Hughes began to develop ideas for the play in
earlier works, including his 1927 poem entitled “Mu-
latto” and the short story “Father and Son” (1933),
which he included in THEWAYS OFWHITEFOLKS,a
collection of short fiction published in 1933.
Reviews of the play, which ran for some 373
performances, suggested that it lacked a straightfor-
ward story line. The drama critic J. Brooks Atkin-
son penned a lengthy review in the 25 October
1935 issue of THENEWYORKTIMES.In his article,
entitled “Race Problems in the South the Theme of
‘Mulatto,’ a ‘New Drama’ by Langston Hughes,”
Atkinson welcomed the opportunity, “after a season
dedicated chiefly to trash... to sit in the presence
of a playwright who is trying his best to tell what he
has in his mind.” While he noted that the themes
of racial tension, miscegenation, and family clearly
were important to Hughes, Atkinson lamented the
fact that Hughes’s “ideas are seldom completely ex-
pressed” and that the “play is pretty thoroughly de-
feated by the grim mechanics of the stage.” Despite
Hughes’s best efforts, Atkinson concluded that the
“sympathies evoked... are muddled and diffuse.”
ALAINLOCKE, discovered by Hughes when he vis-
ited Rose McClendon backstage shortly after the
opening, pointedly criticized the work. He con-
fronted Hughes with his negative impressions, in-
sisting that “so grand and tragic a theme was
prematurely exposed: the rarer the bitter it is un-
ripe.” Hughes scholars such as Joseph McLaren re-
gard the play as an important, socially conscious
work. According to McLaren, Mulattois a strong
protest play in which Hughes deliberately explores
the links between tragedy and the multifaceted na-
ture of injustice.
Bibliography
Atkinson, J. Brooks. “Race Problems in the South the
Theme of ‘Mulatto,’ a ‘New Drama’ by Langston
Hughes,” New York Times.25 October 1935. 25.
Berry, Faith, ed. Langston Hughes: Before and Beyond
Harlem.Westport, Conn.: Lawrence Hill & Com-
pany, 1983.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., and Kwame Anthony Appiah,
eds. Langston Hughes: Critical Perspectives Past and
Present.New York: Amistad, 1993.
McLaren, Joseph. Langston Hughes: Folk Dramatist in the
Protest Tradition, 1921–1943. Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press, 1997.
Miller, R. Baxter. The Art and Imagination of Langston
Hughes.Lexington: University of Kentucky Press,
1989.
Rampersad, Arnold. The Life of Langston Hughes: I, Too,
Sing America.Vol. 1: 1902–1941.New York: Oxford
University Press, 1986.
———. The Life of Langston Hughes: I Dream a World.
Vol. 2: 1941–1967.New York: Oxford University
Press, 1988.Mule BoneLangston Hughes and
Zora Neale Hurston(1930)
A play on which LANGSTONHUGHESand ZORA
NEALEHURSTONcollaborated. It is the work that
tested and ultimately ruined their intense and oth-
erwise supportive friendship.
It is ironic, given the debacle that ensued, that
Mule Bonewas based on Hurston’s unpublished
short story “The Bone of Contention.” That work,
set in EATONVILLE, Florida, revolved around an ar-
gument between two hunters, Dave Carter, who is
known as the “local Nimrod” (212), and Jim We-
ston, “a constant disturber of the local peace”
(214). Their dispute is based on the fact that they
both shoot the same turkey. A trial is begun after
one of the men uses a mule bone to attack his rival
and to take possession of the disputed bird. The
whole town, under the supervision of Joe Clarke,
the omnipresent “mayor, postmaster, storekeeper
and Pooh Bah general” (211), stages a trial in the
town’s Baptist church. At first, it seems as though
Jim Weston is going to escape punishment because
his accuser cannot persuade the court that a mule
bone taken from the carcass of a long-dead “old,
rawbony and mean” mule is in fact a legal murder
weapon. In the court of folk justice, however, the
Methodist Reverend Sims invokes the Bible and
the story in Chapter 18 of the Book of Judges that
describes how Samson uses the jawbone of an ass
to kill some 3,000 people. The Reverend’s winning
point is that “if de jawbone is as dangerous as it
says heah, in de Bible, by de time you gits clear
back tuh his hocks hes rank pizen” (219). Within
minutes, the case goes against Weston, who is then
banned from the town.
Hurston transformed “The Bone of Con-
tention” into a love story. Rather than have two
men arguing about a prize wild turkey, in MuleMule Bone 355