''In Abraham's Bosom'' is a play by American dramatist Paul Green. He was based in

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

and wrote historical plays about the South.

Production

''In Abraham's Bosom'' premiered on Broadway at the

Provincetown Playhouse The Provincetown Playhouse is a historic theatre at 133 MacDougal Street between West 3rd and 4th streets in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is named for the Provincetown Players, who converted the forme ...

on December 30, 1926, and closed on June 18, 1927, after 200 performances. Directed by Jasper Deeter, the cast starred

Jules Bledsoe Julius Lorenzo Cobb Bledsoe (December 29, 1897 – July 14, 1943)
by John Troesse ...

as Abraham McCranie, L. Rufus Hill (Colonel McCranie), H. Ben Smith (Lonnie McCranie), Rose McClendon (Goldie McAllister),

Abbie Mitchell __NOTOC__ Abriea "Abbie" Mitchell Cook (25 September 1884 – 16 March 1960), also billed as Abbey Mitchell, was an American soprano opera singer. She performed the role of Clara in the premiere production of George Gershwin's ''Porgy and Bess'' i ...

(Muh Mack), and R. J. Huey (Douglas McCranie). Abraham is a mixed-race,

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

farmer from

whose efforts at self-improvement are thwarted by the state's racial segregation and

Jim Crow The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws introduced in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that enforced racial segregation, " Jim Crow" being a pejorative term for an African American. The last of the ...

rules. Green received the 1927

Pulitzer Prize for Drama The Pulitzer Prize for Drama is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It is one of the original Pulitzers, for the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were a ...

. The Pulitzer jury stated: "The play does not sentimentalize on the tragic situation of the negro. It is scrupulously fair to the white race. But it brings us face to face with one of the most serious of the social problems of this country, and forces us to view this problem in the light of tragic pity."Fischer, Heinz-Dietrich. "1927 Award", ''Outstanding Broadway Dramas and Comedies: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Theater Productions'', LIT Verlag Münster, 2013, , pp. 24-25 The play was included in

Burns Mantle Robert Burns Mantle (December 23, 1873February 9, 1948) was an American theater critic and screenwriter. He founded the ''Best Plays'' annual publication in 1920.Chansky, Dorothy (2011)"Burns Mantle and the American Theatregoing Public" in ''T ...

's ''The Best Plays of 1926–1927''. The Provincetown Playhouse remounted the show on September 6, 1927, with Frank H. Wilson in the role of Abe McCranie. A British production of ''In Abraham's Bosom'' premiered on 7 December 1930 a
The Holborn Empire
in London. Produced by Leonard Gibson-Cowan for The Masses Stage and Film Guild.

Plot

The play takes place in the Southeast of the United States, from 1885 to the beginning of the 20th century. Abe McCranie is a

mixed-race The term multiracial people refers to people who are mixed with two or more races and the term multi-ethnic people refers to people who are of more than one ethnicities. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mul ...

African-American field worker, the son of Colonel McCranie, a white man. He tries to start a school to educate black children, as they were underserved by the state. Ultimately, he gets a school, but the white people run him out of it and drive him to murder.

References

External links

Full text of ''In Abraham's Bosom'' at HathiTrust Digital Library
* 1926 plays Plays by Paul Green Broadway plays Pulitzer Prize for Drama–winning works Plays about race and ethnicity Plays set in North Carolina Fiction set in 1885 {{1920s-play-stub