Transformations of the African-American Self in Adrienne Kennedy’s "Funnyhouse" and "Owl"dom

Year 2003, Issue: 18, 49 - 64, 01.10.2003

Özge Özbek

Abstract

Presenting an oeuvre that reflects a variety of genres and an unyielding innovativeness, Adrienne Kennedy paved the way for many black dramatists, Ntozake Shange among them. Furthermore, she has contributed to the debates on identity that form the postmodern notion of self, which remains multiple, transformational and therefore resists definition. She has been awarded various fellowships and three Obie awards. Despite this success she is not a popular playwright; the interest in her work remains limited solely to academic studies. This is because her plays are not easily accessible and they do not in any way present easy solutions or role models. Additionally, due to the lack of propaganda in her works, Kennedy was welcomed neither by feminists nor by black Americans especially in the 1960s. Today, with respect to their presenting the subject in its plurality, her plays are evaluated as introducing a new mode of representation as well as a contemporary notion of cultural identity that brings together the fragments of multiple cultures. The notion of self she introduces is both cultural and gendered, and also is in the process of becoming—self at the "intersecting boundaries.

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