"The Arts and the Battle for the Soul of Civilization"

by Dr. Indira Etwaroo 

[The arts are at a crossroads.  I’ve blogged about the theater in crisis, especially the regional repertory companies, but this post is about all the arts, which Dr. Indira Etwaroo labels “the soul of civilization.”  When I started writing and posting about the crisis in America’s theaters, I was referring to finances, shrinking audiences, staffing issues, and other matters all lumped together in the category of arts-administrative concerns.

[The threat that Dr. Etwaroo is writing about below is political.  The culture war is specifically assaulting our arts institutions as surely as the Russians are assaulting Ukraine’s cities and infrastructures.  And the forces arrayed against the theaters, galleries, museums, dance companies, and orchestras—the big ones and the little ones—are using not just money as a weapon, but threats of legal action, and even take-overs.

[Dr. Etwaroo writes about one sector that’s among the most vulnerable: the arts organizations that serve the underserved and marginalized segments of our population.  Her alarming and frightening article was posted on the American Theatre website on 3 April 2025.]

Now is the time for artists and institutions to step up in defense of the most fragile and vulnerable among us—including our arts organizations themselves.

We stand at a critical crossroads in American history—a crossroads where democracy, creative expression, artistic freedom, and the very artists and arts institutions that uphold these ideals face unprecedented threats. It is not lost on me and so many others that one of the first political acts by the current administration—23 days following the inauguration—was the takeover of the Kennedy Center [12 February 2025], the national cultural center of the United States. Nobel Prize-winning writer Toni Morrison [1931-2019] makes clear an urgent truth:

I want to remind us all that art is dangerous. I want to remind you of the history of artists who have been murdered, slaughtered, imprisoned, chopped up, refused entrance. The history of art, whether in music or writing or what have you, has always been bloody, because dictators and people in office, and people who want to control and deceive, know exactly who will disturb their plans. And those people are artists.

[Remarks made by Morrison, appearing with authors Sonia Sanchez (poet and professor; b. 1934) and Ta-Nehisi Coates (b. 1975), on 15 June 2016 at Broadway’s Ambassador Theatre for Arts and Social Justice, an event presented by the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. Each writer also received the studio’s Marlon Brando Award in honor of their joint artistic and social justice commitments.]

At the heart of these threats lies the potential to erode our very civilization—to degrade the cornerstone of America’s enduring experiment in democracy and pluralism. This cornerstone is rooted in the moral arc of the universe, made more dynamic by former Attorney General Eric Holder [b. 1951; 82nd United States Attorney General: 2009-15] when he shared, “The arc of the moral universe bends towards justice—but only when we put our hands on that arc and pull it.” The erosion of civilization would halt that collective pull, silencing the voices and perspectives that embody humanity, decency, beauty, truth, and justice. This is no abstract concern; it is a crisis that demands immediate attention and action, as it risks leaving permanent tears in the already fragile fabric of America’s rich and diverse tapestry.

[The line about “the arc of the moral universe” that Etwaroo attributes to former AG Holder was apparently often quoted by him, most recently, perhaps, on 3 November 2024, when he posted on several social media sites a plea for his followers to vote for Kamala Harris (b. 1964) in the 2024 presidential election.  He didn’t originate the line, however.  He was probably quoting Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-68), the civil rights leader, who used the line often from as early as 1958.

[The coiner of the phrase—or, at least, the earliest recorded person to use it—appears to have been Theodore Parker (1810-60), an abolitionist and Unitarian minister from Massachusetts, who used it in an 1856 sermon.]

In a fabled lecture, anthropologist Margaret Mead [1901-78] once posed the question, “What is the earliest sign of civilization?” Students suggested answers like a clay pot, tools, or weapons. Mead responded, “The first sign of civilization is a healed femur.” The femur, the longest bone in the body, connects the hip to the knee. In societies without modern medicine, healing a fractured femur requires about six weeks of rest. A healed femur shows that someone cared for the injured person, providing support and protection until the injury healed. Mead explained that in societies where the rule of law is survival of the fittest, no healed femurs are found.

[The origin of the above Mead anecdote remains unknown and there’s no concrete evidence, such as a written statement or a recording of Mead, to verify independently its authenticity.  This search is summed up by Nur Ibrahim, a New York City-based journalist from Pakistan, on Snopes, a fact-checking website. and reported by numerous sources. 

[The attribution to Mead appears to have been popularized by Ira Byock (b. 1951), emeritus professor of medicine and community and family medicine at Dartmouth College’s Geisel School of Medicine, who claimed in his book The Best Care Possible: A Physician’s Quest to Transform Care Through the End of Life (Avery, 2012) that Mead made the statement in answer to a student’s question.  Other sources picked up the anecdote and retold it as fact without attribution.

[In Paul Brand and Philip Yancey’s 1980 book, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made: A Surgeon Looks at the Human and Spiritual Body (Zondervan Publishing House), however, co-author Brand (British physician and surgeon; 1914-2003) recalled a different source for the story: a lecture given by Mead.  The anecdote spread in various renderings in newspapers, speeches, and on the ’Net.

[In an authenticated remark, however, Mead had a different sign of a civilization in an interview she gave in Talks with Social Scientists (Southern Illinois University Press), edited by Charles F. Madden and published in 1968.  A published transcript is linked to Mead's Wikiquote page.  (On Rick On Theater, there are two posts regarding my searches for the sources of quotations and other published documents: “‘A Tennessee Williams Treasure Hunt’” [11 April 2009] and “Literary Detection” [3 January 2011]).]

I am a first-generation Black American woman with Indo-Guyanese ancestry and Southern roots, raised in a lower socioeconomic environment in Southeast Washington, D.C., and Newport News, Virginia. It became clear to me early on that art was not readily accessible to all people. In those formative years, I began to shape what has since evolved into a core conviction: The arts are a fundamental right for all people. As an arts leader, a mother of a daughter, and an artist, I strive to make sense of and bring clarity to an increasingly complex world through the transformative power of creative expression. My work is a continuous search for truth.

This written reflection is rooted in the microcosm of these intersecting identities, understanding that U.S. arts institutions—more than 100,000 strong across the nation—are the cultural anchors that shape the collective consciousness of a country. As Christopher Robichaud [b. 1973], senior lecturer in Ethics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, shared [posted on his Facebook page, 6 November 2024; reposted on Medium, n.d. (possibly 11 or 12 November]: “This would be the time for the arts, broadly understood, to step in. The arts can change hearts and minds.”

The future of arts organizations, especially those serving the most vulnerable segments of society, hangs in the balance. This fragility is deeply rooted in generations of historical inequities, which have shaped the arts sector, determining whose stories are told, whose voices are heard, and which artists and communities are given the resources to flourish. As August Wilson [playwright; 1945-2005] poignantly declared in his 1996 speech The Ground on Which I Stand, “Black theatre in America is alive, it is vibrant, it is vital . . . it just isn’t funded.” These words resonate as powerfully today as they did decades ago, not only for Black theatres, but for all arts institutions whose unyielding quest for visibility, recognition, resources, and opportunity stands at a pivotal crossroads.

The stark reality of these inequities is laid bare in the data. The 2017 Helicon Collaborative [research and strategy consultancy that focuses on using the power of culture for social good] report Not Just Money: Equity Issues in Cultural Philanthropy reveals that 58 percent of cultural philanthropic support for arts organizations flows to just 2 percent of the largest institutions—those predominantly centered on Western and European art forms. Meanwhile, 98 percent of arts organizations, and the communities they serve, are left with only 42 percent of that funding. This study also reports that a mere 4 percent of all foundation arts funding is allocated to groups whose primary mission is to serve communities of color—i.e., the arts institutions on the frontlines of addressing long-standing community disinvestment and vulnerabilities.

It is meaningful to look across sectors and challenge the disinvestments, even in our own communities. Woodie King Jr. [stage and screen director and producer, and founder of New York City’s New Federal Theatre; b. 1937], in his 1981 book Black Theatre: Present Condition, explains that “wealthy Black Americans, I am sorry to say, do not invest” in Black institutions or projects. “Wealthy Black Americans invest in AT&T or Twentieth Century Fox.” A survey by the DeVos Institute [of Arts Management at the Kennedy Center] found that the median budget of the nation’s 20 largest arts organizations of color is 90 percent smaller than their mainstream counterparts, with many operating on the brink of financial collapse. It goes without saying that vulnerable institutions are seeing long-standing disinvestments in almost all of the diverse revenue streams that are necessary for greater sustainability, community impact, and service to the common good.

“If arts and culture are primary ways that we empathize with, understand, and communicate with other people—including people different than ourselves—then enabling a broad spectrum of cultural voices is fundamental to creating a sense of the commonwealth and overcoming the pronounced socio-political divides we face today,” wrote Holly Sidford and Alexis Frasz in Not Just Money.

