“MULEHEADED”: Performances are underway for “ Muleheaded, or Zora and Langston Write a Play.” Written by David Robson and directed by Passage’s Executive Artistic Director Brishen Miller, the play runs through February 15 at Passage Theatre. Above: Literary giants Zora Neale Hurston (Constance Thompson, left) and Langston Hughes (Anthony Vaughn Merchant, right) attempt to collaborate on a play, but they have numerous sources of conflict, even their industrious stenographer, Louise Thompson (Unissa Cruse, center). (Photo by Habiyb Shu’Aib)

By Donald H. Sanborn III

Theatrical and literary histories are fairly littered with collaborations — often between talented luminaries in the field — that sound promising in the abstract, but falter because of personality conflicts or any number of reasons.

A notable example — which literary critic Henry Louis Gates Jr. describes as “the most notorious literary quarrel in African American cultural history” — occurred in the 1930s, during the Harlem Renaissance. In 1930 Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) and Langston Hughes (1901-1967) decided to coauthor a play, The Mule-Bone, inspired by Hurston’s unpublished story “The Bone of Contention” and her work in African American southern folk culture.

Unfortunately, by 1931 the collaboration was fracturing. There seems to have been a combination of reasons for this, but arguably the breaking point was a copyright dispute. Without consulting Hughes, Hurston applied for copyright protection for the play — under her name only. Hughes, in turn, filed a second application using both of their names. This led to a dispute about authorship and credit.

Passage Theatre is presenting the world premiere of Muleheaded, or Zora and Langston Write a Play. By turns tense, funny, and poignant, the play explores the personality conflicts and other stressors that complicated the partnership.

The script is written by David Robson, whose previous Passage production was Blues in My Soul in 2022. Both plays display Robson’s gift for taking full advantage of having two (real-life) protagonists with opposing personalities; and for maintaining tension and suspense despite the outcome of the characters’ encounter being historically known.

Passage’s Executive Artistic Director Brishen Miller directs Muleheaded. Miller’s direction ensures that there is tension throughout the play — variously boiling and subsiding, but always palpable.
Miller observes in a program note that, as with Blues in My Soul, “this play is not a documentary, but rather an imagination on what could have happened … this is a story of two very real human beings; both their triumphs and beauty, as well as their errors and flaws. In fact, you could say this is a love story. While we have no proof of romantic love, Hughes and Hurston both wrote that their intense friendship was a powerful, spiritual, and even supernatural experience.”

Before a word of dialogue is even spoken, the ways in which the two authors move, and inhabit a space, make clear that they are on opposing paths. Zora (portrayed by Constance Thompson) enters with a swift, purposeful stride, her motions (and mood) unsettled.

By contrast, Langston (Anthony Vaughn Merchant) enters serenely, with poise. His movement is smoother, more (outwardly) deliberate. (In a post-show talkback Merchant points out that all of the action takes place in Langston’s home, so he has a built-in level of comfort. Zora is the outsider — as, comparatively, she is with the literary world at that point.)

Fortunately, unlike the protagonists, the actors who portray them have excellent chemistry. This is clear from one of their first scenes together, in which Langston cuts himself while shaving, and Zora tends injury. In the course of doing so, she playfully blindfolds him with a bandage. The scene is a brilliant metaphor for his fragility and malleability (at least as a character in this play).

During their first creative discussion they initially disagree on a subject. Langston proposes an ancient Greek-esque tragedy (albeit with contemporaneous subject matter); Zora counter-proposes The Mule-Bone. Eventually he agrees, and they start work.

Part of the reason for Zora’s disquiet is a difference in the writer’s relationships with a character who remains offstage and unheard, but who is a presence throughout the play and directly affects events and the protagonists’ relationship: their wealthy mutual patron, known only as “Godmother.” Zora perceives that Godmother vastly prefers Langston, whose help she wants in improving her standing with the patron. Passages of dialogue entail one character talking with Godmother on the phone, while the other (mostly through body language) attempts to guide the conversation.

