“The Silver Bullet”: Ghosting the Emperor
2023; Penn State University Press; Volume: 44; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.5325/eugeoneirevi.44.2.0121
ISSN2161-4318
Autores Tópico(s)Theatre and Performance Studies
ResumoWritten at the very top of the manuscript’s front page, in O’Neill’s tell-tale hand, is “The Silver Bullet.” O’Neill has taken great care to underline and bold each letter with uncharacteristic emphasis. Below it—all in caps, but much lighter—he’s penned “THE EMPEROR JONES,” followed by a period, signaling the end of this titular sequence. The two titles have been there, on the same page, since O’Neill drafted the play in fall 1920, ghosting one another like so many of the characters and formless fears that populate O’Neill’s important play.“The Silver Bullet” might be best understood as the lesser-known twin (or Irish cousin?) to The Emperor Jones—a fragment that would never be fully drafted, or ever performed. Nonetheless, “The Silver Bullet” offers insights into O’Neill’s evolving thoughts about colonial misrule, Black sovereignty, Indigenous agency, and the breaking of color lines for actors of color.As is well known, O’Neill based “The Silver Bullet” on a story he heard from one of his drinking buddies, Jack Croak, while doing some “research” in the Garden Hotel bar. Having just returned from Haiti, Croak relayed to O’Neill a story about Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam, the tyrannical ruler of Haiti, who had boasted to his subjects that “they’d never get him with a lead bullet; that he would get himself first with a silver one.”1 Like Sam, Brutus Jones from The Emperor Jones imposes his rule over the Indigenous inhabitants with a tale about his infallibility that can only be undone by a silver bullet. Also like the real-life Sam, Jones is captured and killed by the Indigenous islanders who assert their authority over not only despotism, but also colonial rule.O’Neill’s writing of “The Silver Bullet” and The Emperor Jones dovetails with the US occupation of Haiti (1915–34), as well as colonial calamities throughout the circum-Caribbean. O’Neill’s rhetorical shift from a bullet to an emperor demonstrates some of those pressing concerns about the persistence of colonial tyranny. We see this first in the opening stage directions of “The Silver Bullet”: the setting is “an island in the West Indies un-self-determinated [sic] by the U.S. Marines.” In revising this text into The Emperor Jones, O’Neill fixes the syntax to “not self-determined” but also changes “U.S.” to “White” Marines. One way to read this change is to see it as a deflection away from current politics and being perceived as propagandistic—something O’Neill eschewed in his writing. Robert M. Dowling characterizes this change as O’Neill “disguis[ing] his politically charged setting.” O’Neill was writing The Emperor Jones from late September to October 3, 1920, notes Dowling, during a time in which James Weldon Johnson was reporting from Haiti “about the atrocities perpetrated by Marines against the Haitian people” in the Nation (a journal that O’Neill likely read).2Another way of understanding O’Neill’s shifting of “U.S.” to “White” Marines is to consider the possibilities of O’Neill critiquing whiteness and, more broadly, coloniality itself. Indeed, the Caribbean can be seen as a centuries-old playground of colonial violence. Even though Brutus Jones has seized rule over the island and crowned himself as emperor (thus eclipsing his Cockney predecessor Smithers), he had learned power-grabbing and corruption from white businessmen while working as a Pullman porter before coming to the island.O’Neill’s introductory note also signals an interest in Black empire: “The form of native government is, for the time being, an Empire.”3 In “The Silver Bullet,” O’Neill had written and struck “at present” before interlineating the familiar reading, which implies precarity, movement, and liminality. While the dramaturgical arc of the play veers with increasing intensity toward Jones’s demise—like the accelerating pace of the tom-toms—O’Neill nonetheless chose to portray Black empire through a commanding and powerful figure who would become an important character in Black theater. As W. E. B. Dubois wrote, “it was not until Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones … that the Negro became the central protagonist of a drama.”4 The significance of Brutus Jones reaches beyond American drama. In him, we can see citations of diasporic revolutionaries such as Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessaline, Fastin-Élie Soulouque, Giuillaume Sam, and Henry Christophe.5“The Silver Bullet” moreover highlights O’Neill’s consideration of Indigenous agency in fighting against colonists. We see this in the characterization of Lem, listed as an “usurper” in “The Silver Bullet” but as “a Native Chief” in The Emperor Jones. Even though the explicit reference to usurping has been deleted in Jones, the play “embodies O’Neill’s