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.

This chapter focuses on the reception of ancient Greek tragedy by African writers. It starts with a definition of the term post-colonial and related aspects such as the use of language in post-colonial writing. It attempts to trace the path this reception followed from Europe to post-colonial Africa, then to Carribean and Afro-American cultures as part of the first diaspora, and then back to Europe as part of the second diaspora. Selected examples will be analysed in order to illustrate how African writers have used the ancient Greek plays in order to 'write back' to the (former) colonial centre as part of post-colonial discourse.