When Dion Boucicault wrote "The Octoroon" in 1859, it was considered a masterpiece. Its story of a plantation owner falling for a woman of mixed race was taken as a bold plea for racial tolerance; now, it just seems embarrassingly racist. So why has America’s hottest young black playwright decided to rescue such a play from obscurity? "An Octoroon," Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ radical response, compares attitudes to race then and now in the funniest and least comfortable theatre experience in years. Winner of the 2014 OBIE Award for Best New American Play. "AN OCTOROON invites us to laugh loudly and easily at how naïve the old stereotypes now seem, until nothing seems funny at all…Mr. Jacobs-Jenkins is using a genre associated with exclamation points to ask questions not only about the portrayal of race in America but also about the inadequate means we have for such portrayals. I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to reveal that this show ends—spectacularly and hauntingly—with all of us in the dark.”—The New York Times.
11/2 - 11/17
1217 S. Main St., Las Vegas, 89104