Like the onstage protagonists, Godmother is based on a real person: Charlotte Osgood Mason (1854-1946), a white American socialite and philanthropist who sponsored several African American writers (and Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias) of the Harlem Renaissance, including Hughes and Hurston. Mason’s philanthropy was a double-edged blade; while she made it possible for her beneficiaries to afford to create, she developed controlling relationships with them, dictating the subject and viewpoint of much of their work.

Godmother directly affects Zora and Langston’s partnership for the worse by introducing a major stressor: the introduction of a third person into the working relationship. Louise (Unissa Cruse) is hired to be a typist and stenographer for the authors. Louise is based on Louise Thompson Patterson (1901-1999), a professor and social activist.

Cruse infuses Louise with prim reserve. Her polished body language befits someone who wants to evince constant, utmost professionalism. (Cruse is a dancer; during the talkback, she remarked that she incorporated her experience of trying to stand out in auditions into the character’s posture and movement.)

Zora instantly takes a dignified but weary, even confrontational attitude toward Louise, whom she suspiciously views as a spy. As Louise types, Zora gives her a long, appraising look.

The tension between the two women is exacerbated when Zora forces Louise to retype several pages when a word’s spelling is different from her intentions. Louise, in turn, becomes protective of Langston at Zora’s expense.

Nevertheless there is a scene in which the trio works well together, and we glimpse the friendship that Miller finds so moving. Zora pours everyone a drink. As Louise industriously types, Langston and Zora each play a character from their play, proposing lines of dialogue. A high point of the play, this sequence has some particularly charismatic acting from Merchant and Thompson.

The rapport starts to turn sour when Langston proposes offering Louise a share of the profits that he and Zora stand to earn on their play. A furious Zora unhesitatingly rejects this; her viewpoint is that Louise is a secretary rather than one of the authors, and therefore deserves no more than her flat salary.

When the authorship and copyright dispute arises, the collaboration reaches its nadir. A devastating but apposite tableau occurs when Langston, in fury, flings the typewritten pages into the air; and they land on the stage, scattered. Both the collaboration, and the work it has produced, are upended. After this climax, the remainder of the play is spent on attempts (largely initiated by Zora) to salvage the relationship, or at least to save face.

Both Merchant and Thompson clearly understand, and effectively convey, their characters’ opposing journeys. It is to the credit of both the script and the performances that no sides are taken; none of the onstage characters are villains. All of them are victims of the external pressure personified by Godmother.

Much of the conflict stems from a triangle between the three onstage characters — not a love triangle, perhaps, but certainly one of influence and rapport. Jaelyn Alston-Frye’s set (which, unlike the characters’ relationships, is rather cozy) reflects this; Langston’s living room is visibly arranged in a triangular configuration.

Appropriately, the typewriter (the prop most central to the action) is placed in the center of the stage (Melody Marshall is the props designer). The set also includes more than one closed door, a nice metaphor for the trust issues that bedevil the authors’ partnership.

Other than the typewriter, the most-used prop is a record player. Sound Designer Ava Weintzweig fills the show (almost from beginning to end) with music of the era. It is to the play’s credit that we see the extent to which music fills the characters’ lives; they dance to it, and work to it.

Tydell Williams’ lighting further places us in the time period. A pleasant amber glow gives the look of old-fashioned (pre-LED) illumination. Tiffany Bacon’s elegant and tasteful costumes, too, firmly establish the time setting.

While the action of the always compelling Muleheaded is firmly anchored to a specific era, the issues that it intelligently explores — differences in temperament and viewpoint between talented creative people; and power dynamics, particularly to do with race and gender — are starkly relevant. Miller guides the uniformly excellent cast and creative team through a production that vividly depicts the time period while portraying universally recognizable problems and personalities.

“Muleheaded, or Zora and Langston Write a Play” will play at Passage Theatre in the Mill Hill Playhouse, 205 East Front Street in Trenton, through February 15. For tickets, show times, and further information, call (609) 392-0766 or visit passagetheatre.org.