From its very beginning African American drama has borne witness to the creative power of the
slaves to maintain their human dignity as well as to fashion a complex culture of survival. If
the memory of slavery has always been at the heart of the African American theatrical tradition
it is the way in which it is processed and inscribed that has developed and is still changing.
Through the close reading and socio-historical analysis of eight plays from 1939 to 1996 the
author seeks to unravel the fluctuating patterns in the shaping of the theatrical memory of
slavery long after its abolition. To do so she defines the concept and practice of
mnemopoetics as the making of memory through imagination as well as the critical approaches
that decipher and interpret cultural productions of memory. As a constellation of processes
akin to the fluidity of memory mnemopoetics blends creative representation and critical
exploration to suggest that the cultural creation of memory necessarily entails a
self-reflexive involvement with its own interpretation. If slavery embodies the deep
foundational memory of America African American drama represents the open communal space
where it becomes possible to convert the irretrievable nature of a vicarious past into the
redeeming function of a collective memory.