The ravaging effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and the reckoning with racial injustice continue to reverberate throughout the arts sector, with most institutions still reeling. This moment demands visionary and decisive action, and it demands a reliance on the freedom of spontaneous creativity with the certainty of intentional conviction—a.k.a. jazz improvisation—to secure the survival of our arts ecosystem, even without the certainty of a notated score or blueprint for what comes next. As Miles Davis [jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer; 1926-91] once said, “It’s not the note you play that’s the wrong note—it’s the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.” A spontaneous creativity is especially critical for the institutions most at risk. 

[The statement on improvisation is often attributed to Davis, but it’s not explicitly known where the quotation comes from.]

By no means does my reflection here seek to divide or to diminish the struggles unfolding across the broader arts and culture sector. I believe that we must work together and create solutions as a wider collective. But this reflection is aimed at prioritizing resources for those communities and institutions historically overlooked and most in need during this ongoing crisis—institutions and communities directly in the line of fire. These institutions have focused on immigrants, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, the disability community, women and girls, and the economically disadvantaged. By increasing support in these areas, we can realize a ripple effect that ensures “all boats rise” across the sector, as we fight for the very soul of our democracy, and indeed, the soul of our civilization.

I am inspired by the work of PolicyLink [national research and action institute dedicated to advancing economic and social equity] founder Angela Glover Blackwell [attorney, civil rights advocate, and author; b. 1944], whose championing of the “curb cut effect” provides a powerful lens for this advocacy. The curb cut on sidewalks was originally designed to assist people with disabilities. But this simple, yet profound intervention has proven to benefit everyone from parents with strollers to bikers, travelers, and workers. The principle behind the curb cut effect is that policies aimed at uplifting the most vulnerable often lead to societal benefits that ripple outward, strengthening the collective whole.

“There’s an ingrained societal suspicion that intentionally supporting one group hurts another,” Glover Blackwell wrote in “The Curb-Cut Effect” for the Stanford Social Innovation Review in [15.1; Winter] 2017. “That equity is a zero sum game. In fact, when the nation targets support where it is needed most—when we create the circumstances that allow those who have been left behind to participate and contribute fully—everyone wins. The corollary is also true: When we ignore the challenges faced by the most vulnerable among us, those challenges, magnified many times over, become a drag on economic growth, prosperity, and national well-being.”

Leaders who serve historically disadvantaged cultural institutions and communities are not lacking in vision, skill, imagination, or the cultural nuances and sensibilities that can only come from within our communities. What is required now are sustained investments and an unshakable belief in our capacity to lead, to be critical changemakers and thought leaders, and to dynamically contribute to a vibrant, flourishing arts ecosystem that anchors a civilization at risk.

Technology is critical to our future, but it is not the next frontier. The construction of larger and more advanced buildings plays a vital role in the growth and expansion of our ecosystem, but they are not the next frontier. The defense and lasting strength of our most fragile institutions and communities—that is the true frontier ahead of us. That is the building of a civilization. A. Philip Randolph [labor unionist and civil rights activist; 1889-1979], leader of the historic 1963 March on Washington [for Jobs and Freedom; 28 August], reminded us that “a community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic, and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess.”

Without well-orchestrated and highly coordinated interventions and partnerships among the philanthropic, corporate, community, and arts and culture sectors, these long-standing fragile institutions may shutter, recalling the time when federal funding cuts in the 1990s meant that 87 percent of Black theatre institutions at the time were unable to keep their doors open. Just in New York City, eight African American theatres closed in the 1990s, as Samuel A. Hay [playwright and founder of the National Conference of African American Theatre (1983); b. 1937] recorded in African American Theatre: An Historical and Critical Analysis (Cambridge University Press, 1994). Without the larger arts and culture sector protecting the very institutions that hold and embody the rich diverse narratives that are our great pluralistic and democratic experiment, the arts and culture sector could very well become part of the cultural monolith that we are trying to push back against—one that builds empires and not civilizations.

I understand that equity is not a monolithic or singular construct, but a complex and multifaceted intersectionality. It is woven through the threads of race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, faith, and so much more. This nuanced, holistic understanding is the frontier we must embrace if we are to advance together. So many institutions across this vast and beautiful cultural sector have stood resolutely at the intersection of social justice and the arts, serving as guiding lights for marginalized voices to be heard and celebrated. Now, as we face this pivotal moment, we must stand poised to redefine the very role of arts institutions and reach a resounding radical consensus—to challenge the status quo, to reimagine our purpose, and to set about “imagining a world,” in the words of Audre Lorde [writer, professor, philosopher, intersectional feminist, poet, and civil rights activist; 1934-92], “in which we can all flourish.” With the need to exercise unprecedented courage, conviction, and an indefatigable commitment to building a civilization that will live past our time—as one plants trees under whose shade they may never sit—we can rise to defend this right, stand against the forces that seek to dismantle it, and shape a future where healed femurs abound, standing as a living testament to our shared humanity and the unbreakable strength of a collective will to heal our fragile and fractured democracy.

Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Alice Walker [b. 1944] admonished: “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” [This statement is widely circulated in print and digital media as a quotation from Walker, but its original source isn’t known. The exact time and place where she first made this remark isn’t documented.] I would humbly recommend a few actions that can be taken now. I am confident there are many more.

•   A National Cross-Sector Arts Task Force: This task force would bring together national leaders from philanthropies, corporations, communities, and the arts and culture sector with a focus on a strategic, multi-year plan to invest in arts institutions that are specifically in the line of fire at this time: immigrants, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community (particularly trans people), the disability community, women and girls, and the economically disadvantaged.

•   Community Standing with Community: Community leaders, community members, and businesses can seek out vulnerable institutions and invest in them: buy tickets, donate (giving at every level is meaningful), and create sponsorships and partnerships to build resiliency and greater connections among the community. Volunteer! If there is a skill or pro bono service that can be provided to move an institution forward, provide it. Make Some Noise! For these vulnerable institutions who may be in danger of closing their doors in silence, don’t let it happen. Share their website and upcoming events on social media to keep them alive and well. Use your influence. Share with your followers.

We have the power to reimagine the world, but only as a collective. In the midst of World War II, Pulitzer-winning writer Katherine Anne Porter [1890-1980; Ship of Fools was the best-selling novel in 1962; 1966 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and National Book Award for The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter] penned a sentiment in 1940 that resonates with the struggles we now face—words that provide hope, encourage us to take the long view, and propel us forward . . . together:

In the face of such shape and weight of present misfortune, the voice of the individual artist may seem perhaps of no more consequence than the whirring of a cricket in the grass, but the arts do live continuously, and they live literally by faith; their names and their shapes and their uses and their basic meanings survive unchanged in all that matters through times of interruption, diminishment, neglect; they outlive governments and creeds and the societies, even the very civilization that produced them. They cannot be destroyed altogether because they represent the substance of faith and the only reality. They are what we find again when the ruins are cleared away [introduction to the 1940 Modern Library edition of Flowering Judas].

[Dr. Indira Etwaroo (b. 1971) is a producer, director, scholar, and arts and culture executive.  She’s artistic director and CEO of Harlem Stage.

[As I noted above, I blogged on the crisis besetting theaters in the United States several times in recent months.  Look for my occasional series subtitled the “Regional Theater Series.”  I’ve also written and reposted a number of articles on the culture wars and advocating the support for the arts both in schools and in the communities.  The complete list would be too long to append here, but “The First Amendment & The Arts” (8 May 2010) and “Censorship on School Stages” (30 July 2023) are two pieces that I’d suggest.

[And one more, a real old essay (not of my writing) that I think is important.  It was written in 1939, almost 85 years ago, by a highly esteemed reporter and political commentator, Walter Lippmann (1889-1974).  It’s called “The Indispensable Opposition” (16 November 2011), and I think it’s something that every American should read.  It applies here.]

Dhat al-Himma – Woman of Noble Purpose

 

[On a June afternoon in 2019, I paid a visit to MoMA PS1 across the East River in Long Island City, Queens, to which I’d never been.  Established in 2000 as the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition space devoted solely to contemporary art.  (My report on this visit is “MoMA PS1,” posted on Rick On Theater on 25 July 2019.  The report includes a little of the history of PS1 and some details about its LIC neighborhood.)

[One exhibit caught my attention for more than just its aesthetic attraction.  Works and Days (31 March–2 September 2019), a retrospective of the ceramic sculptures, paintings, watercolors, and collages of Syrian-born Lebanese-American artist Simone Fattal (b. 1942) included elements of an unfinished project of telling the stories of ancient history with figures taken from tales such as The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Odyssey, Dhat al-Himma, and others. 

[Of course, I knew about Gilgamesh, the Mesopotamian epic poem, ca. 2100-1200 BCE, and The Odyssey, Homer’s (8th century BCE) Greek saga of the voyage of Ulysses from Troy back to Ithaca after the Trojan War (12th or 13th century BCE).  Dhat al-Himma, however, was unknown to me; so, I looked it up.  The Arabic phrase means “Woman of Noble Purpose”—the same meaning as Delhemma, the name given to the story’s heroine.

