Big White Fog
Encyclopedia
Big White Fog is a play by American playwright Theodore Ward
and was his first major work. The play follows the fictional Mason family across three generations between 1922 and 1933. Half of the family supports a return to Africa and Garveyism
, while the other half of the family seeks the American Dream
.
Completed in 1937, it was first produced by the Negro Unit of the Chicago Federal Theatre Project (FTP) in 1938 at the Great Northern Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. In 1940 Ward joined Langston Hughes
, Paul Robeson
, Theodore Browne, Richard Wright
and Alain Locke to form the Negro Playwrights Company in New York
. Their first production was a revival of Big White Fog at the Lincoln Theatre
in Harlem
. The play received its European premiere at the Almeida Theatre
in London on May 11, 2007, directed by Michael Attenborough. The script for Big White Fog was first published in 1974 in Black Theater USA.
Around the time of Almeida Theatre
's European premiere of the play, they commissioned their resident playwright Roy Williams
to write Out of the Fog, a modern look and comparison of contemporary blacks in England versus those in the 1920s in Chicago.
in 1902, the sixth of eleven children. His father had been a slave. When Ward was seven years old he wrote a short play and showed it to his father, who threw it in a fire and said it was "the work of the devil". Ward's mother secretly educated him until her death some time around 1915 during childbirth
. His family soon after broke apart, and Ward traveled on trains heading north. He performed various odd jobs, including bell hop, shoe-shine boy and barber-shop porter. He was arrested in Salt Lake City, Utah
for selling gin
(which was outlawed at the time because of prohibition
). There Ward began writing again, mostly short stories and poems. In 1934 he moved to Chicago
and wrote a one act play titled Sick 'n Tiahd. The play won second place in a writing competition for a magazine, and Ward was encouraged by the winner of the competition, Richard Wright
, to write a full length play. Ward subsequently wrote Big White Fog. He went on to write over thirty plays including the Broadway
-produced Our Lan'.
Big White Fog received a public reading in New York
some time before Ward's death in 1983. For the occasion, Ward wrote about his inspiration for the play. Discussing a beautiful view he had seen in the Rocky Mountains
while riding on freight trains during his youth, he said:
hits, the family faces eviction. Victor, in his disillusionment, turns to Garveyism
, and plans to emigrate to Africa
. Lester begins to support a Communist
revolution. Dan remains committed to the American Dream
.
of The Guardian
to the 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun
by Lorraine Hansberry
, and the 1930s drama work of Clifford Odets
in terms of relating personal and social issues. Kate Bassett of The Independent
praised Ward's ability to pack a "state-of-the-nation play into one living room very deftly", and called the play a "still-reverberating portrait of racial anger". Billington said that he admired Ward's management of a large cast, but found that the climax was "both rushed and melodramatic".
Theodore Ward
Theodore Ward was a leading African-American playwright of the first half of the 20th century.-Biography:Ward was the sixth out of eleven children. A prolific writer, Ward wrote over thirty plays...
and was his first major work. The play follows the fictional Mason family across three generations between 1922 and 1933. Half of the family supports a return to Africa and Garveyism
Garveyism
Garveyism is an aspect of Black Nationalism which takes its source from the works, words and deeds of UNIA-ACL founder Marcus Garvey. The fundamental focus of Garveyism is the complete, total and never ending redemption of the continent of Africa by people of African ancestry, at home and abroad...
, while the other half of the family seeks the American Dream
American Dream
The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States in which freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success. In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each...
.
Completed in 1937, it was first produced by the Negro Unit of the Chicago Federal Theatre Project (FTP) in 1938 at the Great Northern Theatre in Chicago, Illinois. In 1940 Ward joined Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...
, Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
, Theodore Browne, Richard Wright
Richard Wright (author)
Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African-Americans during the late 19th to mid 20th centuries...
and Alain Locke to form the Negro Playwrights Company in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. Their first production was a revival of Big White Fog at the Lincoln Theatre
Lincoln Theatre
Lincoln Theater Napa Valley in Yountville, California, on the grounds of the California Veterans Home in Napa County, California. The 1214 seat theater is the performance venue of the Napa Regional Dance Company and home of the Napa Valley Symphony. Originally opened in 1957, it underwent a $20...
in Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
. The play received its European premiere at the Almeida Theatre
Almeida Theatre
The Almeida Theatre, opened in 1980, is a 325 seat studio theatre with an international reputation which takes its name from the street in which it is located, off Upper Street, in the London Borough of Islington. The theatre produces a diverse range of drama and holds an annual summer festival of...
in London on May 11, 2007, directed by Michael Attenborough. The script for Big White Fog was first published in 1974 in Black Theater USA.