Indigenocentric reimagining of the US occupation of Haiti (1915−34),” observe James H. Cox and Alexander Pettit, by “creating a Black Indigenous leader who orchestrates the overthrow of an invader from the United States.”6 The other indigenous male characters in “The Silver Bullet”—called “Native Negroes”—are renamed as “soldiers” in The Emperor Jones, suggesting O’Neill’s evolving thoughts about Indigenous militancy. If O’Neill imagined a more insurgent role for the Indigenous male characters in “The Silver Bullet,” a mixed fate befell “the Native Negro Woman, servant in the palace.” As O’Neill revised this role in The Emperor Jones, he deleted “negro” and “servant in the palace” and added “old,” so she is listed as “an old Native woman.” O’Neill seemed to understand that “negro” was not quite the right word to talk about this Indigenous character, who works for the emperor with gestures of servitude (“Him Emperor—Great Father”) but also works against him. With a hint of Homi Bhabha’s notion of mimicry, she understands when to stop ventriloquizing colonial catch-phrases and escape to the hills.7Just one-and-a-half pages long, “The Silver Bullet” reads a bit like a scenario, especially as O’Neill charts the remaining scenes. A few other things stand out in the text. First, O’Neill doesn’t mention tom-toms in any of the scene descriptions—a detail likely worked out in rehearsals or in later drafting. Second, “The Silver Bullet” contains nine scenes, whereas The Emperor Jones comprises eight scenes. When revising, O’Neill merged scenes 7 and 8, the scenes in which Brutus Jones encounters the Congo Witch-Doctor. It’s worth noting that O’Neill trimmed an already short play to just eight scenes, leaving no clues about his motive or intention. Was he pruning repetitious scenes? Did he wish to move the plot more quickly toward Brutus Jones’s demise? Was O’Neill avoiding the maternal connotations of nine scenes? The archive is silent on this matter. Finally, scene 7 in “The Silver Bullet” (and in The Emperor Jones) references the “bluish mist” of the forest, which was utilized in the 1933 movie version for the hallucination scenes. Indeed, everything in the forest was shot with an azure lens; the Library of Congress recovered this tint when they restored the film in 2002. (It is notably absent in the version cut for Black audiences, as I have written elsewhere.8)As a ghostly relative to The Emperor Jones, “The Silver Bullet” prepared the way for a powerhouse of a play beset by contradictions. Even while it conjured primitivism, The Emperor Jones featured powerful portraits of Black sovereigns and Indigenous usurpers. Most important, O’Neill’s expressionistic play broke color lines on stages around the world. The Emperor Jones was the first Broadway show in which an African American actor was cast in a leading role (Charles Gilpin); it was also the first Broadway play directed by an African American (Gilpin in 1926). The operatic adaptation of The Emperor Jones was the vehicle by which the first African American performed on the Metropolitan Opera House stage (Hemsley Winfield as the Congo Witch-Doctor). And with The Emperor Jones, Paul Robeson was the first African American to be cast in a leading role of a major studio-produced film (1933). Jones went on to break color lines on stages around the world.When O’Neill was asked to display a text for the American Academy of Arts and Letters exhibition in 1942, he chose the handwritten copy of The Emperor Jones. It’s a surprising choice, one that O’Neill acknowledged in a handwritten letter to the Academy: “It sounds impossible but it’s all there on these few pages, and when you see the handwriting, you will believe it. I chose the script because ‘Jones’ is one of my most widely known plays and the script has interest as a novelty… . What is it worth now, who knows? All I know, it is worth a lot to me.”9 More than a novelty, “The Silver Bullet” should be regarded as a testimonial to O’Neill’s genius, in miniature.The ghostly traces of “The Silver Bullet” are tethered to The Emperor Jones, not only in the manuscript you see before you, but also in the history of American theater. O’Neill’s handwritten script is presented to us once again—a manuscript that meant “a lot” to him. And we hope it matters to readers of these pages as well.The following transcriptions were prepared by Alexander Pettit and Zander Brietzke. Claire Vanhoutte Pettit assisted with the oral collation. Our copytext is from the Eugene O’Neill Collection, C0281, Manuscripts Division, Department of Special Collections, Princeton University, box 1, folder 9. We are grateful to the staff of that collection and, for permission to publish O’Neill’s text, to Melissa Barton, Curator, Prose and Drama, Yale Collection of American Literature, Yale University.The first text, a diplomatic transcription, recreates the playwright’s process of composition. Passages that O’Neill marked for deletion are set struck-through; O’Neill’s supralinear interpolations are