[Fattal’s tiny ceramic sculptures in this section, including The Guard (2006) and The Wounded Warrior (2008) from the little-known Arabic epic of the 7th through the 13th centuries, tell a story when viewed together.  

[In the legend, Delhemma (also a short version of the tale’s Arabic title) is a warrior, and a female djinn (a magical spirit, often called a genie in English) falls in love with her.  Guarded by the djinn and assisted by her son, Abd al-Wahhab, Delhemma fights the enemies of her people and her prince.

[If you’re looking for a feminist action hero with exotic trappings as a successor to TV’s Xena: Warrior Princess or the movie Wonder Woman, here’s a great prospect.

[(The Arabic title of the saga varies, leading to even more variations in the translations—not to mention the romanizations—and there are differences in the narrative depending on the version and the translation.  The names of the characters, some of which are historical, some quasi-historical, and some of unknown origin, can also vary widely.  I’ll at least try to be consistent.)]

Delhemma or Sirat Delhemma (“Tale of Lady Delhemma”) is a popular epic of Arabic literature set during the Arab-Byzantine wars, a series of conflicts across the Middle Wast, North Africa, and Southern Europe, also known as the Muslim-Byzantine wars (629-1180 CE), between several Arab dynasties and the Byzantine Empire of the Umayyad (661-750 CE) and early Abbasid (750-861 CE) periods.

(The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the extension of the Roman Empire ruled from Constantinople [previously Byzantium, now Istanbul] from the late 3rd century CE to the Middle Ages.  [The name ‘Byzantine Empire’ was used only after the realm’s demise in the 15th century; in its time, it was called the 'Roman Empire’ and its citizens called themselves ‘Romans.’]

(Constantine I [272-337 CE; Roman emperor: 306-337], also known as Constantine the Great, was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity [officially baptized into Christianity on his deathbed; began receiving instruction in the Christian religion with a view to baptism around 312].  He ruled from Rome until 330, when he moved the imperial capital to Byzantium, changing the city’s name to Constantinople and inaugurating the Byzantine Empire.

(The last non-Christian Roman Emperor was Julian [331-363 CE; Roman emperor: 361-363; known as Julian the Apostate].  Theodosius I [347-395; Roman emperor:  379-395], the last emperor to rule both the western and eastern halves of the empire, established Christianity as the Roman state religion in 381.  

(Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 CE, the Byzantine Empire endured until the fall of Constantinople to the Islamic Ottoman Empire [ca. 1299-1922; also called the Turkish Empire] in 1453.  It had reached its greatest extent after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the reign of Justinian I [482-565; Roman emperor: 527-565; also known as Justinian the Great].  It encompassed much of the territory surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, including modern-day Italy [including Rome], Iberia, Greece, Turkey, parts of North Africa [including Egypt], the Middle East [including Syria, Lebanon, and Israel], and the Balkans.)

(The beginning of Islam is traditionally dated from 610 CE.  By 632, the year Muhammad [b. ca. 570 CE] died, most of the Arabian Peninsula had converted to Islam.  By 750, the Umayyad dynasty had conquered what is now North Africa west of Egypt, the Iberian Peninsula, southern France, and southeastern Pakistan.  In 750, the Abbasid dynasty succeeded the Umayyads and by 1258, Muslims had conquered Anatolia [Asia Minor] and the northern Indian subcontinent.

(Throughout the 11th and 12th centuries, various Muslim caliphates and sultanates conquered much of the Byzantine Empire, but at the same time, into the 13th through the 15th centuries, much of Islamic Europe was re-Christianized.  From then into the modern era, though the politics of the regions stretching from western North Africa to eastern South Asia shifted drastically and often, the status quo of the religious dominances remained static.

The full title of Dhat al-Himma (from the 1909 edition) is Sirat al-amira Dhat al-Himma wa-waladiha ’Abd al-Wahhab wa ’l-amir Abu Muhammad al-Battal wa-’Uqba shaykh al-dalal wa-Shumadris al-muhtal, or “The Life of amira Dhat al-Himma, mother of ’Abd al-Wahhab, and of amir Abu Muḥammad al-Baṭṭal, the master of error ’Uqba, and astute Shumadris.”  It’s also known by other titles after the principal characters, including Sirat Dhat al-Himma wa-l-Battal (“Tale of Dhat al-Himma and al-Battal”) and simply Sirat Delhemma.

(Amira or emira is the female version of amir or emir and is the equivalent of ‘princess.’  Sirat or sira is Arabic for ‘journey’ or ‘travel,’ but in this context, it’s translated as ‘biography,’ ‘life,’ ‘epic,’ or ‘tale.’  Be aware, also, that transliterations of the Arabic words will vary, sometimes vastly, with the renderer.)

According to some scholars, the saga was first published in Egypt around 900 CE, but the earliest reliable references to the characters appear in the middle of the 12th century, also in Egypt, and some of the events narrated occurred long after the 10th century.  It’s evident that most of Dhat al-Himma was written as a response to the impact of the Crusades (1095-1291). 

The eminent Belgian scholar of the Byzantine Empire, Henri Grégoire (1881-1964), however, suggests that at least the basis of Delhemma’s story must have existed before about 1000 CE, as it is used in the romantic Byzantine epic, the 11th- or 12th-century poem, Digenis Acritas (“bi-racial border lord,” a reference to the hero’s Greek-Syrian parentage).

There is a dearth of translations of Dhat al-Himma into any European language, particularly, into English.  The closest I’ve found is Melanie Magidow’s translation, The Tale of Princess Fatima, Warrior Woman: The Arabic Epic of Dhat al-Himma (Penguin Books, 2021), designated a “partial edition and translation.”

The first modern edition of Dhat al-Himma was published in Cairo in 1909.  It recounts the adventures and misadventures of a few characters—some inspired by historical events and figures, but with a lot of fantasy, anachronism, and historical inaccuracies in the mix—during a period from the 8th to the 12th or 13th centuries, although the main characters, Delhemma (or Amira Dhat al-Himma); her son, Abd al-Wahhab; and the hero al-Battal, lived at the same time.

One of the epic’s heroes, Amir Abu Mohammed al-Battal, is identified with the mythical character of Turkish folklore and classic literature, Battal Gaz, a figure of the late 9th or early 10th century CE.  Despite the chronological discrepancy, the legendary figure of Battal Gazi seems to have been inspired by a historical Umayyad commander, known as Abdallah al-Battal (ca. 690-695 – 740 CE), although there is no certainty about his full name.

In the 1909 Cairo edition, the story includes 70 sections in seven volumes and 5,084 pages.  The theme of the epic derives from the long history of wars between Muslim Arabs and Christian Byzantines during the Umayyad Caliphate and early Abbasid Caliphate, up to the reign of Abu Ja’far Harun ibn Muḥammad al-Wathiq bi’Llah (known as al-Wathiq; 812-847; 9th Caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate: 841-847), with elements of later events focusing on the vicissitudes of the rivalry between two Arab tribes, the Kilabi (or Banu Kilab, the tribe that dominated Central Arabia [i.e., today’s central Saudi Arabia] in the time before Islam [ca, the 6th to 7th centuries CE]), to which the main characters belong, and the Sulami (Banu Sulaym, in western Saudi Arabia). 

(Banu is Arabic for ‘the children of’ or ‘descendants of.’  It’s often used to indicate the lineage or ancestry of a group or clan, typically appearing before the name of a tribal progenitor.  The tribal names such as Kilabi and Sulami are nisba, an adjectival form of the name of the clan’s founder [Kilab is Arabic for Caleb; Sulaym is a form of Sulayman, or Solomon].)

According to the French orientalist and historian Marius Canard (1888-1982), the story has its origins in two traditions.  The first part, focusing on the adventures of al-Sahsah and the early years of his granddaughter Delhemma, reflects the Syrian-Umayyad and Bedouin tradition, including typically Bedouin elements in the tradition of Antarah ibn Shaddad al-Absi (pre-Islamic Arabian poet and knight; 525-608 CE), but mixes them with the semi-mythical tradition that grew up around the deeds of the 8th-century Umayyad real-life Arab commander Abdallah al-Battal, whose role is played in Dhat al-Himma by al-Sahsah.

(I wasn’t able to identify al-Sahsah, the grandfather of Delhemma, beyond the fact that he’s called Amir al-Sahsah elsewhere; the rest of his name doesn’t seem to appear in the narrative.  He’s probably a fictional character, a composite of several historical figures, or both.  [Some of the exploits of al-Battal, a historical hero of the saga, have been ascribed to al-Sahsah in Dhat al-Himma.]  

