Dutchman

play by Baraka

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Article History

Dutchman, one-act drama by Amiri Baraka, produced and published in 1964 under the playwright’s original name LeRoi Jones. Dutchman presents a stylized encounter that illustrates hatred between blacks and whites in America as well as the political and psychological conflicts facing black American men in the 1960s. The play won an Obie Award as best American Off-Broadway play of 1964; it was made into a film in 1967. Set in a New York City subway car, the play involves Clay, a young, middle-class black man who is approached seductively by Lula, a white fellow passenger. Lula provokes Clay to anger and finally murders him.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.