Interview The sexual politics of slavery

After penning a critically acclaimed adaptation of the controversial, Great Depression-themed Toni Morrison novel The Bluest Eye for young adults, playwright Lydia Diamond is taking another crack at the YA market by adapting Harriet Jacobs' 1861 memoir, Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl. With a team of collaborators including Hallie Gordon, Steppenwolf's director for young adults, Diamond has constructed a highly theatrical story about the toll slavery took on women, complete with ritualistic dance numbers and new spirituals. The A.V. Club spoke to Diamond about the sexual power dynamics of the slavery era and writing for young audiences.

The A.V. Club: In the beginning of the play, Harriet says audiences are tired of narratives about slavery. Why do you think that is?

Lydia Diamond: I think it's because it happened here. I don't know that it's tired so much as we all have a knee-jerk reaction to being asked to be there. As an African-American, I tend to shut down when I go to a theatrical event and I'm asked to see horrible things happen to people I might have been related to. I become defensive. It may be presumptuous, but I suspect that white audiences have their own defense mechanisms around that period. "Am I being asked to feel guilty? Am I being asked to feel bad? Am I having to see this thing that I feel I understand? Why am I being subjected to this again?" This sort of collective thought process that we have is complicated, and primarily about protecting ourselves. Harriet Jacobs' book also acknowledges that. She was very specifically writing to the sensibilities of northern, upper-middle-class/upper-class white women who could become abolitionists. And because of that her tactic is very much, "I don't want to offend you, but I need for you to understand."

AVC: The white slave owners are played by the black ensemble.

LD: I always intended that it be that way. It's largely because I think it's easier for us to understand the situation when that visceral response we have to the race difference doesn't allow us a place to hide so easily.

AVC: Given the implications of sexual abuse in Harriet's life, what made you decide to adapt the play for young audiences?

LD: It's for young adult audiences. And I tend to give them as much consideration as I give any audience. It challenges me to make sure that what I'm writing is even more precise. [Harriet] is writing the book for 17th-century sensibilities. There's reference made to the sexual politics and the sexual abuse of women, but there aren't graphic references made because of the time and because of the audience, and because of Harriet's own sensibilities. The way she characterizes her relationship with the master is strangely about the psychological sexual abuse she suffered under him. He was, I guess, stalking her and harassing her. He didn't molest her. It was more torturous for him to threaten to hurt her than to actually do the deed.

AVC: The mistress sees Harriet as beneath her, but also sees her as competition.

LD: That's the complicated thing about that period: trying to understand slavery through that power dynamic. If anyone had no power, after the slaves, it would have been women at that time. And what that means to be someone who both owns people and is under the foot of her husband, and just thinking about the physical challenges of being someone who's pregnant all the time. Back then? Before epidurals? It's hard for me to wrap my mind around being the mistress and seeing children who you know are the offspring of your husband. Being simultaneously pregnant, she would have assumed that Harriet's pregnancy was because of her husband, and I think that would push anyone to lash out in unhealthy ways.

AVC: Were you trying to get more young people to attend theater when you first started writing the play?

LD: No. I know that if I've done my job, that will be a byproduct and that's very rewarding. But I'm only writing my play to be entertaining and inspiring, and that's the same reason I write a play for adults. I find that writing a play for young adults is the same, and what I'm trying to do is the same. The idea is not to coerce them to be theatergoers. The hope is that they will become theatergoers because they will have had a transformative experience.