(Bedouins are nomadic Arab tribes who historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Mesopotamia [including present-day Iraq], and North Africa.)

Arabists posit that the epic must have begun as a collection of tales from the Banu Sulaym.  Over time, the rival Kilabi tribe appropriated these tales and added others, so that the work that has come down to us is basically an epic work of the Banu Kilab. 

The second, longer part of Dhat al-Himma, from the sixth chapter onwards, reflects the events of the Abbasid period, and probably originates from a cycle of tales based on the real-life Amir of Malatya (in the Eastern Anatolia region of modern-day Turkey), Amr ibn Ubaydallah al-Aqta (reigned 830s-863 CE) of the Sulami, who appears in the Byzantine sources under the name of Ambros.  Malatya became a major opponent of the Byzantine Empire and al-Aqta was one of the greatest threats on its eastern frontier.

Over time, the two traditions merged in favor of the Kilabi, who took the prominent role of the Sulami in the second tradition.  Orientallst Canard suggests that this was due to the shameful surrender of Malatya to the Byzantines in 934 by al-Aqta’s successor, his grandson.  The city’s Muslim inhabitants were expelled or forced to convert, and replaced by Byzantine settlers.

Thus, the Banu Sulaym were discredited while the Banu Kilab continued to play an important role in the wars against the Byzantine Empire throughout the 10th century.  The Kilabi Delhemma and her son, Abd al-Wahhab, became the main heroes of the conflict, and the Amir al-Aqta was relegated to a secondary role.  The Sulami were also associated with the perfidious Qadi Uqba, while the hero al-Battal, a Sulami, is transferred from the Umayyad period in which he actually lived, to the Abbasid period, as a Kilabi.

(Qadi Uqba seems to refer to Uqba ibn Nafi [622-683 CE] who was a prominent Muslim jurist [qadi] and general in the early Islamic period.  He was known for establishing Umayyad rule in North Africa [the Magreb].  In Dhat al-Himma, Uqba is a traitorous figure, also referred to as “the treacherous Uqba” or, as in the epic’s title, “the master of error.” 

(He’s portrayed as a spy for the Byzantines [Eastern Romans] who has secretly converted to Christianity and a major antagonist who fuels the rivalry between the Kilabi and Sulami clans.  His actions, including hounding the Kilabi and manipulating events, lead to their capture and imprisonment, often at the hands of the Byzantines or the Abbasid caliph.)

Dhat al-Himma is presented as “accurate history,” but, as Canard asserts, in reality it’s “the often very vague recollection of a certain number of facts and historical personages, garbed in romantic trappings and presented in an imaginary way, with constant disregard for chronology and probability” (“Dhu ’l-Himma,” Encyclopaedia of Islam [New Edition Online], Leiden, Netherlands, posted 24 Apr. 2012).  In general, Canard continues, the author or authors had a very superficial knowledge of history and geography, but they were evidently better versed in Christian practices and festivals, especially those of the Byzantines.

The epic begins with the history of the rivalry between the Banu Sulaym and the Banu Kilab during the early Umayyad period, when the Sulami dominated the Kilabi, and continues until the Banu Kilab took command and the participation of the Kilabi al-Sahsah in the military campaigns of the Umayyad prince Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik (flourished: 705-738) against the Byzantines, including the second Arab siege of Constantinople (717-718), his adventures in the desert (principally, his military campaigns and the establishment of fortified frontier settlements), and his death.  

Next, al-Sahsah’s sons, Zalim and Mazlum, argue over their father’s inheritance.  Mazlum’s daughter, Fatima, the eponymous heroine of the epic, is kidnapped by the Banu Tayy (from what is now parts of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Jordan) and, during her captivity, becomes a valiant warrior, coming to be called al-Dalhama.  (The name is possibly the feminine form of dalham or ‘wolf,’ but it is more usual to be interpreted as a corruption of the honorific “Dhat al-Himma,” which also appears in history with other variations, the most common of which is “Delhemma.”)

During the Abbasid revolution (741-750), the Sulami, led by Abdallah ibn Marwan, regained leadership of the Arab tribes due to their support of the Abbasids.  Thanks to Delhemma’s intervention, the Kilabi accepted this change and together with the Sulami participated in the then revived border war with the Byzantines.  The Kilabi settled in the city of Malatya, while the Sulami took Hisn al-Kawkab, a nearby fortress.

(There’s a discrepancy with the identification of “Abdallah ibn Marwan,” the Arab leader in the Abbasid revolution.  He’s equated with Abdallah ibn Marwan ibn Muhammad, a son of Marwan ibn Muhammad ibn Marwan [ca. 691-750], Caliph Marwan II [reigned: 744-750], but Marwan II was the last ruler of the Umayyad Caliphate before the Abbasid revolution.  His sons fought for him, not the Sulami and the Abbasids, and fled to Nubia after their defeat.

(The actual military leader of the revolt was Abu Muslim [718/19 or 723/27-755], a Persian Muslim who followed Abu al-Abbas al-Saffah [722-754; reigned: 749-754], who became the first Abbasid caliph.  [Abu Muslim was put to death by the second caliph, Abu Ja’far al-Mansur [714-775; reigned: 754-775], brother of al-Saffah, purportedly for heresy, but in truth out of fear of Abu Muslim’s popularity as a great hero.)

Delhemma’s cousin, al-Harith, son of Zalim, was able to marry her thanks to a drug, and she bears him a son, Abd al-Wahhab, who has black skin.  When he grows up, he becomes leader of the Kilabi and his and his mother’s deeds in the war against the Byzantine Empire are the main theme of the epic.  

Abd al-Wahhab is supported by the cunning al-Battal, who, though a Sulami, joins the Kilabi, and faces opposition from the rest of the Banu Sulaym, including the treacherous Qadi Uqba, who had secretly converted to Christianity, and the Amir of Malatya, Amr ibn Ubaydallah al-Aqta, who distrusts the Kilabi despite owing his life to Delhemma.  

Meanwhile, Delhemma’s husband, al-Harith, joins the Byzantines with a band of Arabs and converts to Christianity.  On the other hand, the Muslims find allies among the Byzantines, such as the crypto-Muslim Maris, chamberlain of the emperor, or the lord of a frontier fortress, Yanis, a Christian convert to Islam.

The epic follows its protagonists on a series of military campaigns and adventures during the reigns of Harun al-Rashid (ca. 763 or 766-809; fifth Abbasid caliph: 786-809), al-Amin (787-813; sixth Abbasid caliph: 809-813), al-Ma’mun (786-833; seventh Abbasid caliph: 813-833), and al-Mu’tasim (796-842; eighth Abbasid caliph: 833-842).  

In the final part, the narrative is dominated by the rivalry between the Banu Sulaym and Banu Kilab, fueled by Uqba’s treacherous hounding of the Kilabi and his spying for the Byzantines.  The leaders of the Kilabi, including Delhemma and Abd al-Wahhab, were captured several times by the Byzantines and the Abbasid caliph due to Uqba’s intrigues, but were always released after several escapades.  

Al-Battal plays a crucial role as a counterpoint to the traitor, Uqba, with each of them seeking to capture and eliminate the other.  Abd al-Wahhab resolves the situation several times with his achievements, which take him to Western Europe and the Maghreb (North Africa).  

Various Byzantine rulers successively attacked and sacked Malatya, but were repulsed or defeated by the actions of Delhemma or Abd al-Wahhab.  On the other hand, the Kilabi often helped the Byzantine emperors to recover their capital Constantinople from usurpers or Frankish invaders from the West.

Finally, Uqba’s treachery is unmasked, and in the last and longest part of the epic he’s pursued by the caliph al-Mu’tasim and the Kilabi heroes across several countries “from Spain to Yemen,” eventually being crucified in front of Constantinople.  

On its return, the Muslim army falls into a Byzantine ambush and only 400 men, including the caliph (not named, but probably al-Mu’tasim), al-Battal, Delhemma, and Abd al-Wahhab, manage to escape, but Amir Amr ibn Ubaydallah is killed.  

In retaliation, al-Mu’tasim’s successor, al-Wathiq, launches a campaign against Constantinople, where he installs a Muslim governor and rebuilds the mosque that had been built by Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik and al-Sahsah.  

The narrative continues with the description of the death of Delhemma and Abd al-Wahhab, as well as the last days of al-Battal, who lives long enough to witness the resumption of Byzantine attacks later in the same century (740s-750s).  

Al-Battal dies in Ancyra (present-day Ankara), where his tomb remains hidden until the Turks arrive and discover him (in other versions the discovery is made by the Mamluks [slave soldiers of diverse ethnic origins who served the rulers in the Muslim world in the 9th through the early 19th centuries]).

