Chronicling the Blues

Ellarslie teams up with McCarter Theatre for ‘Blue Notes.’

By: Susan Van Dongen

Zora Neale Hurston’s play, Polk County, will be performed at McCarter Theatre Oct. 12-31. Blue Notes will be on view at Ellarslie Oct. 2-Dec. 5.

   With her recently discovered play Polk County, Zora Neale Hurston captures a way of African- American life in rural Florida that vanished long before Disney and other developers forever altered a large part of the Sunshine State.
   Set in the 1930s, Polk County (co-written by Dorothy Waring) examines a time and lifestyle that might as well be ancient history in our age of technology. Interestingly, the play was found in a very low-tech way — discovered by an archivist, folded between the pages of Ms. Hurston’s sorority yearbook.
   "It’s based on her experiences living at the Everglades Cypress Lumber Co. in Loughman, Fla., during the Depression," says Stephanie Morgano, president of the Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie. The museum is teaming up with McCarter Theatre’s production of Polk County to host Blue Notes: Chronicling the Blues from Polk County to Trenton, an exhibit and concert celebrating the blues.

Zora Neale Hurston

   The exhibit runs Oct. 2 to Dec. 5, with an opening reception Oct. 8. An evening of blues at Ellarslie gets underway after the reception, with a concert featuring Joe Zook & Blues Deluxe, harmonica virtuoso Steve Guyger and vocalists Doris Spears and Georgie Bonds.
   The museum will display a collection of photographs of blues artists taken by such renowned area lensmen as Phil McAuliffe. Ms. Morgano says the museum is also gathering photographs, letters and personal items of Ms. Hurston’s.
   "When McCarter approached us about this, we were only looking to tie it in with the blues scene in Trenton," Ms. Morgano says. "But from doing some investigating on my own, finding out just what ‘Polk County’ was about, I thought it would also be important for the museum to focus part of the exhibit on Zora Neale Hurston herself. She was a phenomenal artist, writer and human being, and we don’t want to forget why."
   Working with the University of Florida in Gainesville, as well as the Beinecke Library at Yale University, Ellarslie has obtained photos of Ms. Hurston from the 1920s through the ’60s.

Harmonica virtuoso Steve Guyger (seen here with Pine Top) will perform Oct. 8, celebrating the new exhibit at the Ellarslie — "Chronicling the Blues: From Polk County to Trenton."

   "The University of Florida owns a majority of her personal items, things that were part of her home or removed from her home," Ms. Morgano says. "We’re also in touch with Yale, which owns some great photographs, and Princeton has some of her letters. Those have been my three big contacts."
   Ms. Morgano unearthed some unusual items, including an award Ms. Hurston received in 1951 from the Freedom Foundation in Valley Forge, Pa., for "Outstanding Achievement in Bringing about a Better Understanding of the American Way of Life."
   However, Ms. Morgano says it hasn’t been all that easy to put together an exhibit of Ms. Hurston’s personal effects.
   "When she died, someone gave the order that her things should be burnt," she says. "What did survive was pulled out of the fire. I don’t know where this ‘order’ came from but fortunately a friend rescued a number of things, such as photographs and manuscripts."
   The play was safely ensconced in Ms. Hurston’s sorority yearbook, and was found in the late ’90s in the Library of Congress by an archivist. Ms. Morgano says the copyright date is 1944, so it was likely written in the years just preceding that. Since its rediscovery, Polk County has only been seen a few times, including a 2002 production at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.
   The manuscript division of the Library of Congress received eight plays by Ms. Hurston in the late 1980s, as transfers from the United States Copyright Office. Polk County was rediscovered later, in 1997.
   Ms. Hurston had died in obscurity in 1960, and her achievements remained in eclipse until poet and novelist Alice Walker made a pilgrimage to find and mark the grave of "the mother of the Harlem Renaissance." Although this helped to spark Ms. Hurston’s posthumous fame as a novelist and folklorist, her dramatic works remained in the shadows. Little was known about her theatrical career until 1998, when scholarly publications began to reflect the drama discoveries announced by the Library of Congress.
   A graduate of Howard University and Barnard, Ms. Hurston was commissioned as an anthropologist to explore Southern black folk life. She traveled throughout the deep South, as well as the Bahamas and Haiti, collecting songs, stories, lore and children’s games. Her research serves Polk County well, giving authenticity to the language and characters, some of whom are named after real people from her trips.
   "She really tried to immerse herself in the culture," Ms. Morgano says. "She would live with (the people) in their community and record what she saw."
   Ms. Hurston met with controversy when she focused on quirks of this rural way of African-American life, instead of writing about political or civil rights issues.
   "A prevailing theme in her writing and recordings was the ‘Negro’ way of life," Ms. Morgano says. "(In these rural communities) African-Americans weren’t dwelling on racism. It was a part their lives, but not a primary focus. Ms. Hurston preferred to write about how they lived and worked and entertained themselves.
   "Her characters suggest that black America shouldn’t be focused on racism — they say ‘we’re still human beings and we still express our emotions and live our lives,’" continues Ms. Morgano. "Some of her contemporaries just weren’t on the same page and there was some criticism of her writing that she wasn’t focusing on the harsh realities. Her response was, ‘Yes, but no one else is focusing on other cultural aspects of this life, and it’s disappearing.’ She was trying to find her people’s own identity."
   When she first went on the road in search of rural African-American life, Ms. Hurston put a few of her subjects off with her fine, urban attire and, especially, when she showed up to various shanty towns driving an expensive car.
   "It didn’t always go smoothly," Ms. Morgano says. "She looked very wealthy, so people were intimidated by her. She started to ask why no one wanted to engage with her and was told ‘you have an expensive car, so people think you’re with the law — and you’re here to spy on us.’ So she changed her ways. She made up a story that she was doing some slightly illegal work and the car belonged to her boss. She made her expensive exterior part of her persona, and then she was accepted.
   "In any book written about her, it’s clear (Ms. Hurston) was her own woman," Ms. Morgano says. "She valued being African-American and wanted to show the world how great it was. This was so early on in the last century. When you consider that she was out in the field in the South, in the Bahamas and Haiti collecting all this material, going up against racism as well as sexism. But she had an idea how her work should be done and she wanted everyone else to be as fascinated as she was."
Blue Notes: Chronicling the Blues from Polk County to Trenton is on view at the Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie, Cadwalader Park, Trenton, Oct. 2-Dec. 5. Opening reception: Oct. 8, 5-7 p.m.; blues concert, 7:30-9:30 p.m. Museum hours: Tues.-Sat. 11 a.m.-3 p.m., Sun. 1-4 p.m. For information, call (609) 989-3632. On the Web: www.ellarslie.org. This exhibit is in conjunction with Zora Neale Hurston’s Polk County, playing at McCarter Theatre, 91 University Place, Princeton, Oct. 12-31. For information, call (609) 258-2787. On the Web: www.mccarter.org