James Baldwin, Performance Theorist, Sings the Blues for Mister Charlie

Abstract

James Baldwin worked tirelessly to expose the myths that allowed Americans to delude themselves. Scholars have long recognized this as the driving force of his fiction and nonfiction, but this mission was also very much linked to Baldwin’s conception of theater. This essay culls Baldwin’s theater theory from his nonfiction, especially his seldom-discussed The Devil Finds Work (1976). Baldwin believed that theater could “re-create” people by helping us rediscover our human connection, and he believed that stage actors could show the way. Baldwin’s respect for stage actors develops over time, however. He reaches his conclusions only after realizing—in hindsight—how profoundly the stage had figured in his major life decisions. After identifying Baldwin’s theater theory, the essay uses it to examine his controversial play Blues for Mister Charlie and finds that his goals resonated with what Sharon Holland would later call “raising the dead.”

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