Mulatto

Mulatto: A Tragedy of the Deep South is a tragic play about race issues in the American south by Langston Hughes. It was produced on Broadway in 1935 by Martin Jones, where it ran for 11 months and 373 performances. It is one of the earliest Broadway plays to combine father-son conflict with race issues. Plot Act One On the Norwood Plantation in Polk County, Georgia, Colonel Thomas Norwood (described by Hughes as a "plantation owner, a still vigorous man of about sixty") and Cora Lewis ("a brown woman in her forties who has kept the house and been the mistress of Colonel Norwood for some thirty years") have four children together. They are: William, who still lives on the plantation and who has a son of his own; two daughters, Bertha and Sallie, who are light enough to pass for white; and Robert, a.k.a. Bert, who is 18 and who has Norwood's facial features. Robert has been away at an all-Colored school since he was a young boy and is visiting the plantation for the first time in many years. In Act One, we learn through a conversation between Mr. Higgins and Colonel Norwood that Robert, or Bert, has been refusing to follow all the expected behaviors for Mulatto people and has been asserting himself as Norwood's heir, much to the shock of the local townspeople. Norwood is angered by this assertion. The conversation between the two plantation owners also gives insight to the perspective and lifestyle of these characters. Cora, meanwhile, is revealed to have secretly sent her daughters to secretarial school, so that they can move up north and have good jobs, but has been telling the Colonel that they are learning to be cooks. It is also revealed through a conversation between William and Cora that Bert was the Colonel's favorite of all the children he fathered with Cora, until Bert called him "papa" which resulted in Norwood severely beating Bert when he was seven. This led to the decision for Norwood to send Bert off to school. This only emboldened Bert further, as he witnessed the better treatment of Black folks in the Northern states. Act One concludes with Cora expressing concern to Bert over his behavior, when the Colonel enters. Bert rebelliously exits through the front door, which enrages the Colonel. Then the curtain falls. Act Two Scene 1: Cora calls in Robert and leaves him alone to speak with Norwood. Norwood tells Robert he is to leave his property for his behavior, bringing out his pistol as a threat.