Abstract
The Motherhood Aesthetic in Contemporary Black American Plays
La Tanya L. Reese Rogers, PhD
Tanya E. Walker, PhD
This collection introduces the “Black female Motherhood Aesthetic” (also known as the “Motherhood Aesthetic”) as a theoretical framework that elucidates the multifaceted experiences of Black mothers and motherhood within contemporary American drama. Through a deep interpretation of five plays by contemporary Black (to include multicultural) female playwrights, this work contends that these playwrights are engaged in response writing to empower their female characters (and themselves) to articulate and interrogate the complexities of that which they experience as Black women in modern America. This aesthetic foregrounds the full spectrum and humanity of Black womanhood and Black women, respectively, to expose Black women’s varying degrees of self-determination and preservation, trauma, resiliency, and joy.
The plays, including In the Blood by Suzan-Lori Parks, Before It Hits Home by Cheryl West, The Mojo and the Sayso by Aishah Rahman, Monster by Dael Orlandersmith, and Alabama Rain by Velina Hasu Houston, address critical themes such as skin-color marginalization, coming-of-age, intersectional identity, suicide, social pressures/perceptions, and familial disruption. As part of the new Black female playwrights’ dramatic aesthetic, these issues resurface and take new forms. Buried deep in the (con)text of these contemporary plays, this emergent aesthetic challenges the historically prevalent, idealized presentations of the happy, upwardly mobile Black family drawn frequently in past-era plays by instead presenting a diverse and authentic representation of maternal experiences. In doing so, the Black Female Motherhood Aesthetic affirms that there is not one homogenized Black family, but instead a heterogeneity of Black families, wherein each one is heavily influenced by Black motherhood. The aesthetic asserted in this work acknowledges both the positive and challenging aspects of Black motherhood while affirming and reinforcing Black mothers’ inherent validity and value.
