38 pages • 1 hour read
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf
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Essay Topics
Examine Shange’s stage directions. How does she instruct directors to set the tone through lighting and sound? How do her movement instructions for performers shape the reader’s visualizations? What other ways does she make the work come alive for readers who can’t see the play?
Shange refers to music and culture throughout the text. How do these musical references provide authorial, cultural, historical, and social context?
Watch clips from a live theatrical performance of for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf. How do the live performances from more recent years compare to the original text?
Shange pioneered a new form with the choreopoem, combining poetry, storytelling, music, sound, and dance to create a singular performance-based work. What freedoms come from her rejecting the constraints of a singular writing format? How does this freedom change the way she expresses her themes?
How does the piece “dark phrases” introduce and address the choreopoem’s themes? How does “a laying on of hands” resolve them?
If Shange had presented this work as a plot and character-driven narrative, how would this work have changed? Compare the choreopoem’s structure to more traditional narrative structures.
What do colors represent in the choreopoem? How do the performers Shange selects for each poem reflect a deeper message?
How does Shange achieve her intention to “sing a black girl’s song” (4)?
In 2010, Shange updated the choreopoem to mention the Iraq War and add a poem about HIV/AIDS. If this choreopoem were adapted to suit today’s historical context, what topics might it include?
If this choreopoem were adapted to reflect women from your cultural background, how might it change? What topics would it cover? What themes would it explore? What might it have in common with the original text?
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By Ntozake Shange
