MATERIALS
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-Videos: A MEMBER OF THE WEDDING, PINKY, and ALICE ADAMS
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-Books: Ethel Waters’ autobiography, “HIS EYE IS ON THE SPARROW”. Photographs of Waters from “BLACK HOLLYWOOD 1900 to 1970” and “BROWN SUGAR”
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1. View both PINKY with Ethel Waters and ALICE ADAMS with Hattie McDaniel to study and compare their acting styles. Actors will choose scenes from both films to discuss and reenact. They should pay close attention to the “given circumstances” of the chosen scenes. The “given circumstances” is the information in the play set down for the actor by the playwright. They are clues as to how to make choices, how to prepare, and how to seek out obstacles. In identifying the given circumstances the actor first looks at the physical circumstances. What is the weather? How does it effect the characters and the scene? What season of the year is it? How does the character dress? How does the costume affect the physical actions of the character? Is the scene in or out doors?
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2. After viewing THE MEMBER OF THE WEDDING, have the female students choose one of Berenice’s monologues about Ludie Maxwell Freeman or Henry Johnson in act two. These should be chosen from the play script. This will be a “substitution” exercise. Substitution means that the actor replaces an element of the scene that the actor may not believe with something real from the actor’s own life. In the case of Ludie Maxwell Freeman, this man is the great love of Berenice’s life. On the simplest level the actors should visualize someone that the actor truly loved and lost.
DOROTHY DANDRIDGE
In 1941, Dorothy Dandridge began her movie career with a role in LADY FROM LOUISIANA. She came to the movies from a long career as a stage entertainer. Her mother was a comedienne and her father was a Cleveland minister. She performed in vaudeville with her sister Vivian. At fifteen she, her sister, and another black girl appeared as the Dandridge Sisters and toured the country in a musical performance. She was sixteen when she performed at the famous Cotton Club in Harlem. There she met Harold Nicholas of the Dancing Nicholas Brothers. They married and had one daughter.
Besides her first film, she acted in BAHAMA PASSAGE (1942), DRUMS OF THE CONGO (1942), EBONY PARADE, and THE HIT PARADE OF 1943. She got her first starring role playing a grade-school teacher in MGM’s all black BRIGHT ROAD (1953). Her performance revealed a radiantly complex character. Playing the title role in CARMEN JONES (1954) made Dorothy Dandridge a star. Her nomination for an Oscar as best actress marked the first time a black performer had been nominated for a leading actor award.
“The irony that overshadowed Dorothy Dandridge’s career was that although the image she marketed appeared to be contemporary and daring, at heart it was based on an old and classic type, the tragic mulatto. In her important films Dorothy Dandridge portrayed doomed, unfulfilled women. Nervous and vulnerable, they alway battled with the duality of their personalities. As such, they answered the demands of their times. Dorothy Dandridge’s characters brought to a dispirited nuclear age a razor-sharp sense of desperation that cut through the bleak monotony of the day. Eventually—and here lay the final irony—she may have been forced to live out a screen image that destroyed her.” (6)
Sadly, after her triumph in CARMEN JONES, very few film offers came her way. Bigotry was still strong in Hollywood. The movies offered to her were variations on the exotic, self-destructive woman. In 1957 she played Margot in ISLAND IN THE SUN. She made films abroad, including THE DECKS RAN RED (1958), TAMANGO (1959), and MALAGA (1962). As we saw with Paul Robeson, Dorothy Dandridge left Hollywood, seeking chances to play more complex characters. Unfortunately, these roles never materialized, and she was disillusioned. Her last important American film role was Bess in PORGY AND BESS (1959). In 1965, at the age of 41, Dorothy Dandridge died of an overdose of anti-depression pills.