Three plays — Themes and Context

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In Category - Historical Psychological Social Fiction

Authors: Hurston, Zora Neale, 1891-1960 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2005 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: African Americans -- Drama Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 8,129

Reading time 36 min

Text sections 2

This digital edition of Three plays — Themes and Context is described by source-level measurements including 8,129 words, 36 min estimated reading time, and 2 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 14.5 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “African Americans -- Drama,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #17187

Zora Neale Hurston's three one-act plays—Lawing and Jawing, Forty Yards, Woofing—transcribed from manuscripts with handwritten notations, featuring African American vernacular dialogue, courtroom comedy, and street-corner checkers.

Editorial Edition Score 4.4/5

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
Source metadata20 pts
Text length15 pts
Chapters / structure15 pts
EPUB file integrity20 pts

Total of 100 points, scaled to a 2.5-5.0 range. Editions with an empty description or a missing EPUB file are not scored.

Edition quality

File: pg17187

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She was usin' good sense to come see whut I'm doin', but how come _you_ come in here? You gointer have a hard time gittin' out.

BOY I ain't done a thing. I ain't never done nothin'. I'm just as clean as a fish, and he been bathin' all his life.

JUDGE You ain't done nothin', hunh? Well den youse guilty of vacancy. Grab 'im, Simpson, and search 'im--and if he got any concealed weapons, I'm gointer give 'im life-time and eight years mo'. (The OFFICER seizes the boy and frisks him. All he finds is a new deck of cards. The JUDGE looks at them in triumph.) Unh hunh! I knowed it, one of dese skin game jelly-beans. Robbin' hard workin' men out they money.

BOY Judge, I ain't used 'em at all. See, dey's brand new.

JUDGE Well, den youse charged wid totin' concealed cards and attempt to gamble. Ten years at hard labor. Put him in de dark, Simpson, and throw de key away. (He looks at the girl and beams.) Don't you worry bout how you gointer git home. You gointer be took home right, 'cause I'm gointer take you myself. Bring on de next one, clerk.

CLERK Jemima Flap-Cakes, charged with illegal possession and sale of alcoholic liquors.

JUDGE (She is a fat, black, belligerent looking woman. JUDGE looks coldly at her.) Well, you heard whut he said. Is you guilty or unguilty? And I'm tellin' you right now dat you come up befo' _me_ it's just like youse in church. You better have a strong determination, and you better tell a good experience.

JEMIMA (Arms akimbo) Yes, I sold it and I'll sell it again. (snaps fingers and shakes hips) How does ole booze-selling mama talk?

JUDGE Yes, five thousand dollars and ten years in jail. (Snaps fingers and shakes hips) How does ole heavy fining papa talk? (She is led away, shouting and weeping)

CLERK De Otis Blunt, charged wid stealin' a mule. (LAWYER arises and comes forward with the prisoner)

LAWYER You can't convict this man. I'm here to represent him.

JUDGE Yo' mouf might spout lak a coffee pot but I got a lawyer (Looks at other lawyer) dat kin beat your segastuatin'. (Looks admiring at girl) How am I chewin' my dictionary and minglin' my alphabets?

LAWYER Well, I kin try, can't I?

JUDGE Oh yeah, you kin try, but I kin see right now where he's gointer git all de time dat God ever made dat ain't been used already. From now on. (To LAWYER) Go 'head, and spread yo' lungs all over Georgy, but he's goin' to jail! Mules _must_ be respected.

LAWYER (Striking a pose at the bar) Your Honor, (Looks at the pretty girl) Ladies and Gentlemen--

JUDGE Never mind 'bout dat lady. You talk yo' chat to _me_.

LAWYER This is a clear case of syllogism! Again I say syllogism. My client is innocent because it was a dark night when they say he stole the mule and that's against all laws of syllogism. (JUDGE looks impressed and laughs)

JUDGE Dat ole fool do know somethin' 'bout law.

LAWYER When George Washington was pleading de case of Marbury vs. Madison, what did _he_ say? What _did_ he say? Scintillate, scintillate, Globule orific. Fain would I fathom thy nature's specific. Loftily poised in ether capacious, strongly resembling a gem carbonacious. What did Abraham Lincoln say about mule-stealing? When torrid Phoebut refuses his presence and ceases to lamp with fierce incandescence, then you illumine the regions supernal, scintillate, scintillate, semper noctornal. Syllogism, again I say syllogism. (He takes his seat amid applause)

JUDGE Man, youse a pleadin' fool. You knows yo' rules and by-laws.

OTHER LAWYER Let me show my glory. Let me spread my habeas corpus.

JUDGE 'Tain't no use. Dis lawyer done convinced me.

