Note On Commercial Theatre Analysis

Suzanne Gwiazdowski
American Literature Since 1865
Miss Cassidy
April 5, 2016
Note on Commercial Theatre by Langston Hughes
Note on Commercial Theatre was written in 1940 during the Jim Crow era. Langston Hughes, an African American, was a champion for the African American people writing about the inequalities they experienced not only in the segregated south but the everyday inequalities. In this poem, he writes about the talents African Americans possess in the Arts, including contemporary music and spirituals sung in the fields and churches and how they are not getting recognition for what they have accomplished.
Notes on Commercial Theatre is saying that the different genres of music dedicated to the African Americans have been scooped up by the white man, as he has discovered its importance to the American musical experience. The white man has the money and connections to present this music to the wealthy Americans on Broadway, the
Hollywood Bowl and incorporated into symphonies. Hughes ends the first stanza with “Yep, you done taken my blues and gone.” (Hughes, 876) The diction he uses is similar to that spoken by southern African Americans. This type of diction has been used in other pieces we’ve read, either in short stories or poems representing the way southern blacks spoke. The diction in this poem is not meant to be derogatory, but for the reader to understand that these are the feelings of the African Americans who created these genres of music and are getting no recognition for their work. The author’s choice of words is such that he wanted to be as authentic as possible and this choice of diction implies that blacks although they spoke in slang were not as uneducated as had been thought. They possessed a real talent for composing music. Hughes was trying to make a point, thus giving me a better understanding of the theme of the poem.
The speaker in Notes on Commercial Theatre may very well be the author himself. Langston Hughes was a notable personality connected with the Harlem Renaissance, and he “chose to focus his work on modern, urban black life”. “He modeled his stanza forms on the improvisatory rhythms of jazz music and adapted the vocabulary of everyday black speech to poetry”. (The Norton Anthology, 870)
The tone of the speaker shows resentment to the whites who have taken the blues and spirituals of the African Americans and applied these musical genres to musicals on Broadway, productions at the Hollywood Bowl and into symphonies.
Their music was changed to be accepted by the whites who were more affluent and would be attending the productions at these concert halls. The speaker continues by writing that the blacks were given parts in musicals and productions that were takes offs on famous pieces of art and not productions that were about the black man. Carmen Jones is a takeoff on the opera Carmen by Bizet, Macbeth otherwise recognized as Voodoo Macbeth portraits blacks in the play set in Haiti, directed by Orson Wells and funded by the Federal Theatre Project and Swing Mikados based on the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, casting all black actors but again directed by a white director and funded by the Negro Theatre Project. (The previous information was shared with me by my nephew who has a Masters Degree in Theatre
Direction.)
In the first two stanzas of the poem, Hughes speaks the white man whom he points a finger at for taking the music of the black man, putting into their own productions making changes to them without consideration to the originators of it. He uses the word “you” in six of the seven lines of the first stanza to let the white man know that what he has done is wrong. Hughes writes during the Jim Crow era, when there was segregation, alluding to that blacks were not given the opportunity to attend these productions either by cost or segregation laws.
At the end of the second stanza Hughes writes: “But someday somebody’ll Stand up and talk about me, And write about me” (Hughes, 876) there seems to be some self loathing in this line. The African American people need someone to share their stories and they do not know who could do it, the finally it’s like it clicks with him “I reckon it’ll be Me myself! Yes, it’ll be me.” (Hughes, 876) he needs nobody but himself to take on the challenge and write the story of the black life experience. The literal meaning of this poem is that the African Americans do have something to contribute to the American Theatre experience but they are neither given credit where it is due nor is their life story being told. The black culture is rich and there should be a story written about it, not having black actors put into another man’s story and changing it so it reflects the color of the skin of actors. The speaker Hughes put the stories of the black people on paper to share with the world. He did that by writing numerous poems and anthologies as well as obtaining benefactors for both his education and writing.