["Wedding Band" is a play about] a pair of lovers no longer young. She is black, he is white; she is a seamstress, he is a baker named Herman. The time is 1918, while the United States is still at war, and the place is a city in South Carolina….
Much of the wealth of "Wedding Band" is in the small scenes of byplay among the neighbors. For the most part, Miss Childress … [succeeds] in creating a whole style of life at that time and in that place…. All through the action, things are on the move: two little girls run around and scream and play, a nasty white peddler wanders in and out, and everyone minds everyone else's business, sometimes in a very kind and supportive way. The first act is splendid, but after that we hit a few jarring notes, when the characters seem to be speaking as much for the benefit of us eavesdroppers out front in 1972 as for the benefit of one another. At one point,… [the seamstress], in a farewell toast, talks of her hopes for the future, when blacks will be free to go to "parks and museums." It is a dreadful speech, made straight to the audience, that sounds like something out of a bad Russian movie. Whether these spurts of spuriousness are the fault of the writing … I cannot say, but … they do not spoil the evening. (p. 105)
Edith Oliver, in The New Yorker (© 1972 by The New Yorker Magazine, Inc.), November 4, 1972.
This is a free excerpt of 257 words. There are 261 words (approx.
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Read the rest of this Criticism with our Childress, Alice 1920–: Critical Essay by Edith Oliver Access Pass.