OTHER LAWYER But, lemme parade my material--

JUDGE Parade yo' material anywhere you wants to exceptin' befo' me. Dis lil girl wants to go home and I'm goin' with her and enjoy de consequences. Court's adjourned.

ZORA *[Handwritten: (Neale)] HURSTON

(A Negro football game with the popular concept of Negro life)

PLACE: Washington, D.C.

PERSONS: The Howard and Lincoln teams, the Howard band, cheer leaders, spectators.

SETTING: The park with grandstands on either sides and up-stage.

ACTION: At rise, the grandstands are full, the cheer leaders are violently gyrating to whip up the mob. The Lincoln colors fly from the right. The Howard from the left. Both have cheer leaders. First is heard the Lincoln mob singing "DIDN'T HE RAMBLE, RAMBLE."

And didn't he ramble, ramble, ramble all around, in and out of town He rambled, he rambled, rambled till Ol' Lincoln cut him down

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Zora Neale Hurston’s Three Plays consists of three one-act works transcribed from original manuscripts, complete with pencilled notations possibly by the author. The first play, Lawing and Jawing, opens in a Georgia courtroom where Judge Dunfumy, wearing a black cap and gown, threatens a spectator with twenty years for pecking at an elephant. The dialogue is rich in vernacular: “My honor is on de bench,” the judge declares. The setting includes a large red arrow marked “To Jail,” pointing off-stage left. The catalog subject “African Americans – Drama” accurately reflects the characters and speech patterns, but the excerpts show these plays are as much about everyday social dynamics—flirtation, checkers, and verbal sparring—as about legal proceedings.

Courtroom Comedy and Verbal Play

In Lawing and Jawing, Hurston uses the courtroom as a stage for comic exaggeration and linguistic invention. Judge Dunfumy’s opening threat—“I’d give a canary bird twenty years for peckin’ at a elephant”—sets a tone of absurd authority. The dialogue is full of wordplay: a character describes himself as “a much-right man,” and another retorts, “Dis ain’t Gimme, Ga. Dis is Waycross.” The play’s humor arises from the gap between official legal language and the characters’ inventive, rhythmic speech. The judge’s “honor” is repeatedly undercut by his own flirtatious glances at a pretty girl in the front row. The manuscript’s handwritten notations, transcribed as [Handwritten:(text)], suggest Hurston revised these lines carefully, perhaps testing their oral effect.

Checkers, Courtship, and Street Scenes

The second excerpt shifts from the courtroom to a street-corner checkers game. The dialogue is fast-paced and competitive: “Come on, Good Black, lemme wrap dis checker roun yo’ neck.” The players are surrounded by onlookers who offer advice, and the scene is punctuated by flirtatious exchanges with passing women. A girl named Bee Ethel asks for five dollars for stockings; Cliff responds with a string of metaphors: “I’m just lak de cemetery. I takes in but never no put out.” The play Woofing (not excerpted) likely continues this pattern of verbal dueling. The excerpts show that Hurston’s drama is built on call-and-response, rhythmic insults, and the physical comedy of characters who “git hot real quick” but cool down when confronted by someone bigger. The setting is deliberately casual—a porch, a street—suggesting that the real drama is in the talk itself.

Music, Dance, and Communal Performance

Hurston integrates music and dance directly into the action. In one scene, a character named Lonnie tunes a guitar and sings “Cold Rainy Day,” and others join in dancing the Lindy Hop. The men cry out ecstatic phrases: “Shimmy! If you can’t shimmy, shake your head.” The dance is communal, with couples and soloists, and the women exit “switching it and looking back at it.” These moments are not interludes but part of the narrative flow—the checkers game pauses for a song, then resumes. The manuscript’s stage directions are minimal but vivid: “They couple off as far as possible and Lindy.” Hurston, a trained anthropologist, embeds folk performance within the plays’ structure, making the dialogue and movement inseparable. The catalog subject “African Americans – Drama” is accurate, but the excerpts reveal a specific focus on vernacular culture as performance.

These plays were transcribed from original manuscripts held by the Library of Congress, and the Project Gutenberg edition preserves handwritten corrections and underlinings. Readers should attend to the rhythm of the dialogue and the stage directions, which are as much a part of the drama as the words. The plays reward reading aloud, and the incomplete excerpts leave open how Forty Yards and Woofing extend the patterns of verbal play and social observation found here.

The rain that afternoon blurred the courtroom comedy in Lawing and Jawing into something almost tender, the voices curling like smoke. I kept thinking how Hurston’s ear caught the rhythm underneath the joke. Later, drying my hands, I pulled an old fourth-grade reader from a pile, and the same simple music was there, just waiting. Children's Classics in Dramatic Form, A Reader for the Fourth Grade — Key Ideas to Explore sat open on the sill, its dialogues humming, familiar as a lullaby.