Funnyhouse of a Negro

A woman with pallid skin and long, wild black hair glides across the stage as if in a trance. She is in a white nightgown and carries a bald head in front of her, mumbling incoherently, and as she disappears from the stage the curtain opens to reveal The Negro’s room, decorated to be a type of macabre queen’s chamber with black ravens flying overhead. Two women, both dressed in royal gowns, sit together; they are Queen Victoria and the Duchess of Hapsburg, two of The Negro Sarah’s personas. While their hair is dark and wild, their faces are pale and mask-like, and they sit like statues.

Suddenly, there is knocking. Without moving, the women reflect on the sound and who it is coming from. Queen Victoria declares that is is her father, returned from the jungle to find her. The Duchess scorns him, hoping that he was dead--and he was, but keeps coming back to find her. The Selves explain that he is the reason her mother died, and contrast her pale beauty with the blackness of the father.