set between vertical arrows; his addenda to the interpolations are set between vertical arrows, superscripted. Question marks within angle brackets indicate speculative readings when they are set closed to the preceding element and unrecoverable passages when they are set open to the preceding and succeeding elements. O’Neill’s autograph dashes are set as em dashes, open to the preceding and succeeding elements. Errors of orthography and incidental omissions of punctuation are retained.The second, edited, transcription is a “reading text.” It omits passages that O’Neill marked for deletion; incorporates those he marked for insertion; supplies several dropped points of punctuation; and emends obvious errors of orthography, most noticeably O’Neill’s reiterated “forrest.”The Silver BulletThe Emperor Jones CharactersBrutus Jones, EmperorHarry Smithers, a Cockney traderLem, the usurperA native negro woman, servant in the palaceNative negros, adherents of LemThe Little Formless FearsThe Ghost of JeffThe Ghosts of the Prison Guard, negro prisonersThe Ghosts of the Auctioneer, the Bidders, the Curious OnlookersThe Ghosts of the SlavesThe Ghost of the Congo Witch DoctorThe Ghost of the Crocodile God The locality of the play is an island in the West Indies as yet un-self-determinated by the U.S. Marines. The form of native government is at present ↑for the time being↓ an Empire.Scene 1—The audience chamber in the palace of the Emperor—a spacios, high-ceilinged room with bare, white-washed walls. The floor is of white tiles. In the rear, center ↑to the left of center↓, a wide archway giving out on a portico with white pillars. The palace is evidently situated on high ground for beyond the portico nothing can be seen but a vista of distant hills, their summits crowned with thick groves of palm trees. In the right wall, center, a smaller arched doorway leading to the living quarters of the palace. The room is bare of furniture with the exception of one huge chair made of uncut wood which stands at center, ↑its back to rear.↓ This is very apparently the Emperor’s throne. It is painted a dazzling, eye-smiting red ↑scarlet↓. There is a brilliant orange cushion on the seat and another smaller one is placed on the floor to serve as a footstool. Strips of matting, dyed scarlet, lead from the foot of the throne to the two entrances.It is late afternoon but the sun↑light↓ still blazes ↑yellowly beyond the portico↓ and there is an oppressive burden of exhausting, nerve-racking heat in the air.Scene 2—Nightfall. The end of the plain where the Great Forrest begins. The foreground is barren, sandy level ground dotted by a few clumps of stunted bushes cowering close against the earth to escape the buffeting of the trade wind. In the rear the forrest is a wall of darkness dividing the world. Only when the eye becomes accustomed to the gloom can the outlines of ↑the nearest↓ separate trunks of ↑the nearest↓ trees be made out, enormous pillars of deeper blackness. A great ↑somber↓ monotone throbs in the air, full of mysterious terror, wind hot and overcome by weary despair. Yet this sound serves but to intensify the impression of the forrest’s relentless immobility, to form a background to throw↑ing↓ into relief it’s sanctity of implacable silence.Scene 3—In the forrest.—↑The moon has just risen. Its beams, drifting through the canopy of leaves, suffuse↑make↓ a barely, perceptible, suffused ↑eerie↓ glow↓—dense low wall of underbrush and creepers—the nearer foreground fencing in a small circular ↑triangular↓ clearing. Beyond this the massed blackness of the forrest like an encompassing barrier. A path is dimly discerned leading down to the clearing from left, rear, and winding away from it again toward the right.Scene 4—In the forrest—A ↑wide↓ dirt road runs diagonally from right, front, to left, rear. Rising sheer on both sides the forrest walls it in. The moon is now up. Under its light the road glimmers ghastly and unreal. It is as if the forrest had stood aside momentarily to let the road pass through and accomplish its veiled purpose. This done, the forrest will fold in upon itself again and the road will be no more.Scene 5—A large circular clearing, enclosed by the serried ranks of lofty, gigantic trunks of ↑tall↓ trees whose tops are lost to view. In the center is a big dead stump worn by time into a curious resemblance to an auction block. The moon floods the clearing with a clear light.Scene 6—A cleared space in the forrest. The limbs of the trees meet over it forming a low ceiling about five feet from the ground. The interlocked ropes of creepers reaching upward to entwine the tree trunks give an arched appearance to the sides. The space thus enclosed is like the dark, noisome hold of some ancient vessel. The moonlight is almost completely shut out and only a vague filtering ↑wan↓ glow filters through.Scene 7—The foot of a gigantic tree on a large hilltop ↑by the banks↑edge↓ of a great river↓. The branches ↑of the tree↓ spread ↑thickly↓ outward in all directions