SOURCE: Bradby, David. “Blacking Up—Three Productions by Peter Stein.” In A Radical Stage: Theatre in Germany in the 1970s and 1980s, edited by W. G. Sebald, pp. 18-30. Oxford: Berg Publishers Limited, 1988.

In the following review, Bradby assesses three productions of The Blacks directed by Peter Stein.

‘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?’¹ With these words Genet introduced his play The Blacks, adding a further note in which he insisted that the play must be performed to an audience of whites. If by chance there were to be no white person present, a white dummy or white masks would have to be used.

The reasons for Genet's insistence are clear enough: blackness is a social construct, something culturally determined, having its origin in the colonial encounter. Biological...