(The legendary al-Battal apparently lived into the late 8th or even early 9th century, but the real-life general on whom he was based died, not in Ankara, but in Akroinοn (now known as Afyonkarahisar), in 740, 162 miles southwest of the modern Turkish capital.  He was killed in a huge battle with Emperor Leo III (ca. 685-741; Roman emperor: 717-741) that prevented al-Battal from reaching Constantinople, 262 miles to the north-northwest, for yet another assault.) 

[This is a pretty sketchy précis of Dhat al-Himma; its length prohibits anything short from being comprehensive (or, conversely, anything comprehensive from being short).  With all the Arab character and place names, I found it even more daunting to compile, and I assume it’s the same for reading—especially cold.

[I do hope, nevertheless, that my attempt here has resulted in something interesting—or at least curious for those readers who’re from the West and aren’t familiar with Arabic legends beyond One Thousand and One Nights, versions of which I suppose most of us read as children.  (Maybe it’s no longer part of every child’s experience as it was in my day—though I guess every kid knows some version of Alladin.)

[As I said at the top, my first encounter with Dhat al-Himma was just a few years ago, and I’d never even heard of it before then.  So, discovering the saga even only to the extent that I have (there are virtually no complete translations), was challenging and fascinating.  I hope ROTters have found it engaging.]

Merle Oberon

 

“NEW BOOK ‘LOVE, QUEENIE’ CHRONICLES LIFE
OF TRAILBLAZING SOUTH ASIAN ACTRESS MERLE OBERON”
by Amna Nawaz and Shrai Popat 

[Merle Oberon (1911-79), star leading lady of filmdom in the 1930s. ’40s, and ’50s, was born in Bombay (now Mumbai), India, of mixed Welsh and Ceylonese (now Sri Lankan) parentage, as Estelle Merle O’Brien Thompson, and was nicknamed “Queenie.”  According to Michael Korda (English-born writer. novelist, and editor; b. 1933; son of production designer Vincent Korda), she “became a feature of Bombay nightlife while still in her early teens and eventually made her way to England [in 1928] as the girlfriend of a wealthy young Englishman” (Another Life).  In early-1930s London, Oberon became a star at the famous Café de Paris and also the girlfriend of the Grenada-born jazz musician, Leslie “Hutch” Hutchinson (1900-69).

[(At the time of Oberon’s birth, India was a crown colony of the British Empire, often called British India of the British Raj.  It was directly ruled by the British Crown from 1858 to 1947.  Her father, Arthur Terrence O'Brien Thompson, was a Welsh mechanical engineer who worked in Indian Railways.  Oberon’s mother was Constance Charlotte Thompson, née Selby, a Burgher from British Ceylon, a separate crown colony, now the nation of Sri Lanka.  Burghers are a Eurasian ethnic group on the island descended from Europeans who settled there in the 16th and 17th centuries.  Oberon’s parents’ birth years are unrecorded, but her father died in 1914 and her mother in 1937—at which time, she was listed as 55 years old, making her birth year 1882.)

[The three Korda brothers, Alexander (British film director, producer, and screenwriter; 1893-1956), Zoltan (British motion picture screenwriter, director, and producer; 1895-1961), and Vincent (British artist and film art director; 1897-1979), were Hungarian-Jewish emigrants who made careers in the movie business, first in London and later in Hollywood.  Alexander Korda discovered the young beauty (then still known as Queenie Thompson) in the tea line at the movie studio.  He changed her name and cast her as the doomed Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), her first significant role and the first British picture to be nominated for an Academy Award as Best Picture.  (It lost to Cavalcade.)  Oberon and Alexander Korda married in 1939 and she became the first Lady Korda when he was knighted.

[After 1934’s The Scarlet Pimpernel, she left Britain for Hollywood.  With her nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress as Kitty Vane in The Dark Angel (1935), Oberon became a star in both the U.K. and the U.S.  The ’30s and ’40s were busy and successful decades for Oberon, including the late films opposite Laurence Olivier (1907-89), the popular comedy The Divorce of Lady X (1938) and her most acclaimed performance in Wuthering Heights (1939).  These were followed by 15 films on the next decade.

[Then, however, the actress wasn’t seen on the screen for four years.  In 1940, Oberon’s skin had been severely damaged in an attempt to lighten her complexion with chemical treatments.  Her darker skin was fine in black-and-white photography, but under color, she didn’t “test” well. 

[After a few dismissible movies in the early ’50s, she returned in 1954 as Empress Josephine opposite Marlon Brando’s (1924-2004) Napoleon in Désirée.  There were few films after that: none in 1955 and one in ’56.  She did some television in the early and mid-60s, then a few movies at the end of the decade.  Oberon’s last film was Interval in 1973.  Her career ended after that and she retired quietly in Malibu, California, until she died of a stroke in November 1979.

[In 1985, Michael Korda published a fictionalized biography of his aunt, Queenie, which was made into a 1987 ABC television miniseries starring Mia Sara, Claire Bloom, Sarah Miles, Joss Ackland, and Gary Cady.  Korda later wrote an autobiographical account of the world of publishing—Another Life: A Memoir of Other People (Random House, 1999)—which created intimate portraits of the authors, editors, and celebrities he had worked with over the decades, including his aunt.

[Oberon is regarded by some as the first Asian nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, and the first Asian in any category to receive an Oscar nomination, even though she had hidden her mixed heritage throughout her career.  In 2023, when Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh (b. 1962) was nominated for and won the Best Actress award for her performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), news outlets like the Hollywood Reporter described Yeoh as “the first self-identified Asian actress ever nominated in the category,” while pointing out that Oberon had passed as white.

[This interview was aired on PBS News Hour on 22 April 2025.] 

Amna Nawaz: As the first Asian and only South Asian actress to be nominated for a best actress Oscar, Merle Oberon’s place in the pantheon of cinema is historic, but it came with enormous sacrifice. For decades, Oberon had to hide her race to stay working in film.

I recently spoke with writer Mayukh Sen [b. 1992] whose new book, “Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood’s First South Asian Star” [Norton & Company, 2025], chronicles Oberon’s rise to fame, her groundbreaking career, and eventual fade from the spotlight.

It’s part of our arts and culture series, Canvas.

Mayukh, welcome to the “News Hour.” Thanks for being here.

Mayukh Sen, Author, “Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood’s First South Asian Star”: Thank you for having me, Amna.

Amna Nawaz: So before we dive into the details of Merle Oberon’s life, tell me how the book came to be. I mean, what was it about her and her story that made you want to dig in?

Mayukh Sen: So I have always been fascinated by Merle Oberon ever since I first encountered her, which was all the way back in the summer of 2009.

I was a rising senior in high school and I was obsessed with the Oscars. And I learned that she had been the first Asian actress who was nominated for an Academy Award for acting all the way back in 1936 [for The Dark Angel (1935)]. And then I learned that she had grown up in the city of Kolkata [formerly Calcutta], which is where my father was from.

And so, ever since then, I have really wanted to tell her story. And there hasn’t been a proper biography of her in over 40 years.

[Charles Higham and Roy Moseley, Princess Merle: The Romantic Life of Merle Oberon (Coward-McCann Inc., 1983). Higham and Moseley were known to write highly fictionalized accounts of celebrities. There is also Michael Korda, Queenie (Simon & Schuster, 1985). Oberon’s nephew’s roman à clef about his aunt.]

Amna Nawaz: Yes.

Mayukh Sen: So I told myself, you know what, I think it’s time for me to just take this project on and try to do her story justice.

Amna Nawaz: And the story that most people knew about her as she was making her way through Hollywood was that she was a British actress, that she was born in Tasmania [an island state of Australia located south of the Australian mainland], that she was raised in India, then brought to England. That’s the story she told people.

What was the truth about her life?

Mayukh Sen: So something that emerged in the years after her death in 1979 was that Merle Oberon, despite posturing before the public eye as this white Tasmanian-born woman, was in fact born into poverty in the city that was then known as Bombay, now Mumbai, India, to a South Asian mother and a white father.

And she spent the first 18 years of her life in India living through poverty. And it was only after she went to England in 1929 that this fictitious backstory was created for her by studios that she was actually a white woman born in Tasmania. And that is a lie that would stick with her throughout the entirety of her life, at least publicly.

Amna Nawaz: What did it mean to grow up mixed-race in India in the early 1900s?

Mayukh Sen: Yes.

So Merle Oberon, she was born as Queenie Thom[p]son in India, right? [As I note above, “Queenie” was a childhood nickname.] And many Anglo-Indians, Merle Oberon included, grew up having to deal with intense social discrimination because the fact that they were essentially neither here nor there. They didn’t easily assimilate into the wider South Asian population and they were also almost always rejected by white British folks.

Amna Nawaz: And the context for when she comes to the United States, as you point out in the book, is, again, one of real overt racism towards South Asians, right?

There was an immigration act that barred South Asians from entry. Hollywood had a code in place that barred any interracial romance on screen. You write in the book that her identity was a secret she guarded with her life.

