Douglas A. Jones, Jr. looks at performance in the antebellum period and casts a critical spotlight on the ambivalent nature of African American theatre. He looks at both the coerced performances of Black captives – such as their singing and dancing during the transatlantic crossing of slave ships and preceding their still stands on auction blocks – and those voluntarily created acts, such as the “wild songs” on plantations and, later, the productions at Brown’s African theatre, to interrogate the multiple purposes to which Black performance could be employed. He demonstrates that Black theatre in itself is not inherently liberating. It has been used to reinforce the condition of oppression. However, it has also been infused with the potential to create an “oppositional culture” capable of challenging the status quo.