Simon is one of the best-known theatre critics in America. In this excerpt, he reviews the debut production of Hurston and Hughes's play, finding itworthwhile theatrical entertainment. While the critic calls the source material "skimpy," he nevertheless praises the presentation, stating "it was worth waiting 60 years for so accomplished a production to reach the stage.''

Mule Bone was to have been the play (suggested at a 1930 party by Theresa Helburn to Langston Hughes) that would be neither heavy social drama nor minstrel show but a real comedy of black life that would extend the Harlem Renaissance to the stage. Hughes enlisted Zora Neale Hurston, and they started converting her brief folktale "The Bone of Contention" into the three-act Mule Bone. It was never quite finished because, under various inner and outer pressures, the co-authors quarreled, for reasons still not fully understood. The story of "The...