SOURCE: "Ed Bullins: Black Theatre as Ritual," in Connections: Essays on Black Literatures, Aboriginal Studies Press, 1988, pp. 101-09.

In the following essay, Elder explores the ritualistic elements in three of Bullins's works: The Corner, In the Wine Time, and In New England Winter.

In 1971, the African-American playwright, Ed Bullins said of himself, 'To make an open secret more public: in the area of playwrighting, Ed Bullins, at this moment in time, is almost without peer in America—black, white, or imported'. Fortunately, time has supported this boast. In a recent assessment, critic Genevieve Fabre concludes, 'Next to LeRoi Jones, Ed Bullins is probably the most important black dramatist of the last twenty years' [Drumbeats, Masks, and Metaphor, 1983].

Bullins's continuing success rests for some in his political stance, expressive, largely but not entirely, of the Black Power interpretation of a racist American society. For many others, it rests with...