I have a duty as a playwright to show her humanity. Abba wasn’t a super woman or over-achiever – she wasn’t even a survivor. She was resilient because she had to be.
Bleu from “When a Trumpet Cries”
Assignment
Bleu and Joanna go back and forth a lot in the play about whether Abba was resilient (full stop) or whether she was resilient in order to survive.
For this assignment, explore the online exhibit, The Jackson Family: A Story of Resilience & The Enduring Love of Family, that shares the story of Abba’s grandchildren and their journey to freedom.
Then write a reflection on your thought process as you answer the question:
Essential Understandings
How can you mirror the work of historians?
Primary and secondary sources enable us to examine evidence closely and to place it in a broader context.
Discussion Questions (optional)
- Why could Bleu see the Hite woman but not Abba?
- Why the trumpet?
- Did you know that when Bleu Do’zia wrote this play, she used direct quotes from primary sources? Do you feel differently knowing that these quotes aren’t fictional?
- Why do you think the character of Bleu had such a hard time “writing the truth” in this play?
- What is historical context, and why is it so important?