Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context Theatre / TheGreenPastures

Go To

1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_0652.JPG]]
2
3''The Green Pastures'' is a 1930 play by Marc Connolly based on the 1928 novel ''Ol' Man Adam an' His Chillun'' by Roark Bradford.
4
5It starts with a contemporary Black preacher, somewhere in Louisiana, giving a Sunday school lesson to children in his flock. When the preacher talks of heaven, the little kids ask him what Heaven is like. The preacher imagines a Heaven that's much like a social afternoon at a black church, with fish fries and ten-cent cigars.
6
7The next scene is in Heaven--which is a fish fry, where God and the angels are eating fish and smoking ten-cent cigars. The play unfolds from that point as a series of vignettes telling the highlights of the Old Testament, staged as if they were taking place in the black community in Louisiana in the 1920s. Highlights include Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, and Noah's flood.
8
9Made into a 1936 film co-directed by Connolly (in his only film credit), along with co-director William Keighley. The film was one of only six movies made by a Hollywood studio during the studio era with an all-black cast, featuring Eddie "Rochester" Anderson (before he starred in Radio/TheJackBennyProgram) as Noah.
10
11----
12!!Tropes:
13
14* AdaptationExpansion: Connolly adds some original material to the Old Testament, like Cain meeting "Cain's Gal" and siring a race of evil men that precipitate the Flood, or a scene near the end where God is inspired by his encounter with a Jewish warrior named Hezdrel fighting against the Romans.
15* ArchangelGabriel: God's sidekick, who often urges him to cut humanity a break.
16* TheArk: Noah builds one, to save his family as well as all the animals from the flood.
17* CainAndAbel: Scene IV. Although, oddly, in the play Cain has killed Abel in a fit of rage after Abel insulted him, as opposed to the original story where Cain was jealous after God preferred Abel's sacrifice.
18* TheDescendantsOfCain: Features some apocryphal descendants of Cain, including the murderous Cain the Sixth. Their wickedness inspires God to order The Great Flood.
19* ForgottenFramingDevice: The whole "preacher talking about the Bible to kids" framing device is forgotten after a certain point, with the play sticking to the Old Testament.
20* FramingDevice: Mr. Deshee telling Bible stories to the kids in his Sunday school class.
21* FunetikAksent: All the characters, including the ministers and archangels as well as God himself, speak in an offensive cartoonish version of the rural black dialect.
22* TheGhost: Jesus doesn't appear, but is sighted offstage in the final scene carrying a cross up a hill.
23* {{God}}: The main character, and yes, he's an Uncle Tom figure, although [[FairForItsDay in terms of the period]], he's an ''authority''.[[note]]Casting black men as God now seems commonplace; this was the first time that it was seen. That goes double for the fact that it's [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_Ingram_(actor) Rex Ingram]].[[/note]] God goes through some character growth as he realizes one can find mercy through suffering.
24* TheGreatFlood: Tough to tell the Noah story without one.
25* HaveAGayOldTime: A stage direction says the choir is singing a hymn "gayly and rapidly."
26* {{Heaven}}: Apparently a fish fry, which in fairness, does seem like a lot more fun than FluffyCloudHeaven.
27* InTheBack: Where Cain the Sixth stabs his romantic rival Flatfoot.
28* LighterAndSofter: Adam and Eve are not, repeat, not naked in their scene.
29* {{Mammy}}: Here they are angels (actually called "Mammy Angel" in the script!), but still just as sassy.
30* NoahsStoryArc: Is one of the episodes in the play, which retold Literature/TheBible from the perspective of a poor African-American child.
31* NoNameGiven: Features "Cain's Gal", who even identifies herself with precisely those words after Cain picks her up. Her name is not given.
32* OldBeggarTest: God usually walks among humans as a simple country preacher. The poor treatment he receives on one visit is what leads him to whip up a great flood that destroys everybody but Noah and his family.
33* PosthumousCharacter: Abel appears only as a corpse, with his brother Cain standing over him.
34* RaceLift: For the whole cast, as the Old Testament of the ancient Israelites is staged by black actors playing characters in Louisiana.
35* SettingUpdate: A series of Bible vignettes staged in modern-day (that is, the 1920s) Louisiana with an all-black cast.
36* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: Cain the Sixth says, "No, I ain't got no gun for my ol' friend, Flatfoot," before walking up to him and stabbing him InTheBack.
37-->'''Cain the Sixth''' ''(quietly but triumphantly)'': I got a little ''knife'' fo' ''him''.
38* UncleTomfoolery: This play is very, very, ''very'' racist. It starts right off the bat with Connolly's "Author's Note" that precedes the play, as he describes "untutored black Christians... unburdened by the differences of more educated theologians" who have a "simple faith" and apparently really believe that Heaven is a big fish fry. The play itself depicts rural black Americans as being ignorant and superstitious, childlike and easily led. That is, when they aren't being violent and sinful and bringing down the wrath of an angry God. There's even a scene where some low-class characters are playing dice.
39* VerbalIrony: Noah is talking to God who is in disguise as an old country preacher. Noah, worried about the sinful state of the world, says "De good Lawd only knows what's gonter happen." God agrees, saying "Dat is de truth."
40* AWizardDidIt: Well, God ''is'' a pretty badass wizard. This is Mr. Deshee's non-answer when the kids start asking him puzzling questions about how and why God decided he wanted to make the Earth. "De answer is dat the Book ain't got time to go into all de details."
41* YouLookFamiliar: InUniverse. The stage directions specifically state that Hezdrel, the Jewish warrior who fights against Herod in a scene near the the end, is the same actor who played Adam in an early scene. God even calls him Adam.
42
43----
44!!Tropes found in the 1936 film:
45
46* AsideGlance: God looks right at the camera in astonishment when he sees a young boy he thinks is praying, only to find that the boy is gambling with dice.
47* FluffyCloudHeaven: Heaven is depicted as a fish fry, with fluffy clouds floating around for angels to relax on.

Top