["The Niggerlovers"] is as brash as its name. It is a piece of imitation Brecht, which means that it is interlarded with songs, dances, tumbling, and, in this instance, more complex calisthenics. The tone is gleeful contempt—second-hand gleeful contempt. The target is liberals, and the action is designed to expose their disgraceful collapse under pressure. This action consists of two scenes, barely related…. In the first scene, [The Liberal] is an old professor … who plans to go to Mississippi to help out. A woman photographer persuades two Negroes to give him some idea of what lies in store for him. For purposes of demonstration, the blacks pretend to be whites, or whatever color you would call rednecks, and the professor a black. The rest of the act is given over to brutal and ritualistic samples of savagery…. There is no denying the force of these episodes, but their effect quickly evaporates. They are synthetic, and they tell us nothing that we didn't already know about the horrible plight of Negroes. The second act consists for the most part of a conversation between a timorous man of high principles but faint heart, and his police dog, a sentimental Viennese bitch with the soul of a Nazi. (pp. 152-53)
The lyrics for the songs were written by Mr. Tabori, who is not Bertolt Brecht, and the music was composed by Richard Peaslee, who is not Kurt Weill…. (p. 153)
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