PROVINCETOWNPLAYERS, led to their immediate
recruitment of Robeson and his subsequent ap-
pearance in EUGENE O’NEILL’s ALL GOD’S
CHILLUNGOTWINGSand to Robeson’s historic
leading role in O’Neill’s THEEMPERORJONES.
Bibliography
Clum, John. Ridgely Torrence.New York: Twayne, 1972.
Torrence, Ridgely. Granny Maumee, The Rider of Dreams,
Simon the Cyrenian: Plays for a Negro Theater.New
York: The Macmillan Company, 1917.
Six Plays for the Negro Theatre
Randolph Edmonds(1934)
The second of two drama collections that RAN-
DOLPHEDMONDSpublished during the Harlem Re-
naissance. The volume appeared in the same year
as JONAH’S GOURD VINE by ZORA NEALE
HURSTONand THE WAYS OFWHITE FOLKSby
LANGSTONHUGHES.
Six Plays,published by the BOSTONfirm of
W. H. Baker, included a foreword by Frederick
Koch. The volume featured six works by Edmonds:
Bad Man, Old Man Pete, Nat Turner, Breeders, Bleed-
ing Hearts,and The New Window.Of this group,
only Nat Turner had been previously published.
That play was included in NEGRO HISTORY IN
THIRTEENPLAYS(1935), the collection that WILLIS
RICHARDSON and MAY MILLERedited and pub-
lished with Associated Publishers, the WASHING-
TON, D.C., company with which CARTER G.
WOODSONand ALAINLOCKEwere affiliated.
Bibliography
Edmonds, Randolph. Six Plays for the Negro Theatre.
1934, reprint, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Micro-
films, 1986.
“Slackened Caprice”Ottie Graham(1924)
The only short story that OTTIEGRAHAMpublished
in OPPORTUNITYduring the Harlem Renaissance.
“Slackened Caprice” was published in the
November 1924 issue of the NATIONALURBAN
LEAGUE’s monthly magazine. The unnamed nar-
rator is traveling with a friend named Carlotta.
The two women stop at the Jamieson home and
there encounter the son of Carlotta’s friend. A
mysterious man, he plays the piano for them sev-
eral times. His major composition, a caprice, was
inspired initially by the sight of children playing
in a nearby park. Unfortunately, the soldier also
witnessed the children’s ejection by a racist park
watchman. From that moment on, he is unable
to complete his composition or to perform it
without lapsing into a dramatic panic. Some time
passes before the narrator returns to the
Jamiesons’ hometown. She finds that the family
has dispersed and that their home has been de-
molished and replaced by a theater. She is able to
attend the theater and there hears another mu-
sician perform the unfinished composition by
Jamieson. In an unexpected moment, the lost
veteran-artist appears on the stage and performs
his music. In the mayhem that follows his un-
scheduled appearance, Jamieson collapses. The
narrator attempts to take responsibility for
him, but he dies there on the site of his former
home just moments after leaving the stage. She
sells her rings in order to cover the costs of his
funeral.
Graham’s tale of a talented but disturbed
veteran underscores the kind of major damage
that prejudice, not world war, could impose upon
individuals.Slaves Today: A Story of LiberiaGeorge
Schuyler(1931)
The second and last novel that GEORGESCHUYLER
published during his career and a work influenced
by his investigative work in Liberia during a three-
month period in early 1931. Schuyler, recruited by
George Palmer Putnam, was in the African nation
working as an undercover reporter in Liberia for
the New York Post.Schuyler’s investigative findings
would be considered in a case against the African
nation brought by the League of Nations. Upon his
return, Putnam’s publishing house, Brewer, War-
ren, and Mason, collected the serialized install-
ments of the work that had appeared in an array of
American newspapers and published the volume in
the fall of 1931.
Schuyler hoped that the novel, a fictionalized
documentary based on actual individuals and
events, would draw attention to the global practiceSlaves Today: A Story of Liberia 481