Black Elegy on Stage: Mourning Ancestors in Olumide Popoola's Also by Mail (2013) and Jackie Sibblies Drury's We Are Proud to Present (2014)

The stage has become a site of mourning within Black diasporic theater. Olumide Popoola's Also by Mail (2013) and Jackie Sibblies Drury's We Are Proud to Present (2014) are two plays that stage mourning to remember ancestors who have transitioned. Popoola's play centers on one family and a father who has passed away, while Drury's play focuses on the collective genocide of the Herero in the German colony Southwest Africa. Popoola and Drury use theater to grieve and imagine alternatives and liberation. For Popoola, liberation materializes from ancestral spirits and citation practices. Drury's liberation emerges from questioning archival sources and methods. Through mourning, the playwrights imagine alternatives and undo harm. These deaths are a tragedy but the plays are not tragic. Through the lens of Black elegy, the plays offer radical remembering; they offer alternatives to traditional narratives and radical openness toward celebration of Black life.