SOURCE: “The Folk, the Blues, and the Problems of Mule Bone,” in The Langston Hughes Review, Vol. XIII, No. 1, Fall-Spring, 1994-1995, pp. 33-44.

In the following essay, Boyd offers an initial evaluation of Mule Bone, a plays she suggests requires further critical study. She examines the famous literary quarrel of its authors, Hurston and Langston Hughes, and maintains that although the play presents stereotyped characters and a weak plot, it features a tragic sensibility beneath its comic surface.

Dream-singers Story-tellers Dancers Loud laughters in the hands of Fate—My people 

Langston Hughes, “My People”

“big picture talkers were using a side of the world for a canvas” 

Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

We Who have nothing to lose Must laugh and dance Lest our laugher Goes from Us. 

Langston Hughes, “Black Dancers”

Greatly anticipated as one of the most important recoveries in Black American literature...