While finding Hurston and Hughes's text to be somewhat outdated and "politically incorrect," Kanfer praises the production values of this 1991 presentation of Mule Bone, concluding that the overall effect makes for significant theatre.

Mule Bone, at the Ethel Barry more Theater, is politically incorrect. Its protagonists refer to themselves as Negroes, say things like "Chile, if you listen at folkses talk, they'll have you in de graveyard or in Chatahooche," and when its village folk are depressed or excited they burst into song.

Nevertheless, it is the season's most rewarding exhumation. Although this "Comedy of Negro Life" was awarded a major grant from the Fund for New American Plays, the work is in fact 60 years old. Its authors, Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, had a falling out in 1930, and it has taken this long for scholars to pick up the pieces. Never mind. Scrupulous direction and...