[The Immigration Act of 1917, specifically the “Asiatic Barred Zone,” effectively barred South Asians from entering the U.S. This act created a geographically defined zone, excluding anyone from “any country not owned by the U.S. adjacent to the continent of Asia,” which included India and much of the rest of Asia. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 formally ended Asian exclusion as a feature of U.S. immigration policy.]

What would have happened if people had found out?

Mayukh Sen: So her career would have been completely destroyed had people known that she was in fact a mixed-race girl who was born into poverty in India.

The Hays Code, which was instituted in 1934 [1930-68 (enforcement started in 1934); see my post on 7 July 2013], which is coincidentally the same year that Merle Oberon first arrives in America, for example, one of its edicts barred the depiction of interracial romance, which was defined in the text as being between black and white races, but produced such a chilling effect that it also affected the opportunities for non-Black people of color, including Merle Oberon.

So had people known that she was actually mixed race and South Asian, she would not have been able to play any leading roles.

Amna Nawaz: And she does land some roles, right? She stars opposite of Laurence Olivier as Cathy in “Wuthering Heights,” as Anne Boleyn in “The Private Life of Henry VIII” [opposite Charles Laughton as King Henry VIII].

How does she hide her identity? What does she have to do?

Mayukh Sen: I mean, it requires enormous sacrifice. First, she’s armed with this backstory that was created for her all the way back in 1932 by a company called London Films. They’re the ones that [says], you know what, we’re going to give you this fictitious backstory that will essentially deflect any sort of curiosity or speculation about your heritage, right?

[London Films Productions is a British film and television production company founded in 1932 by Alexander Korda. The company made The Private Life of Henry VIII in 1933.  All together, London Films made eight movies with Oberon.]

And alongside that, she has to endure so many terrible and torturous, frankly, beauty regimens. When she was making the 1935 film “The Dark Angel,” which is the film for which she received her historic best actress nomination, she had to undergo an entire day of skin bleaching because studio crew essentially thought that she was too dark.

And this is something that she had to go through routinely as she was making films in Hollywood.

Amna Nawaz: What kind of impact did that take on her, not just on her career, but her personally, psychologically?

Mayukh Sen: I mean, I think that it really incurred such a deep psychological cost on her.

And what I found as I was writing my book and really spending a lot of time with the archives and her personal papers is that she was essentially in this dance between having to deny who she was in public while in private still keeping in touch with her family members from India.

And that sort of tension, I think, really reached a boiling point later in her life.

Amna Nawaz: You write also in the book that the words forgotten and overlooked get thrown around rather indiscriminately these days, but they apply to Merle. Why do you say that? What do you think her legacy is today?

Mayukh Sen: When it comes to conversations about Asian identity in America, so often I find people fixate on East Asian or Southeast Asian identity, not necessarily South Asian identity, which is what Merle’s story represents.

Alongside that, I would say the fact that she’s mixed race has sometimes disqualified her from these conversations about representation. And then, of course, you add to the fact that she passed as white and she had to deny her heritage.

But I do find that, in terms of Merle’s legacy, what she was really fighting for, whether she was conscious of it or not, was an entertainment ecosystem in which people, especially performers of color, did not have the roles that were available to them dictated purely by their race.

This was a South Asian woman who grew up in poverty, who went on to play Cathy in “Wuthering Heights,” this canonically white role.

Merle Oberon, Actress [in a scene from Wuthering Heights]: Heathcliff, make the world stop right here.

Mayukh Sen: She was a leading lady and a box office draw and a total star in the ’30s and ’40s. And I do think that there’s so many South Asian performers working today who are indebted to her, whether they realize it or not.

Amna Nawaz: The book is “Love, Queenie.” The author is Mayukh Sen.

Thank you so much for being here. It’s such a pleasure to speak with you.

Mayukh Sen: Thank you, Amna.

[Amna Nawaz serves as co-anchor and co-managing editor of PBS News Hour.  Shrai Popat is White House Producer for News Hour.

[Mayukh Sen is a New Jersey-born writer and author of the nonfiction books Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America (W. W. Norton & Company, 2021) and Love, Queenie: Merle Oberon, Hollywood's First South Asian Star (Norton & Company, 2025).  

[Sen was nominated for a James Beard Award in 2018 and 2019, winning the award in 2018 for his profile of Princess Pamela (“She Was a Soul Food Sensation. Then, 19 Years Ago, She Disappeared,” Food52, 2 February 2017).  He teaches food journalism at New York University and has also taught creative nonfiction classes with Kundiman, a nonprofit organization dedicated to writers and readers of Asian American literature.

[I selected this interview to post on Rick On Theater in part because, I’m embarrassed to admit, I had no idea that Merle Oberon was of South Asian descent.  As an actress, Oberon isn’t among my favorites—though I enjoy some of her films (I’m an old-movie buff)—so I’ve never dug into her background and biography. 

[(By the way, I’m also an old movie-buff—but that’s not relevant here.)

[When I watched this News Hour episode, I was quite flabbergasted to learn Oberon was born in India and was half Ceylonese!  (Of course, I also had never heard the Tasmania story, either.)  I probably don’t have to point out that Oberon wasn’t the first actor whose studio, manager, or agent cooked up a phony life story for their employee or client.  She’s also not the only one whose manufactured past was created to hide a truth that might destroy the artist’s career. 

[Still, the true story, at least as close Mayukh Sen managed to get to it, should be a lesson.  One, I fear, that won’t be valued much at this moment in human history: can’t we finally, at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, value people for who they are and what they can do instead of prejudging them on what they are.

[Note that this works both ways.  People who are good at something should be valued for what they can accomplish.  People, on the other hand, who are lousy at something should not be put in a position in which they’re expected to accomplish that thing at which they’re no good, irrespective of what they look like, whom they know (or to whom they’re related), or what group they’re connected to.  That’s the rationale at the base of the Peter Principle.  (Anyone who doesn’t remember that one from the 1960s should go look it up.  It’s a good—and somewhat frightening—theory which we may be seeing in action right here in City!)]

"A Pointy Reckoning": Arthur Miller's Women

by Alisa Solomon

[John Proctor is the Villain opened on Broadway last Monday, the 14th, one of several new plays that provide a woman’s perspectives to the works of Arthur Miller like The Crucible, Death of a Salesman, and other iconic American dramas.  In American Theatre’s Spring 2025 issue (vol. 41, no. 3), theater journalist and professor Alisa Solomon presents “A Pointy Reckoning,” a look at these plays.  (Solomon’s article was also posted on the AT website as “The Revolt of Arthur Miller’s Women” on 8 April 2025.)]

A spate of new plays sticks up for the women in Arthur Miller’s iconic dramas.

They are among the most famous words spoken by a woman in a canonical American play: “Attention must be paid.” It’s Linda Loman, of course, in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, admonishing her oldest son, Biff, to show his late father some respect. “He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog,” Linda insists. “Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.”

[Death of a Salesman premièred at the Morosco Theatre on Broadway on 10 February 1949 and closed on 18 November 1950 after 742 performances. The play was directed by Elia Kazan, and starred Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman, Mildred Dunnock as Linda, Arthur Kennedy as Biff, Howard Smith as Charley, and Cameron Mitchell as Happy. It was nominated for and won the Tony Awards for Best Play, Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Kennedy), Best Scenic Design (Jo Mielziner), Producer (Dramatic) (Kermit Bloomgarden and Walter Fried), Author, and Director, as well as the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best American Play. Death of a Salesman has been revived on Broadway five times and has played around the world and in regional, community, and school theaters countless times. It’s also been adapted for films and television broadcasts.]

“Such a person” was understood in a number of ways when Salesman opened on Broadway in 1949. It could refer to an abstract “capitalized Human Being without being anyone, a suffering animal who commands helpless pity,” as Mary McCarthy [1912-89; novelist, critic, and political activist] put it, or a heroic striver playing by the rules yet beaten down by a punishing capitalist system, the hero of what Miller [1915-2005] called a tragedy of “the common man.”

One thing “such a person” absolutely didn’t mean then: a woman. On the contrary, for Miller, in order for a protagonist to confront a moral test within the social sphere, he had to be male. The main women in Salesman—and in Miller’s other most studied and produced play, The Crucible—are a dutiful, chore-laden wife (Linda Loman; Elizabeth Proctor) and a sexual temptress (the otherwise unnamed “Woman” with whom Willy has an affair; Abigail Williams). The issue isn’t that these characters are weak or unbelievable in their contexts. The problem is structural: The erotic lure of the Woman and of Abigail is what catalyzes the hero’s self-sacrificing downfall in both plays.

[After starting a try-out run at The Playhouse in Wilmington, Delaware, from 15 to 17 January 1953 (four performances), The Crucible débuted at Broadway’s Martin Beck Theatre (now the Al Hirschfeld) on 22 January, starring Arthur Kennedy as John Proctor, E. G. Marshall as Rev. Hale, Beatrice Straight as Elizabeth Proctor, and Madeleine Sherwood as Abigail Williams. The production was produced by Kermit Bloomgarden and directed by Jed Harris. Miller felt that this production was too stylized and cold, and the reviews for it were largely hostile (although the New York Times noted “a powerful play [in a] driving performance”).

