A Proud Matriarch

Hello and welcome to my last action project for my Drama class. In this last unit titled Matriarch, we talked about the differences between matriarchy and patriarchy as well as how it affects different types of people. From there we had a discussion about Langston Hughes' poem, Harlem. This poem talks about the concept of dreams, how dreams could possibly be remembered, or sometimes forgotten. After reading the poem, we acted out the play, A Raisin in the Sun that was based off Langston Hughes poem. In the play, there are issues like segregation, racism, sexism, capitalism, matriarchy, and patriarchy in the play. The concept of a matriarchy is a group or system that is run by women or predominantly women. This Is shown through Mama She's a strong, proud, charismatic, and the leader of the house. After analyzing these concepts we looked at the history of segregation, redling, and blockbusting.

                                   

"Double-Decker Buses on North Michigan Avenue in the 1940s" by Chicago Transit Authority is licensed  under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

For this last action project we were assigned to create a greek chorus based on a conflict between characters in the play. Greek choruses are similar to choruses that we might listen to on a song we might like. The difference is that it’s done by a group of people who make comments about the events in a play, usually through song or dance. I chose to talk about the conflict Mama is having with Ruth, Walter, and Beneatha. In the conflict here is the fact that Mama decided to buy a house in the Clybourne neighborhood. Clybourne park at this moment was a predominantly white neighborhood so it was dangerous for the youngsters to move there because they would be the only black people living there.

Here’s my chorus talking to Lena Younger (Mama) as she talks to Walter, Ruth, and Beneatha about being “welcomed” to the neighborhood.

Overall, I really enjoyed working throughout this project. Writing about Mama and looking at the forms of segregation in different places was really compelling and something I enjoyed. At first I did think it was hard to write about Mama because she’s such a powerful character and I thought she’d be hard to criticize. Even though that was true, I did still manage to find some places to look at and give feedback towards. This unit has been one that I’ve really enjoyed, but if I were to do this project again I would write to a different character with a bit more negative aspects.