The Colored Museum

The exhibit opens with a narrator in a tuxedo who solemnly enters through the audience. He introduces “yet another Mama-on-the-Couch play” that “tears at the very fabric of racist America” (24). He sits on a stool and announces the opening of the play. As the narrator describes the setting, the set pieces are put into place by a stagehand or appear via crude lighting effects.

A couch revolves onto the stage. On the couch sits Mama. She is wearing a dress made from the same material as the couch and the window drapes, which appear as they are announced. She reads an oversized Bible. A door mat is set downstage center. A picture of Jesus appears on the wall.

The Son, Walter-Lee-Beau-Willie-Jones, enters. As he enters, Mama asks him if he wiped his feet. The Son explodes into an emotional speech about his conflict with “The Man […] wipin’ his feet on me […] every damn day of my life” (24). Mama insists he wipe his feet, but the Son rebels, stating he wants to dream and take charge of his own life. This causes a fight about life and God that ends in Mama giving the Son an exaggerated slap across the face. As she does, the narrator claps to make the sound of a slap. The Son is sent dramatically flying across the stage. The narrator claps and encourages the audience to follow him in doing so. He produces an award from one of the secret compartments in the stage and gives it to Mama. She sits back down on the couch.

The narrator introduces the entrance of Walter-Lee-Beau-Willie’s wife, The Lady in Plaid. The Lady in Plaid enters to jazzy music, wipes her feet, and does a twirl.

She begins speaking in a lyrical monologue form about herself in third person. She describes herself as “a regal beauty who in ancient times graced the temples of the Nile” (26).

The Son asks if she has cooked his dinner. She continues her speech, seemingly oblivious to him but describing him in a derogatory way: “Feet flat, back broke […] still living with his Mama” (26). The Son yells at her, continuing his angry tirade about dealing with The Man and calling for his dinner. The Lady continues her poetic speech, talking about the connections between her ancestors by the Nile and crying for her sisters in Detroit and Chicago.

Unable to get The Lady to respond to him, the Son goes offstage and comes back with two Black dolls. He then crosses to the window with the dolls in his hand, yelling, “Now you gonna cook me dinner?” (27). He throws the dolls out the window. The Lady lets out a primal scream and begins crying. The narrator applauds and compliments her performance. He goes to Mama, wrestles the award away from her, and gives it to The Lady. The Lady instantly stops crying, gets up, bows, and moves behind the couch.

The narrator introduces Walter-Lee-Beau-Willie’s sister, Medea Jones, who enters ceremoniously, wiping her feet as she comes on stage. She speaks and gestures lavishly, as if she is performing in a Greek tragedy. She comments on her brother’s troubled appearance. He tells her to leave him alone. Mama tells Medea that the Son is still constantly complaining about The Man. Medea begs the Son to stop fighting with The Man and to leave his wrath to the gods. When he asks what has gotten into her, she responds that she speaks this way now in order to become classical and therefore universal.

Not having understood anything that Medea has said but nonetheless impressed, The Lady compliments Medea and gives the award to her. Everyone applauds. The Son becomes incensed, insisting that the play is about him and his struggles. The Voice of The Man is then heard, telling the Son he has been convicted of overacting and to come out with his hands up. Son heads toward the window. Mama tries to stop him. As he reaches the window, there is the sound of gunshots. The Son falls dead.

Mama goes to the body full of emotion, decrying that her son is just like his father and his father’s father and his father’s father’s father. Seeing she is about to drop, the narrator quickly rushes to her and puts a pillow underneath her knees. Mama laments that her son should have been born into a better world, a world with no well-worn couches and no well-worn Mamas. If only he had been part of an all-Black musical, she says; nobody ever dies in an all-Black musical. Mama sings gospel-style about being in a happy all-Black musical.

Smiling, the women join in and break into a musical doo-wop gospel song. They sing only about being happy and dancing. The Son then springs to life and starts dancing, too. They all perform a full-on Broadway-esque number. Mama does a scat, and the dancing gets desperate, manic, and no longer entertaining. They all freeze and sing, “If we want to live, we have got to dance…and dance…and dance” (32). They dance with “zombie-like frozen smiles” as images of Black performers from throughout history are projected onto the museum walls (32).