Baraka's one-act play opens in darkness. A variety of sounds and smells are emitted to the audience in order to represent the "atmosfeeling" of life in the hold of a slave ship. The sounds include that of the sea, and the boat rocking, as well as the sounds of the suffering of the enslaved Africans, and the sounds of the white slave traders. The smells are meant to create an atmosphere of "life processes going on anyway," and include "urine" and "excrement." A light comes up on two white sailors chatting idly about the "riches" to be had from the slave trade in America, above the "drone of terror" from the hold below them. While the stage is still in almost complete darkness, the sounds of the enslaved Africans on the ship continue, and begin to.....
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