but they are high from the ground. Near the trunk is a table-like structure of great boulders—the sacrificial altar of some ancient rite. The tree was once upon a time taboo, its branches the roof of a natural temple. In the distance, along .Scene 8—Edge of the forrest on the banks of a great river—a spot where animals come down to drink for there are many beaten trails leading from the forrest The foot of a gigantic tree, by the banks ↑edge↓ of a great river, the raised ↑river↓ bank in the nearer background. Beyond them the surface of the river spreads out, ↑brilliant and↓ unruffled, like a polished shield ↑in the moonlight↓, blotted out and merged with ↑a veil to↓ bluish mist in the distance.Scene 9—Same as scene two—the dividing line of forrest and plains. It is at dawn. The nearest tree trunks are dimly revealed but the forrest behind them is still a mass of glooming shadow.Brutus Jones is a tall, powerfully built, full-blooded negro of middle age. His features are typically negroid, yet there is something decidedly distinctive about his face—an underlying strength of will, a fixed determination of purpose in himself ↑a new found↓ ↑a hardy, self-reliant↓ confidence in himself that inspires respect in others. There is a dignity about him as an individual quite apart from the pose that goes with his exalted position. His eyes are alive with a keen, cunning intelligence. In manner he is sober ↑shrewd↓, suspicious, evasivelypolite. The boisterous good-humor of his race is toned down in him to a shrewd ↑soft↓ and ever-ready grin, ↑chuckle↓. baffling when one attempts to pry out what feeling prompts it. In his with he struggles to a certain surface amiability his deep contempt and scorn for the trader as a man.Jones wears a light blue uniform coat, sprayed with brass buttons, heavy gold chevrons on his shoulders, gold braid on the collar, cuffs, etc. His pants are bright red with ↑a↓ light blue stripe down the side. Patent leather riding boots ↑laced boots↓ with brass spurs, and a belt with a long-barreled, ↑pearl-handled↓ revolver in a holster and a sword with a gilded hilt complete his make up. Yet there is something not altogether ridiculous about his grandeur. He has a way of carrying it off., and, looking at his face, one thinks better of laughing.Smithers is a tall, thin, stoop-shouldered man about forty. His bald head, perched on a long neck with an enormous Adams-apple, looks like an egg. The tropics have tanned his naturally pasty face with its small, sharp features to a sickly yellow and Native rum has painted his pointed nose a startling red. His little, washy-blue eyes are red rimmed and dart about him like a ferret’s. His expression is one of unscrupulous meanness, cowardly and dangerous. His attitude toward Jones is that of one who will give vent to a nourished grudge against all superiority—as far as he dares.He is dressed in a worn riding suit of dirty white drill, puttees, spurs, and wears a white cork helmet. A cartridge belt with an automatic revolver in a holster is around his waist. He carries a riding whip in his hand.Forrest: In correspondence with Alexander Pettit, both Zander Brietzke and William Davies King hypothesize that O’Neill may have had the name of the great actor Edwin Forrest (1806–72) “implanted” in his mind, in King’s witty formulation.Scene VIII: An autograph mark indicates O’Neill’s intention to replace his initial wording for this at-rise description with material replicated from the previous one.The Silver BulletThe Emperor Jones CharactersBrutus Jones, Emperor.Harry Smithers, a Cockney trader.Lem, the usurper.A native negro woman, servant in the palace.Native negros, adherents of Lem.The Little Formless Fears.The Ghost of Jeff.The Ghosts of the Prison Guard, negro prisoners.The Ghosts of the Auctioneer, the Bidders, the Curious Onlookers.The Ghosts of the Slaves.The Ghost of the Congo Witch Doctor.The Ghost of the Crocodile God. The locality of the play is an island in the West Indies as yet un-self-determined by the U.S. Marines. The form of native government is for the time being an Empire.Scene 1—The audience chamber in the palace of the Emperor—a spacious, high-ceilinged room with bare, white-washed walls. The floor is of white tiles. In the rear, to the left of center, a wide archway giving out on a portico with white pillars. The palace is evidently situated on high ground for beyond the portico nothing can be seen but a vista of distant hills, their summits crowned with thick groves of palm trees. In the right wall, center, a smaller arched doorway leading to the living quarters of the palace. The room is bare of furniture with the exception of one huge chair made of uncut wood that stands at center, its back to rear. This is very apparently the Emperor’s throne. It is painted a dazzling, eye-smiting scarlet. There is a brilliant orange cushion on the seat and another smaller one is placed on the floor to serve as a footstool. Strips of matting, dyed scarlet, lead from the foot of the throne to the