[On 22 June 1953, the production, with Miller assuming the directorship, opened with a new cast (including Marshall replacing Kennedy as Proctor and Maureen Stapleton in for Straight as Elizabeth Proctor), a simplified set and substituted curtains, and an added scene; the new production succeeded. Crucible won the 1953 Tony Awards for Best Play and Best Featured Actress in a Play (Straight). The production closed on 11 July 1953 after 197 performances.]

Over the decades feminist critics and scholars too numerous to name have grappled productively with Miller’s reliance on the old madonna/whore dichotomy and with his narrow ideas of masculinity. More recently, though, it is playwrights who have been taking on the gender issues that Miller seemed oblivious to, as the Broadway marquee currently proclaiming John Proctor is the Villain makes plain. The play with that table-turning title, by Kimberly Belflower, is one of at least nine American works for the stage that fire feminist rejoinders to Miller. They too demand that attention must be paid, but reorient what—and to whom—it is due.

[John Proctor is the Villain was commissioned by The Farm Theater in Brooklyn, New York, for their College Collaboration Project and first workshopped in 2018 and 2019 in the theater departments of three colleges: Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, and Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida.

[The final version of the play was premièred by the Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C., from 27 April until 5 June 2022. A subsequent production was staged at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston from 8 February until 10 March 2024. John Proctor is the Villain opened at the Booth Theatre in New York City on 14 April 2025 and is scheduled to end its limited run on 6 July. The Broadway production is directed by Danya Taymor and stars Sadie Sink as the blunt-speaking deus ex machina, Shelby Holcomb.]

Different as these plays are from each other in form, tone, focus, and perspective, they all signal urgently through the sexist smog that has risen off these American classics in the nearly three-quarters of a century since they were written. Five of these new plays riff on The Crucible (1953) and three on Salesman (1949), and one [A Woman Among Women by Julia May Jonas; see below] takes inspiration from All My Sons (1946). Some frame the Miller work under scrutiny as a play-not-quite-within-the-play (Belflower’s play; Katie Forgette’s Mrs. Loman is Leaving; Sheri Wilner’s Kingdom City). Others take a sophisticated fan-fic tack by setting Miller’s characters in plots that come before, or after (Liz Duffy Adams’s Witch Hunt; Eleanor Burgess’s Wife of a Salesman; Barbara Cassidy’s Mrs. Loman; Talene Monahon’s The Good John Proctor).

[All My Sons is a three-act play written in 1946. After tryouts at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut (9-11 January 1947), and the Colonial Theatre in Boston (13-27[?] January), it opened on Broadway at the Coronet Theatre on 29 January and closed on 8 November 1947, running for 328 performances. The production was produced by Elia Kazan and Harold Clurman, directed by Kazan, and won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play. It starred Ed Begley as Joe Keller, Beth Merrill as Kate Keller, Arthur Kennedy as Chris Keller, and Karl Malden as George Deever, and won both the Tony Award for Best Author and the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play. The play was adapted for films in 1948 and 1987, and has had many revivals on Broadway, across the United States, and around the world.

[Mrs. Loman is Leaving premièred at Seattle, Washington’s ACT Contemporary Theatre from 12 to 27 October 2024. Kingdom City was developed at Launch Pad at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2010 and premièred at La Jolla Playhouse, on the campus of the University of California, San Diego, from 23 September to 5 October 2014. Witch Hunt was workshopped at PlayPenn New Plays Conference in 2012 (with a reading on 21 July) and premièred at the Contemporary American Theater Festival at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia (17-21 July 2013), under the title A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World (for a report on an earlier CATF, see “Contemporary American Theater Festival (2004)” [8 July 2015]).

[Wife of a Salesman had its world première at the Writers Theatre in Chicago in a co-production with the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre from 3 March through 3 April 2022; the Milwaukee Rep presentation ran there from 27 September to 6 November 2022. Mrs. Loman was workshopped from 5 to 20 November 2022 at The Tank in Manhattan, New York, and débuted on Off-Broadway’s Theatre Row at Theatre Five on 5-15 February 2025. The Good John Proctor had its world première by Bedlam theater company, performing at the Connelly Theater in New York City’s East Village, from 11 March to 1 April 2023.]

Some whirl into more fanciful forms that abstractly incorporate aspects of both approaches (Julia May Jonas’s A Woman Among Women; Sarah Ruhl’s Becky Nurse of Salem). Miller has become especially ripe for such treatment in recent years for reasons that, like those that impel many of his protagonists, have to do with his reputation and with the ineluctable social forces that shape it. For one, his standing as a Classic American Playwright has been solidified for two generations. The critics who disparaged his plays as having “middlebrow” pretensions in the serious magazines of 1950s and ’60s—Eric Bentley [1916-2020], Robert Brustein [1927-2023], and Richard Gilman [1923-2006], among others—are no longer with us (neither, for that matter, are the theatre pages in the magazines that employed them). More significantly, the high/low culture distinctions they labored to uphold—with pretentious “midcult” art being the worst of all for trying to be at once hugely popular and artistically momentous—have evaporated into the postmodern ether. Nowadays, no one questions Miller’s place in America’s playwriting pantheon, even if we object to his disregard for women as potential tragic heroes. That Miller, more than Eugene O’Neill [1888-1953] or Tennessee Williams [1911-83], has also been widely regarded as a preeminent moral conscience among American dramatists, has been a further goad to the creative scrutiny of feminist playwrights.

[A Woman Among Women was developed through residencies at the North American Cultural Laboratory, The Jam at New Georges, and the Great Plains Theatre Conference. The play premièred from 15 October to 17 November 2024 at the Bushwick Starr in Brooklyn, New York, in a coproduction with The Georges of Manhattan. Becky Nurse of Salem made its début at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in California from 19 December 2019 to 29 January 2020; it later had its New York première at the Lincoln Center Theater’s Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater from 4-22 December 2022.]

Their countervailing plays emerged in the wake of political developments that not only spurred them on, but that surface overtly in their work. Take Ruhl’s mordant comedy, Becky Nurse of Salem, for instance. Set in 2016 in the infamous Massachusetts town, the play has as its title character the foul-mouthed, opioid-popping descendant of Rebecca Nurse, a midwife hanged for alleged witchcraft some 325 years earlier. Becky is struggling to make ends meet as she raises her teenage granddaughter. Frequently, she has to ask someone to turn down a TV blaring coverage of a Trump rally (“Lock her up! Lock her up!”). In a scene when Becky is arrested for trying, without a license, to correct the historical record by offering “The Real Tour of Salem,” the scene shifts (“bizarrely,” say the stage directions) to 1692, and Becky becomes Rebecca. A live crowd chants the same menacing words, denouncing her as a witch. Time periodically collapses and springs back in Ruhl’s play: Language, clothing, and customs change, but misogyny holds constant through the centuries.

These plays reflect, too, demands made by both the Black Lives Matter [launched in 2013] and #MeToo [launched in 2006; popularized as a hashtag in 2017] movements that Americans face up to shameful realities of our histories and to inequities that persist. Not that anyone is trying to topple Miller like a Confederate statue. Rather, the new plays resemble the contextualizing and additive materials that historians recommend placing around such monuments.

Like Becky, Adams’s, Monahon’s, and Belflower’s plays emend a factual inaccuracy in The Crucible, noting that Abigail was all of 11 years old at the time of the witch trials, and Proctor, 60—not, respectively, 17 and 30-something, as Miller deliberately rendered them to make Abigail the seductress of a male paragon of integrity. (Stacy Schiff’s [b. 1961] meticulous 2015 account of the Salem witch trials in her book, The Witches: Salem, 1692 [Little, Brown & Co., 2015], set the record straight.) In different ways, these writers call into question The Crucible’s inciting incident, Proctor’s “affair” with Abigail, and skewer the punishing patriarchal worldview of Puritan New England—and of Arthur Miller—that discredits, and often silences, women’s voices.

In her thriller Witch Hunt Or, A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World, Adams picks up the story after the witch trials. Abigail, having fled Salem, returns to the region a decade later, seeking to understand why the town’s “high and powerful men” urged the girls on. “They had never listened to ones so low as us in their lives,” she says. “Now they killed people on our word.”

Setting The Good John Proctor in 1691, the year before Miller’s play is set, Monahon brings us into the dreams, drudgery, and degradations of Salem’s pubescent girls in a series of short, mystery-tinged, Caryl Churchill-like scenes. Abigail is 11 (and nonbinary), and her cousin, Betty, only 9. Using 21st-century language in a 17th-century world, Monahon connects the mistrust and exploitation of Salem’s girls to the suppression #MeToo sought to shake off.

