Black Mass

The concept of a "Black Mass"

This refers to a Satanic ritual which mocks the Roman Catholic Church's Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

There are two plays using this name: A Black Mass by Amiri Baraka (1966) and Black Mass by Edward Bond (1970).

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mass

A Black Mass (Baraka, 1966)

A play by Amiri Baraka, based on the religious doctrine of Yakub as taught by the Nation of Islam. The story of Yakub describes the origin of light-skinned people according and Baraka inverts the idea that white symbolizes goodness and black symbolizes wickedness, so that the images of beauty and life are associated with blackness.

Performances

First performed at Proctor's Theatre in Newark, New Jersey in 1966.

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Black_Mass

Black Mass (Bond, 1970)

A short one-act play by Edward Bond, written in 1970 to commemorate the Sharpeville Massacre in 1961. Part of the Sharpeville Sequence: A Scene, A Story, And Three Poems, written for the Anti Apartheid Movement. In the play Christ's place on the cross is taken by an endless succession of policemen after he poisons the south African Prime Minister with communion wine.

Published as Black Mass in Bond Plays 2, Bloomsbury Methuen Drama (January 1, 1978)

Performances

First performed at the Sharpeville Commemoration Evening, Lyceum Theatre, London, 1970.

Sources

http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsB/bond-edward.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bond

http://www.amazon.com/Bond-Plays-Narrow-Passion-Playwrights/dp/0413392708

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