The Darker Face of the Earth is a verse play written by Rita Dove. Her first full-length play, originally conceived in 1979, it was published in 1994,[1] while Dove was serving as United States Poet Laureate. It was substantially revised in 1996 in preparation for its first production.[2]
The play is set on a slave plantation in antebellum South Carolina, and is based on the Greek legend of Oedipus, and on Sophocles' play Oedipus Rex in particular.[3][4]
The play premiered at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon in 1996.[5] It was thereafter performed at the Crossroads Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey[6] and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.[7] In 1999 it had its London premiere at the Royal National Theatre.[8][9]
- ^ Akasha Gloria Hull, Review of The Darker Face of the Earth: A Verse Play, The Women's Review of Books, May 1, 1994.
- ^ Malin Pereira, Rita Dove's Cosmopolitanism (University of Illinois Press, 2003), ISBN 978-0252028373, pp. 31ff. Excerpts available at Google Books.
- ^ The Darker Face of the Earth, American Theatre Magazine, November 1, 1996 (includes notes, playwright interview, and text of the play).
- ^ Therese Steffen, Crossing Color: Transcultural Space and Place in Rita Dove's Poetry, Fiction, and Drama (Oxford University Press, 2001), ISBN 978-0195350715, pp. 122-128. Excerpts available at Google Books.
- ^ William T. Liston, "The Darker Face of the Earth (review)", Theatre Journal 49.1 (1997) 65-67.
- ^ Alvin Klein, "THEATER REVIEW; An Ancient Tragedy Told as a More Recent One", The New York Times, October 19, 1997.
- ^ Lloyd Rose, "'Darker Face': Poetic Injustice", The Washington Post, November 7, 1997.
- ^ Michael Billington, "Oedipus of Carolina", The Guardian, August 6, 1999.
- ^ Charles Spencer, "Oedipal, but not complex", The Daily Telegraph, August 9, 1999.