The Blacks: A Clown Show

This amazing symbolic drama probes the baffling enigma of reality and appearance. In a play within a play, accused black players reenact the ritualistic murder of a white before a jury of white-masked blacks who represent in caricature a missionary bishop, an island governor general, a haughty queen and her dwarf lackey. When they have played out their weird and gruesome crime, they turn on their judges and condemn them to death. Then, with polite adieux to the spectators, they dance the Mozart minuet with which the play began.