The play's title evokes images of Dutch ships that carried slaves across the Atlantic. The elderly black train conductor steps into the compartment and tips Lula his hat. The play ends with Lula looking towards another young black man who has just boarded the now mostly empty train car. She directs all the other passengers, blacks and whites, in the train car to throw his body out and get out at the next stop. Clay makes as if to leave, but Lula coolly, rationally, stabs him twice to the heart. Once Clay makes his confession, Lula changes strategies again. He says he would rather choose to pretend to be ignorant of racism, not try to get rid of it by fighting with whites. He states that he does not want to kill and that he prefers to be ignorant of the problem. Clay says that if he were to take Lula's words to heart, he should just kill all the white people he meets.ДЄlthough Clay says all this, he deeply rejects this plan of action. Clay states that if black people stopped trying to heal their pain through dance, music, civic participation, religion, or focusing on moving upwards in American society, and became coldly rational like white people, black people would just kill all the whites and be done with racism in America. He explains that these segregatory actions assuage black Americans' anger towards whites and distracts them from accessing the 'white man's intellectual legacy'. Clay suggests that whites let black people dance 'black' dances and make 'black' music. He slaps her twice and tells her to leave him alone.Д¬lay launches into a monologue. Clay accuses Lula of knowing nothing but 'luxury'. Rub bellies'.Д¬lay, who does not respond initially, eventually grabs her and throws her down. She dances mockingly in an R&B style and tells Clay to join her and 'do the nasty. She switches strategies and mocks Clay's Anglo-American speech, his college education and his three-button suit. Lula is angered by Clay's not falling for her manipulative tactics. However, he does not push his hope onto her and waits for Lula to make the offer first. We don't know if these are real or conveniently made-up by Lula.Д¬lay is gladdened by Lula's apparent liking for him and maintains a hopeful attitude to having sex together. Lula vaguely alludes to having sex with Clay at her 'apartment' after the 'party'. At this point, it is unclear whether Clay is really going to a party, but he tells her he really is. She tells Clay to invite her out to the party he is going to. Lula is glad that Clay is so easy to manipulate and puts her hand on his leg. Clay is shocked by her apparent knowledge of his past and says that she must be a friend of Warren. Lula guesses that Clay tried to get his own sister to have sex with him when he was 10. She ignores his denials and uses stereotypes to correctly guess where he lives, where he is going, what Clay's friend, Warren, looks and talks like. She accuses him of staring at her buttocks. The characters engage in a long, flirtatious conversation throughout the train ride. Lula boards the train eating an apple, an allusion to the Biblical Eve. It is also symbolic of integrationist and assimilationist ideologies within the contemporary Civil Rights Movement. Clay's name is symbolic of the malleability of black identity and black manhood. The action focuses almost exclusively on Lula, a white woman, and Clay, a black man, who both ride the subway in New York City. The play was revived in 2007 at the Cherry Lane Theatre starring DulГ© Hill, and in 2013 was restaged by Rashid Johnson at the Russian and Turkish Baths in the East Village. Dutchman may be described as a political allegory depicting black and white relations during the time Baraka wrote it. At the time, he was in the process of divorcing his Jewish wife, Hettie Jones, and embracing Black Nationalism. Dutchman was the last play produced by Baraka under his birth name, LeRoi Jones. Baraka's stage play was made into a film in 1967, starring Shirley Knight and Al Freeman Jr. The play won an Obie Award it shared this distinction with Adrienne Kennedy's Funnyhouse-of-a-Negro. Dutchman was first presented at the Cherry Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village, New York City, in March 1964. Cherry Lane Theatre ( Greenwich Village, New York City)Дutchman is a play written by African-American playwright Amiri Baraka, then known as LeRoi Jones.

Dutchman play full text