In [Les Nègres] the characters are masks, they exist as appearance only, and the black skin of the negroes is as much a mask as the grotesque white masks of the actors who mirror us, the white audience, and our society; the dramatic action is presented as performance, and the ritual qualities of this performance are emphasized by incantations, chanting and dancing as well as by echoes of rituals which are central to our christian civilisation: the litanie des blèmes, the music of the dies irae chanted at the time of the ritual murder, etc. (p. 51)

The printed edition of Genet's play is prefaced by the following note:…

One evening an actor asked me to write a play for an all-black cast. But what exactly is a black? First of all, what's his colour?

This most accurately sums up the whole tone of the play, for...