Sweet Blood: A Play in Progress

During my time at The Folger as an Artistic Research Fellow I worked on my speculative historical fiction play Sweet Blood. Sweet Blood is part of a 6 play cycle, the Cotton and Cane play cycle, that blends speculation with historical moments in both Jamaica’s and Detroit’s history.

Play Synopsis: Three free Maroon/Taino sisters in Jamaica 1727 struggle to thrive in a world that will soon endure hundreds of years of chattel slavery due to the emerging sugar revolution. They must decide what they are willing to do to survive the encroaching British invasion of their land, how far they are willing to go to fight against the disease of colonialism, and what it really means to be a revolutionary.

This play springs from a rich well of inspiration woven from the threads of my grandfather’s ancestral home in the mountains of Arntally Jamaica, which used to be a coffee plantation. As a first-generation Jamaican-American on my mother’s side (and a 5th generation African-American from Detroit on my father’s) my parents instilled in me a profound sense of culture and roots. Now, this pursuit of understanding my roots carries me towards a deeper connection beyond only personal family histories and into the larger landscape of Black Diasporic resistance storytellers.

As a poet/playwright/scholar I situate my work alongside fellow multi-hyphenate Erika Dickerson-Despenza who quotes Toni Cade Bambara’s work of ancestral elevation and reverence as part of her purpose. My writing and research strive to bridge the gap between what we know through recorded histories (which unfortunately are oftentimes written by colonizers), oral traditions, and what we only know in our bones. I do this work because I believe if trauma can be passed down through our DNA then triumph can be as well.

My process for this play involves Reading + Research (done at The Folger), studying both historical and present day resistance movements (of Haiti and the ongoing Palestinian resistance movement in the face of genocide), talking to God, and what Toni Morrison calls re/memory. Since this is The Collation I will only be expanding upon the Reading + Research part of this process. Buuuut if anyone wants to hire me as a panelist to talk more about any other part of this process I’m open and available!

The Reading + Research

During the time I was at The Folger I was able to finish a new draft of Sweet Bood. Below are some examples of changes made in the script based upon the research I did. The first is a cut of scene 2 of between Tanama, one of the sisters, and Cyrus, the mulatto son of a mahogany merchant, in his bedroom.

Example 1: Pre Folger, Act 1 scene 2 cut, page 18

Example 1: Post Folger, Act 1 scene 2 cut, page 18

The scene then continues as the previous draft did around Cyrus’ role as a mahogany merchant. As you can see there have been both stage directions and verbal dialogue added that discuss tea and sugar whereas in an earlier draft there wasn’t. I decided to add those details as well as others later in the play as I build upon the changing landscape of Jamaica and the world due to what will later be called the sugar revolution. I needed to both show and tell how central sugar was to the British lifestyle and why (SPOILER ALERT FOR THE REST OF THE PLAY) Cyrus’ father decides to invade the sugarcane land Tanama and her sisters steward for his future sugar plantation.

The second example is a conversation between the sisters Ris, Tanama, and Caona in their home in the mountains.

Example 2: Pre Folger, Act 1 Scene 1, page 10

Example 2: Post Folger, Act 1 Scene 1, page 10

I initially placed the sisters in The Blue Mountains closer to Port Morant because my grandfather’s home that inspired this play was closer to that location and I was stuck in sentimentality but after seeing this map and doing further research on the Montego Bay Port I decided that it was more important for this play to be historically accurate than sentimental.

The final example that I’ve chosen to include is from Act 2 Scene 3 page 88 when Ris, another sister, is confronting Cyrus about his betrayal and Cyrus is trying to explain to her what life is like on plantations he has seen and why he made his choices.

Example 3: Pre Folger, Act 2 Scene 3, page 88 

Example 3: Post Folger, Act 2 Scene 3, page 88 

I added more to what Cyrus said after reading “Acts of Assembly” to reflect documented history of what society was like for enslaved people during that time period.

Although scenes with Cyrus are used in two out of the three examples I want to make clear that this play is not about him. For the development of the lives of the sisters as I mentioned earlier I relied upon studying the resistance of people who have been oppressed, Toni Morrison’s practice of re/memory and lots of prayer. He is only featured heavily in this blog post because during my time at the Folger I primarily focused upon surviving physical records. This included port life in Jamaica, race relations in Britain, and the nascent sugar revolution. I decided to zero in on this because I wanted to be precise about Cyrus’ character arc, his relationship with his white father, and to make sure that the fingerprints of colonial violence were both seen and talked about explicitly and implicitly in this play.