\/629588\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>Meta-Melodrama: Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Appropriates Dion Boucicault\u2019s <\/strong><\/em><strong>The Octoroon<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/journal\/302\" target=\"_blank\">Modern Drama<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/issue\/34187\" target=\"_blank\">Volume 59, Number 3, Fall 2016<\/a><br \/>\npages 285-305<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.luc.edu\/english\/faculty\/vernafoster.shtml\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Verna A. Foster<\/strong><\/a>, Professor of English<br \/>\n<em>Loyola University Chicago<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In adapting the nineteenth-century melodrama <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=36987\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The Octoroon<\/em><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Branden_Jacobs-Jenkins\" target=\"_blank\">Jacobs-Jenkins<\/a> both satirizes <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dion_Boucicault\" target=\"_blank\">Boucicault\u2019s<\/a> racial assumptions and emulates his aesthetic principles to produce a meta-melodrama, a play that at once celebrates and critiques its own form while providing a stinging indictment of racial attitudes in the twenty-first century. This essay draws on both the published script and audience responses to <a href=\"http:\/\/sohorep.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Soho Repertory Theatre\u2019s<\/a> two stagings of the play in 2014 and 2015 gleaned from reviews, blogs, and interviews. The contemporary context and cross-racial casting of <a href=\"http:\/\/sohorep.org\/an-octoroon\" target=\"_blank\"><em>An Octoroon<\/em><\/a> ironize and adapt the meaning of Boucicault\u2019s play, making it appropriate for the twenty-first century. Through his use of italicization, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/Brechtian\" target=\"_blank\">Brechtian<\/a> quotation, the new contemporary dialogue he writes for the slave characters, and his shocking updated sensation scene, Jacobs-Jenkins induces his audience to question their own and each other\u2019s racial reactions even as they are caught up in the play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meta-Melodrama: Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Appropriates Dion Boucicault\u2019s The Octoroon Modern Drama Volume 59, Number 3, Fall 2016 pages 285-305 Verna A. Foster, Professor of English Loyola University Chicago In adapting the nineteenth-century melodrama The Octoroon, Jacobs-Jenkins both satirizes Boucicault\u2019s racial assumptions and emulates his aesthetic principles to produce a meta-melodrama, a play that at once celebrates [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1196,8,6462,20],"tags":[18486,1627,25044,25045,25046],"class_list":["post-49213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-branden-jacobs-jenkins","tag-dion-boucicault","tag-modern-drama","tag-verna-a-foster","tag-verna-foster"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49213","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=49213"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49215,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49213\/revisions\/49215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}