An Octoroon

Content Warning: The source text and this guide include depictions of slavery and racialized violence, discussion of rape, and dramatized suicide. The play uses the n-word throughout, which is replicated and obscured in this guide only when directly quoting the source material.

In an empty theater, BJJ addresses the audience, introducing himself as “a ‘black playwright,’” adding, “I don’t know exactly what that means” (7). He describes a conversation with his therapist about his mild depression, performing both sides of the discussion. Soliciting ideas for things that make BJJ happy, the therapist questions him about his work and which playwrights he admires. Prodded to name a playwright, BJJ blurts the name Dion Boucicault, a popular 19th-century melodramatic playwright whose most famous play was called The Octoroon—an outdated term for someone who is an eighth Black. The therapist suggests that BJJ write an adaptation of The Octoroon. BJJ explains that he did, but the white actors he hired quit, complaining that the play was too melodramatic. His therapist wonders if BJJ is angry at white people, which he denies with confusion. In response, the therapist advises him to play the characters himself, calling it colorblind casting.