Since its premiere at Crossroads Theatre in New Brunswick and then acclaimed seven-month New York run at The Public Theater in 1986, The Colored Museum has become a cultural touchstone, introducing the then 31-year-old George C. Wolfe, who would go on to write Broadway musicals, direct on Broadway and feature-length films, and make a mark as a producer in his 11-year run as the Artistic Director of The Public Theater.
Over the years, Wolfe has given multiple interviews on the play. Here are some of his thoughts that served as guideposts for director Psalmayene 24, the cast, and production team of Studio Theatre’s production of The Colored Museum.
“I call The Colored Museum an exorcism and a party,” the 32-year-old playwright said in an interview yesterday. “A lot of our identity as black Americans has to do with choosing this or that from our schizoid culture. I felt that in order to get on with my life as an artist, I must be able to collect all those scattered fragments. The only way to get to the magic and the pathos and the mythology of the culture was by killing off the externals and getting underneath.” —1986 interview in The New York Times
“When The Colored Museum happened, [people] who regard themselves as the guardians of Black culture attacked me because they thought I was attacking Black culture, that I was doing things in front of white people that shouldn’t be done. They didn’t understand my arrogance, my belief that the culture I come from is so strong it can withstand public scrutiny. I don’t view black culture as a fragile thing.” —1995 interview with bell hooks
“At one point I became very interested in trying to reexamine the mythology of African American culture, and also trying to appropriate or trying to reclaim certain of the silhouettes; the silhouette of the trickster, the silhouette which some people would call the ‘coon,’ the silhouette of the ‘mammy’… I want to remove these dead stale, empty icons standing in the doorway, blocking me from my truth.” —1993 interview in Callaloo Magazine
“It’s so incredibly tricky, exploring that complicated combination between power and pain and brilliance that it seems to me a sort of extraordinary triad that is African-American culture: I can’t live inside yesterday’s pain but I can’t live without it.” —1993 interview in Callaloo Magazine
“In many respects, the central character of the play is the audience. At each performance, some people come out laughing, others crying. The other night, someone said to me, ‘This is too painful to go through.’ But I believe that wounds heal better in open air. The best houses are half-Black and half-white; there’s a dangerous tension that has to resolve itself in laughter.” —1986 interview in The New York Times