Black Play Characteristics Parks and Taylor

Reflection: School Girls

School Girls is definitely a Black Play because it is about black people who are unapologetically portrayed as black people. There is no attempt made by the author to whiten the characters. They are who they are, which is what a Black Play should represent according to Parks: “A black play aint for you. A black play aint about you. A black play aint integrated and don’t want to be.” That kind of sassy spirit is alive and well in School Girls. And as Dominic Taylor points out, “Black plays do not resolve themselves conventionally; they end by opening to new possibilities. Characters and situations do not wrap up neatly in “closure”; they open to new roads” and this is especially true of School Girls as well.

It is therefore a very witty, fresh, and real Black Play. It doesn’t try to contort itself into some kind of mainstream carbon-copy knock-off. It represents itself as a Black Play in its very title, setting, characters, and the nature of the plot itself. It is funny because it is true, and Black Plays ultimately work because they are about what’s true. Anything that stands up to scrutiny and the test of time can make that claim, in fact.