The girls in John Proctor Is the Villain are high school students in a small town studying The Crucible in their English class and finding disturbing parallels between the old text and their own lives—rife, as they are, with creepy adult men and the adolescent upheaval of sexual feelings. Says one:

The thing this play is talking about is that pretty much all these girls had been like assaulted at some point. I mean like sexually. I read this book that says most of these girls probably had like PTSD which explains the like crazy physical fits that people thought were happening because of witchcraft but anyway so yeah like the assault stuff was everywhere. Their dads, older men in the town, stable boys, whoever . . . [.]

The reading-against-the-grain insights these students glean from The Crucible help bring local real-life abuses to light. The play culminates with the girls dancing in an ecstatic frenzy, reclaiming as feminist bonding and expression what had earlier been condemned as witchcraft.

Building dramatic action around studying or staging a Miller play provides several of the feminist playwrights opportunities for direct, even bald, commentary on the original. Forgette makes great use of this ploy in her hilarious backstage comedy, Mrs. Loman is Leaving, in which two aging actors are making their comebacks in Salesman. But there are offstage bumps: The man playing Willy is hallucinating as wildly as his character, while Joanne, the woman playing Linda, is falling apart after she learns, via text, shortly before curtain, that her husband is leaving her. Her grief and fury over her personal crisis commingle with Linda’s and color her challenge to the director’s encomiums about Willy.

I have to interrupt before you can spin out some half-baked explanation of why it’s okay for this bloviating mediocre man to treat a woman who has devoted her life to his every need. Why is she mending her stockings?! He gives stockings to his girlfriend! Where are Linda’s? WHERE ARE LINDA’S STOCKINGS!!!???

When the director retorts that Linda “represents the expectations and limitations of her gender for the time period. Women were helpmates. They supported their husbands,” Joanne replies, “That doesn’t mean that she didn’t have a personal dream of her own. What was Linda’s dream before she gave it up?”

In her sequel to Salesman, Cassidy takes up such questions, extending the psychological depth Miller grants his male characters to Linda. Mrs. Loman begins after Willy’s funeral, as Linda enrolls in college, develops a friendship with another woman who mysteriously knew Willy, and challenges her son, Happy, over his appalling misogyny. In a prequel, Wife of a Salesman, Burgess uses both strategies: She imagines Linda confronting the Woman, ahead of the moment in Miller’s plot when Biff learns of his father’s affair, potentially erasing its inciting incident. Later Burgess disrupts the action, revealing the whole thing as a play-within-the-play; the two actors performing “Wife” and “Mistress” comment on their roles and their own somewhat parallel lives.

Rather than parallel, Jonas’s characters in A Woman Among Women run aslant of Miller’s in All My Sons; of this new crop of Miller riffs, hers offers the most oblique response to the play that inspired it, as she explores his dramatic vision but swaps out his lenses for her own. All My Sons centers on a “man among men,” as Miller called Joe Keller, a respected businessman who secretly holds onto an incriminating lie to retain his stature. While reversing most of the characters’ genders and moving the action from a small Ohio town to famously multi-culti, queer-friendly Northampton, Massachusetts, Jonas borrows Miller’s backyard setting and other key elements: a central family with two grown children, one of whom is absent; a close-knit community of neighbors; high-stakes questions of moral responsibility; Aristotelian principles of tragedy.

In a note in the script, Jonas says she set out to discover what a “woman among women” might mean. Her answer not only emerges in the shape of an almost casual, fourth-wall-breaking style that features some quirky little songs. It also gives its hero, who runs a “wellness center for women,” a transgression less blatantly self-serving than Joe Keller’s—and, forsaking Miller’s certainty, a denouement that leaves everything in doubt.

It’s impossible to know what Miller himself might have made of these dramaturgical clapbacks. Forty years ago, when the Wooster Group incorporated a large chunk of The Crucible into L.S.D. (…Just the High Points), the troupe’s mash-up of a high-speed recitation of Miller’s text with passages from Timothy Leary’s [1920-96] treatise on the hallucinogen, he objected, and the show was eventually shut down. “Maybe at some point in the future,’’ Miller told The New York Times then, “the play will become a kind of public classic. But I’m still around and I should have a say about how the play is done as long as I am.”

[The New York-based experimental theater company Wooster Group morphed out The Performance Group (founded by Richard Schechner [b. 1934], Professor Emeritus at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and editor of TDR: The Drama Review, in 1967) from 1975 to 1980. Under artistic director Elizabeth LeCompte (b. 1944), it took its current name, derived from its address at 33 Wooster Street in SoHo, in 1980 but remained housed in the Performing Garage, a former metal-working factory.

[The troupe’s style is highly experimental, bending, mixing, and deconstructing genres and media, applying a lot of high-tech effects. Their performances often use familiar texts from the likes of Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), and Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953), which they usually reinterpret and subvert as raw ingredients.

[L.S.D. emerged over a period of collective development and workshopping in the mid-1980s. It was presented in October 1984 as a work-in-progress at The Performing Garage, then, from 22 March to 13 April 1984, Parts 1, 2, and 3 were performed, under the amended title L.S.D. (. . . Just the High Points . . .), at the Garage. On 15 April, Part 4 was added, and all four parts of L.S.D. were first performed in Boston, Massachusetts, through 13 May 1984. The play ran about 110 minutes in its complete form.

[From 27 September to 25 November 1984, L.S.D. was staged at The Performing Garage, during which run the Wooster Group received a cease-and-desist threat from Arthur Miller’s lawyers. The Group ceased performances of L.S.D. while actor-writer Michael Kirby (1931-97) wrote a new Part 2 (The Crucible section) and from 5 to 12 January 1985, L.S.D. reopened with the new version of Part 2.

[Over the next five years, the Wooster Group’s L.S.D. (. . . Just the High Points . . .) toured across the U.S. and around the world, returning to the Performing Garage in January and February 1987. It became Wooster Group’s most notorious performance piece.]

The plays are public classics now (some intellectual property restrictions notwithstanding), available to a robust playwriting tradition of theatrically talking back to canonical plays in a feminist register: Elaine Feinstein’s Lear’s Daughters, Zinnie Harris’s Macbeth (An Undoing), and Paula Vogel’s Desdemona: A Play about a Handkerchief all transpose Shakespeare in this way. Such works shrewdly craft fresh stories from revered old ones to critically engage the past, the present, and the ways we construct the past in—and for—the present.

[Tracing the origins and production history of Lear’s Daughters, a “prequel” of Shakespeare’s play from the perspective of Cordelia, Goneril, and Regan, was confusing and uncertain as the record is elusive. It was commissioned in 1987 by the Women’s Theatre Group (renamed the Sphinx Theatre Company in 1999), one of the oldest women’s theater organizations in the United Kingdom, founded in 1973. Elaine Feinstein was brought in to write the dialogue with members of the collective, but the writing credits vary from listing (programs, posters, advertisements, publication) to listing.

[The script was first staged, it seems, on 12 September 1987, but whether that was in a London theater or on tour is unclear; in any case, the production went out on tour of the U.K. immediately and performed until 5 December.  There seems also to have been a staging at the Battersea Arts Center on 24 September 1987, but if it was a single showing or one of multiple performances is unknown.  Other tours followed in 1988 shortly after the first one. Revivals have been staged in recent years to mixed reviews.

[Macbeth (An Undoing), a retelling of the Shakespeare tale with Lady Macbeth at the center, premièred at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, Scotland, on 4-25 February 2023. It transferred to the Rose Theatre, Kingston in London in 8-23 March 2024, and then Theatre for a New Audience, an Off-Broadway company in Brooklyn, New York, with the U.K. cast on 5-28 April 2024.

[Desdemona: A Play about a Handkerchief, a reconfiguring of the Othello story from the women's point of view, premièred from 21 July to 9 August 1993 at the Bay Street Theatre, in Sag Harbor, New York, on Long Island. It moved Off-Broadway to the Circle Repertory Company in Greenwich Village from 27 October to 5 December 1993.]

One thing is certain. All nine of the feminist playwrights wrestling with their towering predecessor share one of Miller’s steadfast principles: that theatre matters, that it is the ideal sphere for examining social pressures, their fractures, and the impact they have on ordinary lives.

The word “feminist” does not appear on any of the 600 pages of Miller’s autobiography, Timebends [Grove Press, 1987]. Still, when he writes, “I could not imagine a theatre worth my time that did not want to change the world,” he offers these new plays a full endorsement.

[Alisa Solomon (she/her), a dramaturg in New York City and a professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, is a long-time theater critic and general reporter for the Village Voice, Jewish Currents, The Nation, and the New York Times, among other publications.  Solomon has written two award-winning books: Re-Dressing the Canon: Essays on Theater and Gender (Routledge, 1997) and Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof (Metropolitan Books, 2013).]