Summary

The action shifts to a bright room – “the boudoir of Madame MacGregor” elsewhere on the plantation (26). Alana, a white woman in antebellum Southern dress, tries to get comfortable in the heat. Eventually she succeeds, and calls for Phillip – she “got an itch only [he] can scratch” (26). Philip, “a young mulatto man with an imposing countenance” (27) comes in, wearing a tuxedo and calling Alana “mistress” (27). Alana complains of how bored she is, even with reading and asks Phillip to play some music for her. He is uneasy, saying that “Massa MacGregor … don’t want [him] makin no mulatto magic / Say mulattoes was gifted with music to woo whites away from / they God-given paths” (28). Alana says that is nonsense, commenting that the real magic is in the bodies of “the ones straight from Africa” (28), adding that “the gorilla niggas are the ones who cast...