In high school I was given Toni Morrison’s Beloved as a gift by my English teacher. She had picked me out as someone she wanted to mentor, so she gave me the book. I read the whole thing, and it went over my head. I think I was so young that I just shut down in places where it was hurtful or too close to the truth.
When I got to college, I realized that I wasn’t being given the canon of African-American writers in my literature classes or in the theater department, so I went looking for them myself. I made it my mission to go out and get every single one of Toni Morrison’s books and read them all. I always knew that she was a genius and that she spoke to my soul, even if I didn’t understand it all. When I read The Bluest Eye, I still had this weird psychological response. I would shut down around the themes that were too close to me or just too painful. I deluded myself into thinking it was because it was beyond me, or too deep; but it was that the writing was so piercing and relevant and painful, that it was easier to tell myself, “Oh, I don’t understand.”
It’s very simple. The Bluest Eye is the story of a little African-American girl and her family who are affected in every direction by the dominant American culture that says to them, “You’re not beautiful; you’re not relevant; you’re invisible; you don’t even count.” That is what is painful in the novel – the way in which our country has dealt with race, the way in which the power structure has hurt us, AND the way in which it has made us hurt ourselves. Often enough, we African-Americans don’t get the opportunity to say “This is the source of my dysfunction, and it’s not all my fault.” To be shown that when you are young is painful, horrible. On the other hand, it is very affirming to have all these things made very clear and relevant; things that I knew were sck and wrong, things that touched me n these intangible ways, all made clear ust by having the lives of people like me represented in literature.
What’s interesting is that Toni Morrison would never sit down to write and say “My themes will be. …” Her writing is much more elegant and purposeful, never didactic or thematic. It’s so sophisticated, it’s purposeful and elegant and from the soul. When I’m teaching, I tell my students that when you’re writing from your soul about what you know, it’s always going to be political and relevant. So The Bluest Eye is not about race, but it’s about the world of the characters, and unfortunately and fortunately, they live in a place that’s all about race.
The call to write this adaptation for Steppenwolf’s Arts Exchange came days after I’d had my first baby. Actually, that coincidence made it feel so very relevant to my life. I had literally just had my baby and was sitting in a sitz bath, when the phone rang. It was [Steppenwolf’s Director of New Play Development] Ed Sobel asking me if I was interested in doing an original stage adaptation of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. I thought, “Alright, I’m a mother, and this book is more relevant to my life than ever; but I’m also a playwright, and people still know that I’m a playwright.” I needed that affirmation so much at exactly that time.
So I said “yes” without thinking, and then I thought, “Oh my God, did I just say yes to this enormous project?” I started reading the book again, while I was holding this baby.
Suddenly, things I had read many times before, that I thought made all the sense in the world, made SO much more sense, were so much more personal. There were things that resonated so much, like when Frieda and Claudia want the baby to live, and they talk about the little circles of “O” in his hair. This little brown baby that these girls wanted to live so much, and to hold my own baby and hear talk of somebody wanting a baby not to live, was just heartbreaking. And my little baby had circles of “O” in his hair. I realized I was adapting The Bluest Eye for Baylor, my son, and it was the most empowering and frightening and wonderful thing.
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