“When I examined the rather rigid concepts of reality which informed a number of the works which impressed me and to which I owed a great deal, I was forced to conclude that for me and for many hundreds of thousands of Americans, reality was simply far more mysterious and uncertain, and at the same time more exciting, and still—despite its raw violence and capriciousness—more promising.”
—Ralph Ellison, National Book Award acceptance speech for Invisible Man
Invisible Man was published in 1952, and its prismatic mix of styles, rhythm, and influences was unlike anything else in American literature. Ralph Ellison’s novel follows an unnamed narrator from his high school graduation in the Deep South to a basement in the borderlands of Harlem. Ellison’s hero moves through an America divided by race and class, grappling with paradoxes of identity and race that have rendered him invisible. As the Invisible Man is confronted time and again by forces that define him in their own image, the novel moves from naturalism to expressionism to poetic meditation, drawing inspiration from African-American folklore, Dostoevsky, Melville, and T.S. Eliot.
The New York Times hailed Invisible Man as “a resolutely honest, profoundly American book,” and it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks. The novel won the National Book Award in 1953. In the 60 years since its publication it has sold millions of copies, has never been out of print, and is currently featured in The Library of Congress’s “Books That Shaped America” exhibition.
This production marks the first adaptation that the Ralph Ellison Trust has authorized of this landmark American novel. Using only Ellison’s text, adaptor Oren Jacoby and director Christopher McEloern have embraced the novel’s epic scope. Playing out against a richly textured background of projection and sound, the play’s ten-member ensemble change tone and style at the speed of thought, presenting Ellison’s thundering vision of invisibility articulated and at least partially transformed in all its poetry and paradox.
The Invisible Man’s exploration of identity and agency expands into a consideration of America’s own complex self-definition. As the Invisible Man realizes, his struggle and voice—far from irrelevant—are perhaps the unifying perspective of the American experience. Or as he says to his diversely imagined audience, who have served as witnesses and colleagues to the story he has shared,
—Adrien-Alice Hansel