The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Harris, Jeremy O. Slave Play. Theatre Communications Group, Inc. New York, NY. 2019. First Edition. The play’s dialogue is put on the page in a form that resembles blank verse. The appearance of a slash - / - throughout this analysis indicates where a line of dialogue ends. Also: throughout the play, when the word “black” is used in a racialized context, it appears with a lower case “b.” Therefore, when it appears in a similarly racialized context in this analysis, the lower case “b” in “black” will be maintained.

The play’s story is divided into three acts, all of which are set in various places on the MacGregor Plantation in the Southern United States – specifically, in Virginia. In Act One, the action unfolds in a trio of locations as the play’s three central couples enact sexual fantasies defined by master-slave relationships. In the first fantasy, black Kaneisha is a slave girl assaulted by her white overseer, Jim. In the second fantasy, black Phillip is a house slave assaulted by his white mistress, Alana. In the third fantasy, white Dustin is manipulated into sexually servicing his black overseer, Gary. In all three cases, the black characters – Kaneisha, Philip, and Gary – experience significant degrees of sexual satisfaction, although Kaneisha does not achieve an orgasm and it is not clear whether Phillip does or not. All three instances of sexual interaction come to an end when Jim becomes too uncomfortable with the demands of the fantasy and cries out a word that turns out to be a safe word intended to conclude the fantasy-based therapy that the three couples are engaged in. This brings all three fantasies, and the first act, to a close.

In Act 2, the three couples have gathered in a central room in the plantation. There, discussion of their experiences is facilitated by therapists Teá (who identifies as a darker skinned black woman) and Patricia (who identifies as a lighter skinned black woman). As they lead the three couples through reflections on their experiences, Teá and Patricia reveal that they are a couple, and that they are doing scientific research into a particular aspect of blackness – i.e., how blackness can lead to, and contribute to, an inability to identify and/or release feelings, particularly pleasure and even more particularly, sexual pleasure.

As the members of each couple reveal increasingly deep and increasingly volatile feelings in response to their fantasy experiences, Teá and Patricia become increasingly excited about both what the couples are discovering and what those discoveries could mean for their research. At one point, Dustin claims angrily that his experiences as a very light skinned non-white man are being ignored. Patricia tells him that a key part of the research she and Teá are doing is that they are focused primarily on the experiences of those who fall on the darker side of the light skin – dark skin spectrum. Eventually, Gary angrily vents his frustration with Dustin, and Phillip reveals just how challenged he feels as a result of Alana loving him for all of who he is, and not engaging with his struggles with his blackness. Finally, Jim voices his discomfort at having to play out his wife’s fantasy of being a badly treated slave girl, saying that he loves her too much to treat her badly at all. Kaneisha starts reacting in anger, releasing her own long-suppressed feelings, but then finds that her perceptions and ability to communicate are compromised by symptoms of her OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). There, the second act comes to an end.

Act 3 is set in the bedroom Kaneisha and Jim are sharing while undergoing the therapy at the Plantation. Kaneisha is packing up and preparing to leave when Jim comes in and offers to listen to whatever she has to say. Kaneisha speaks at length about how she and Jim met and how, over time, their sexual compatibility began to fall apart. As she speaks, Jim assumes the persona that he assumed in Act 1 – i.e., the sexually demanding overseer assaulting the troublesome black servant girl. At first Kaneisha goes along with what he is doing, but then starts to fight back. She eventually frees herself, releasing long-suppressed feelings first with deep weeping, and then with deep laughter. Jim also heaves with deep tears. When the weeping has dissipated, Kaneisha thanks Jim for listening. There the act, and the play, both end.