'Dutchman' flies on rage and temptation

PATRICK MCGARVEY/YH Tony Melson, PC '00, and Tracy Appleton, JE '01: strangers on a train

Gazing out the dark window of a subway car, Clay (Tony Melson, PC '00) suddenly locks eyes with a pair of impenetrable white sunglasses. This black college student then must lock forces with the woman behind them, Lula (Tracy Appleton, JE '01), an equally inscrutable white seductress who stalks into the car flashing a sweet, predatory smile. Into her leering face, playwright LeRoi Jones (now known as Amiri Baraka) empties the rage that is smoldering beneath the easygoing exterior of his 1960s black man. Chosen by Melson as his senior project, The Dutchman can be as puzzling to an unprepared audience as Lula's character is to the initially bewildered Clay. Yet while her taunts may be fired in rather abstruse outbursts, it is not difficult to grasp the underlying message behind them: an apple-wielding temptress , Lula is white America, out to destroy this young black man.

The creator of Clay's fateful subway ride was also, in a way, an embittered passenger himself. The rage that broils in Clay probably surfaced during a re-awakening in Jones's own life, following the death of Malcolm X in 1965. This event led Jones, who was already involved in militant black political organizations, to break with the predominately white bohemian circles in which he travelled and with his white wife. He turned his back on his previous life, moved to Harlem, remarried, and became a militant advocate of black separatism. In taking on the role of Clay, Melson accepts a challenge that seems to extend beyond the boundaries of character to the playwright himself, cast personally in his play in order to unleash his own deep-rooted bitterness toward white America.

Onstage, Jones's monolithic white enemy takes the alluring form of Lula, who captures the audience as adeptly as she does Clay. Although appearing more eccentric than deadly, Appleton is captivating through her sheer unpredictability. Arching forward in her seat, she slides her legs enticingly between Clay's knees and gazes at him, nose to nose. Lula alternates between seductions and biting slurs, her mood shifting with a single twitch of Appleton's smile. Melson effectively conveys a shaky discomfort, rubbing his palms on his knees and swallowing heavily. "You are a well-known type," Lula informs Clay coolly.

This "type" is that of the archetypal "Negro square," outfitted in a neat three-button suit. Entranced by Lula, Clay initally attempts to participate in her game, flirting back and good-naturedly bending to her fickle and aggressive whims. "We were talking about my manhood," Clay prompts. "Oh, we are...all the time," Lula smiles. Eventually, however, Clay returns Lula's hostility in an eloquent and furious soliloquy.

As the aggressions of Lula and Clay begin to extend beyond verbal brutality, more violent movements are made to appear natural by the skillful coordination of the actors. Although the set of the play is not large, it has the maneuvering room of a typical city subway car, cluttered with anonymous background passengers who ignore each other and random acts of violence like model New Yorkers. However, the subway-car set does appear a bit too clean and bright for the hellish, steamy underbelly of the city that Jones' stage directions envisioned.

Trapping her victim in this underground world, Lula plays her devilish game by the rules of white society. The object is to taunt and disrespect black men into speaking out against their oppressors, thus ensuring their own doom. In his soliloquy, Clay responds, turning on his taunting aggressor: "You let me be what I feel like being. You don't know anything!... I sit here in this buttoned-up suit to keep from slitting all your throats!"

And thus, in Lula's eyes, his fate is sealed.

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