Article "Play Termed 'Preachy Documentary'"

Article "Play Termed 'Preachy Documentary'"

This Collegian article is a theater review of the production Conquest of My Brother presented by the University Players in November 1975. The reviewer Heath Haworth asserts the play is more of a “didactic, preachy documentary” rather than a drama, and that “the fault was not with the production so much as the play itself.” The play tells the story of the 200 year struggle between the Native Americans and the white men and “the belief of English tyrants that the destiny of Europe was to dominate this new continent and remove all savages to ‘purify’ it.” Haworth states that the events and information in the play are not “new to most informed people,” but the play provided “gruesome reminders of our treatment of these first Americans” and the “continuous saga of broken promises” between the Native Americans and the white men. The play portrays the scalping of a Native American child as well as the death march of 10,000 Cherokees across the Mississippi River. The play ranges from “pointing a sober, accusing finger” at the “misdeeds” of the white man to using “humor to show up the idiocy of the white man in his dealings with the red race.” The play also portrays the attempt to convert the Native Americans to Christianity.

Haworth, Heath. "Play Termed 'Preachy Documentary'." The Richmond Collegian 63, no. 12, (December 04, 1975): 1. https://collegian.richmond.edu/?a=d&d=COL19751204.2.51&srpos=11&e=------197-en-20--1--txt-txIN-

The Collegian, University of Richmond

1975-12-04

English

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Richmond (Va.)