two entrances.It is late afternoon, but the sunlight still blazes yellowly beyond the portico and there is an oppressive burden of exhausting, nerve-racking heat in the air.Scene 2—Nightfall. The end of the plain where the Great Forest begins. The foreground is barren, sandy level ground dotted by a few clumps of stunted bushes cowering close against the earth to escape the buffeting of the trade wind. In the rear the forest is a wall of darkness dividing the world. Only when the eye becomes accustomed to the gloom can the outlines of separate trunks of the nearest trees be made out, enormous pillars of deeper blackness. A great somber monotone throbs in the air, full of mysterious terror, wind hot and overcome by weary despair. Yet this sound serves but to intensify the impression of the forest’s relentless immobility, to form a background throwing into relief its sanctity of implacable silence.Scene 3—In the forest—The moon has just risen. Its beams, drifting through the canopy of leaves, make a barely, perceptible, suffused eerie glow—dense low wall of underbrush and creepers—the nearer foreground fencing in a small triangular clearing. Beyond this the massed blackness of the forest like an encompassing barrier. A path is dimly discerned leading down to the clearing from left, rear, and winding away from it again toward the right.Scene 4—In the forest—A wide dirt road runs diagonally from right, front, to left, rear. Rising sheer on both sides, the forest walls it in. The moon is now up. Under its light the road glimmers ghastly and unreal. It is as if the forest had stood aside momentarily to let the road pass through and accomplish its veiled purpose. This done, the forest will fold in upon itself again and the road will be no more.Scene 5—A large circular clearing, enclosed by the serried ranks of lofty, gigantic trunks of tall trees whose tops are lost to view. In the center is a big dead stump worn by time into a curious resemblance to an auction block. The moon floods the clearing with a clear light.Scene 6—A cleared space in the forest. The limbs of the trees meet over it forming a low ceiling about five feet from the ground. The interlocked ropes of creepers reaching upward to entwine the tree trunks give an arched appearance to the sides. The space thus enclosed is like the dark, noisome hold of some ancient vessel. The moonlight is almost completely shut out and only a vague wan glow filters through.Scene 7—The foot of a gigantic tree by the edge of a great river. The branches of the tree spread thickly outward in all directions, but they are high from the ground. Near the trunk is a table-like structure of great boulders—the sacrificial altar of some ancient rite. The tree was once upon a time taboo, its branches the roof of a natural temple.Scene 8—The foot of a gigantic tree, by the edge of a great river, the raised river bank in the nearer background. Beyond them the surface of the river spreads out, brilliant and unruffled in the moonlight, blotted out and merged with a veil to bluish mist in the distance.Scene 9—Same as scene two—the dividing line of forest and plains. It is at dawn. The nearest tree trunks are dimly revealed but the forest behind them is still a mass of glooming shadow.Brutus Jones is a tall, powerfully built, full-blooded negro of middle age. His features are typically negroid, yet there is something decidedly distinctive about his face—an underlying strength of will, a hardy, self-reliant confidence in himself that inspires respect in others. His eyes are alive with a keen, cunning intelligence. In manner he is shrewd, suspicious, evasive. The boisterous good-humor of his race is toned down in him to a soft and ever-ready chuckle. Jones wears a light blue uniform coat, sprayed with brass buttons, heavy gold chevrons on his shoulders, gold braid on the collar, cuffs, etc. His pants are bright red with a light blue stripe down the side. Patent leather laced boots with brass spurs, and a belt with a long-barreled, pearl-handled revolver in a holster complete his make up. Yet there is something not altogether ridiculous about his grandeur. He has a way of carrying it off.Smithers is a tall, thin, stoop-shouldered man about forty. His bald head, perched on a long neck with an enormous Adam’s-apple, looks like an egg. The tropics have tanned his naturally pasty face with its small, sharp features to a sickly yellow and native rum has painted his pointed nose a startling red. His little, washy-blue eyes are red rimmed and dart about him like a ferret’s. His expression is one of unscrupulous meanness, cowardly and dangerous. His attitude toward Jones is that of one who will give vent to a nourished grudge against all superiority—as far as he dares.He is dressed in a worn riding suit of dirty white drill, puttees, spurs, and wears a white cork helmet. A cartridge belt with an automatic revolver in a holster is around his waist. He carries a riding whip in his hand.
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