George C. Wolfe’s satirical play, The Colored Museum, elicits emotion from those who read its powerful lines and see its cavalier sentiments spring to life on stage. The play is Wolfe’s indelicate way of handling sensitive subjects known well by the African American community. The play is composed of a double handful of vignettes that show Blacks reacting to the things that have weighed them down as baggage from a painful past. The universal thread in each short tale echoes the need for all African Americans to come to terms with where they have come from, where they are, and where they see themselves going as an involuntarily immigrated race and as individuals within a common, transplanted race. It is offensive without apology. It is scathing without pettiness. It is shocking without being searing. The play carries just enough humor to keep its audience captivated and just enough scalding stereotype to keep its audience from growing bored.

Three themes emerge strongly from The Colored Museum that helps its reader or viewer to redefine the meaning of Blackness in the 21^st century. First is the theme of racism that rises sharply in “Git on Board.” Second is the theme of social recognition most evident in the piece entitled “The Gospel According to Miss Roj.” Third is the theme of class distinction as evidenced in “Symbiosis,” a monologue (almost) that favors the erasure of memory over erecting monuments to it. All three of these themes, intolerance, respect, and grouping are commonly bound by satire that attempts to cover the stinging pain of the story of Black America with smiles, laughter, and amnesia; but, if we are honest, we know that we make jokes about the things that are most important to us. Wolfe uses these little stories, lampooning them all the way through, to remind us that whenever we cry, we can rest assured that there is a brighter tomorrow, and when we laugh, we can be certain that we will never be totally estranged from suffering.

The particular aspect of colored life that is germane to each of these themes is the fact that the contemporary experiences of African Americans, who have experienced life success because of education, business, and other professional pursuits, may cause many of them to forget the heritage that is theirs from their native continent. Wolfe, in this play, warns that there is a danger in forgetting or ignoring the story of struggle that is common to most all Black Americans.

In “Git on Board,” a solitary, female actor, “Miss Pat,” is dressed as a flight attendant for an airline. She addresses her audience just as she would do during a pre-flight instructional session. She goes about her job with a perky countenance. She gives a brief review of the history of the United States history. She provides keys that unlock how Blacks have witnessed and shaped the American story. Soon the reader or viewer knows that her vessel is not a cruise ship or an airplane. Her audience is a group of slaves, and she is a part of the crew that is taking them as an enslaved people to a new and strange land from which there will be no escape. She admonishes her “guests” to refrain from call and response singing and playing drums. She takes pleasure in telling her captives that even though they will give up their religion and work under scorching heat, basketball will one day make them rich. She reassures them that it will take civil rights martyrs to bring them closer to having equality. At the end of their journey toward the slave-trading center of Savannah, Georgia, her cargo is portrayed, not as human beings, but as suitcases –property, not fully human. Miss Pat reminds us of the inherent racism that comes from treating others as objects without souls. “If you have any trouble bonding yourself,” Miss Pat gleefully says in her perfectly enunciated English, “I’ll be more than glad to assist.”