Around the time of Almeida Theatre
Almeida Theatre
The Almeida Theatre, opened in 1980, is a 325 seat studio theatre with an international reputation which takes its name from the street in which it is located, off Upper Street, in the London Borough of Islington. The theatre produces a diverse range of drama and holds an annual summer festival of...
's European premiere of the play, they commissioned their resident playwright Roy Williams
Roy Williams (playwright)
Roy Samuel Williams, OBE is an award-winning English playwright. Williams has many awards including the George Devine Award for Lift Off, the 2001 Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright for his play Clubland, the 2002 BAFTA Award for Best Schools Drama for Offside and 2004 South Bank...
to write Out of the Fog, a modern look and comparison of contemporary blacks in England versus those in the 1920s in Chicago.
Background
Ward was born in LouisianaLouisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
in 1902, the sixth of eleven children. His father had been a slave. When Ward was seven years old he wrote a short play and showed it to his father, who threw it in a fire and said it was "the work of the devil". Ward's mother secretly educated him until her death some time around 1915 during childbirth
Childbirth
Childbirth is the culmination of a human pregnancy or gestation period with the birth of one or more newborn infants from a woman's uterus...
. His family soon after broke apart, and Ward traveled on trains heading north. He performed various odd jobs, including bell hop, shoe-shine boy and barber-shop porter. He was arrested in Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah
Salt Lake City is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. The name of the city is often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC. With a population of 186,440 as of the 2010 Census, the city lies in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a total population of 1,124,197...
for selling gin
Gin
Gin is a spirit which derives its predominant flavour from juniper berries . Although several different styles of gin have existed since its origins, it is broadly differentiated into two basic legal categories...
(which was outlawed at the time because of prohibition
Prohibition in the United States
Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, in place from 1920 to 1933. The ban was mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the Volstead Act set down the rules for enforcing the ban, as well as defining which...
). There Ward began writing again, mostly short stories and poems. In 1934 he moved to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
and wrote a one act play titled Sick 'n Tiahd. The play won second place in a writing competition for a magazine, and Ward was encouraged by the winner of the competition, Richard Wright
Richard Wright (author)
Richard Nathaniel Wright was an African-American author of sometimes controversial novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction. Much of his literature concerns racial themes, especially those involving the plight of African-Americans during the late 19th to mid 20th centuries...
, to write a full length play. Ward subsequently wrote Big White Fog. He went on to write over thirty plays including the Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
-produced Our Lan'.
Big White Fog received a public reading in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
some time before Ward's death in 1983. For the occasion, Ward wrote about his inspiration for the play. Discussing a beautiful view he had seen in the Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...
while riding on freight trains during his youth, he said:
Plot
Big White Fog demonstrates the internal black tensions of the 1920s by following the Masons, a black family living in a rented house in Chicago. The residents consist of Victor Mason, his wife Ella, their son Lester, Victor's brother Percy, and Ella's brother-in-law Dan. Lester has received a college scholarship, Percy is returning home from military service, and Dan is a landlord. Their situation slowly spirals downward, with Lester losing his scholarship because he is black, and when the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
hits, the family faces eviction. Victor, in his disillusionment, turns to Garveyism
Garveyism
Garveyism is an aspect of Black Nationalism which takes its source from the works, words and deeds of UNIA-ACL founder Marcus Garvey. The fundamental focus of Garveyism is the complete, total and never ending redemption of the continent of Africa by people of African ancestry, at home and abroad...
, and plans to emigrate to Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
. Lester begins to support a Communist
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
revolution. Dan remains committed to the American Dream
American Dream
The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States in which freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success. In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each...
.
Reception
Big White Fog has been compared by Michael BillingtonMichael Billington (critic)
Michael Keith Billington is a British author and arts critic. Drama critic of The Guardian since October 1971, he is "Britain's longest-serving theatre critic" and the author of biographical and critical studies relating to British theatre and the arts; most notably, he is the authorised...
of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
to the 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun
A Raisin in the Sun
A Raisin in the Sun is a play by Lorraine Hansberry that debuted on Broadway in 1959. The title comes from the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes...
by Lorraine Hansberry
Lorraine Hansberry
Lorraine Hansberry was an African American playwright and author of political speeches, letters, and essays...
, and the 1930s drama work of Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets was an American playwright, screenwriter, socialist, and social protester.-Early life:Odets was born in Philadelphia to Romanian- and Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Louis Odets and Esther Geisinger, and raised in Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high...
in terms of relating personal and social issues. Kate Bassett of The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
praised Ward's ability to pack a "state-of-the-nation play into one living room very deftly", and called the play a "still-reverberating portrait of racial anger". Billington said that he admired Ward's management of a large cast, but found that the climax was "both rushed and melodramatic".