Yellowman is a two-character play where the actors also play other characters. There are times when certain things in the narration don’t have to be said, just acted out. The character-switching should be done quickly adroitly. The space is bare except for two chairs on a raked stage, which indicates the distance between the characters. Note the opening monologue is the play’s prologue, which leads them into the schoolyard. The last two monologues are the epilogue. It is the bareness of the stage, save the chairs, that makes the musicality of the piece play.

PART I

(Alma sits in a chair upper stage right on a raised platform talking directly to audience except when indicated)

ALMA: There’s a fluidity to the heat in South Carolina/watching certain objects–maybe certain fields of cotton, corn, tobacco/there seems to be some sort of rippling effect. My mother/women like my mother and her mother before her talked about the sun–staying in it too long creates illusion/they–my mother/women like her and more than likely her mother before her talked in Gullah/Geechie accents about how (VOICE) “da sun can make ya see tings dat ain’t dere” or “dat heat is sumpin ya hear.” (ALMA) Her statements always seemed to end in questions. There were always question marks at the end of her observations as if she wasn’t entirely sure of what she felt, heard, saw–moreover they weren’t entirely sure as to whether they were entitled to hear, think, or see–truly see. The question marks at the end of their statements were from women who knew their place and the fact that they had opinions about something as simple as sunrays pulled them from their place–the fact that they would question ANYTHING made them “uppity” in the eyes of their peers.

My mother women like my mother and her mother before her toiled/tugged the soil right beside the men. They were dark therefore not considered pretty/they were dark and large–therefore sexless. They were sometimes bigger than the men/their bodies filling space/in their dresses as they toiled, they looked awkward/they wore dresses in work–heat for a semblance of femininity/in heat and toil they craved softness, pliability thinking somehow it would appeal to some man when in fact their sweaty dresses made them seem bigger/more awkward and the fact that they did not carry their bigness with pride–with their large heads and backs in total alignment, they were to be pitied.