Transculturation, Reclamation, and Adaptation: Approaches to Teaching Father Comes Home from the Wars

abstract:Heralded as one of the most important voices in US theatre, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks has made profound contributions to the creation of black art. Since her arrival on the theatre scene in the 1980s, Parks has challenged audiences to consider the importance of representation and unearth silences within history. Her more recent Pulitzer Prize finalist work, Father Comes Home from the Wars Parts 1, 2 & 3 (2014), continues this exploration, privileging the epic tale of an enslaved black man turned Confederate soldier in search of freedom. As an amalgamation of Parks's personal family history; the broader narrative of the black freedom struggle; and canonical epic tales such as Homer's Odyssey, Aeschylus's Oresteia, James Joyce's Ulysses, and Vyasa's Mahabharata, Father Comes Home… presents pedagogical challenges for instructors who must engage with ancient and modern texts and contemporary black political thought and performance traditions. Rather than replicate austere teaching practices of the past, I use the pedagogical theories of bell hooks to issue a call to foster curiosity and radical transparency as instructors guide students to a better understanding of how Father Comes Home transculturates (or reclaims) Greek mythology and tragedy within the African diaspora. In so doing, I demonstrate how Father Comes Home serves as a reckoning of the generational trauma caused by chattel slavery, summoning us all to confront racist and sexist practices that systematically disenfranchise black Americans and prevent the wider dissemination of black history and culture.