Summary

Stage directions before the text of the play begins suggest that it is set on the “MacGregor Plantation, a few miles south of Richmond, Virginia” (3)

“The lights slowly rise on the cramped quarters of the MacGregor Plantation’s overseer’s cottage” (7). Kaneisha, identified as “a slave” (7), sweeps the shabbily furnished room. Suddenly, rap music – “Work,” by Rihanna – begins to play. Kaneisha starts dancing and singing, freeing “her impressive natural afro” (8). The white overseer, Jim, appears and watches. The music stops, but Kaneisha keeps dancing. Jim shouts at her. She stops, and covers her hair again, apologizing to “Massa Jim” (9). Jim continues to berate her, saying that he thought all the Africa had been beaten out of the bodies of all the slaves. At the same time, he “shifts to hide his growing tumescence” (9). Jim awkwardly suggests that he does not need to...