Eugene O'Neill's The Emperor Jones

Welcome back to the new thing green my name is David Barr with me as always my good friend Alex pre you how are you Alex very well how are you David I'm well and Greg McBrayer how are you I'm very well I'm so nice to see you you know I was thinking Greg so I moved south and so I see far more pickup trucks than I'm used to in Bethesda Maryland right and then I recall that you drove a pickup truck while at the University of Maryland mm-hmm I don't own that pickup truck you do it's still running so Alex I don't think I've ever shared this with you right and I've certainly never shared it on the show but Greg had two interesting things on his truck so Greg is polished and I think by natural noble sort of southern he had truckments he had he had those rubber testicles I would hang from the back of his trucks he also had a bumper sticker that said bass to mouth and it took me a long time to understand what bass to mouth was it was a play-on that's a famous slogan of the American Woodstock magazine that's right that's right a longtime subscriber and anyway I saw that same bumper sticker today that's a bass to mouth and I thought you Greg yeah well that was nice that I made it there with you at all times in your place yeah so today we're talking about Eugene and I can I jump in on that because I saw a picture of this on my phone I saw a truck drive here it is and it said literally this is what the license place I can you read that David mules are like potato trips you can't have just one I don't even understand this guy apparently you just got more than you like I guess hundreds mean like a drug mule no he had another sticker about how you know my other cars and you or something so behind a mule enthusiast I'd rather be fishing yeah so what are we talking about so what are we talking about trying to keep this short so my favorite my most favorite American play right is Eugene O'Neill he was he won the Nobel Prize for literature that doesn't really matter I was kind of a prep school Ivy League school educated guy many children his son-in-law was Charlie Chaplin I'm sorry what I'm sorry what his son-in-law was Charlie Chaplin like the silent comic actor Charlie Chaplin did I mispronounce no not that's just weird it's an odd accident sorry good I just that's just weird I don't know I mean it's funny these American playwrights they get along I get get around Arthur Miller married Marilyn Monroe right right right which is you know they were but who didn't really they were both punching above their big-grade but Eugene O'Neill I've always liked the depths of his character the psychology of his plays his most famous is the Iceman cometh which and I that's not what I thought it would be about I just read that no no but anything how's that possible and you know it's it's weird and in a long-days journey and tonight is is is another classic the play that we're discussing tonight the Emperor Jones so this two plays obviously put him on the map in a big way this play also took off his play group was called the Province Town players and so the Emperor Jones I think was written I see in 1920 it's a tragedy and that's what we're discussing today it's a short play so before listening any further to this episode and treat yourself to it I don't think it'll take you longer than an hour I selected this per discussion because structurally or dramatically I should say it mirrors resembles a Greek tragedy there are these shapeless forms with just eyes that resemble like a glowworm in the night I forget how we phrases it what else yeah just I trust a press an attack on me yeah I know what you're doing let's just be upfront we should be upfront about something this play right it's about a former slave right who becomes I was gonna get into it but let me just let me get my becomes like king of this like Surbian island and there's these natives right and they're all black and there's obvious uses of a certain word that we're not to say right the end word but doesn't the formal spheres are calling no I'm just you mentioned the Greek stuff right yeah I know where you're going I have no idea what you know you always you always you did this with right so you do this right you got this oh David and Alex are Greg and Alex they like Greek stuff we'll go read this and so you'll be like oh let's read you Lizzie's because it's based on the Odyssey or let's read the myth of sis of this my star true that's kind of and then and then before you know it we're reading like some book about narcissists that you that you claim is is really about the Greeks and we can't even say the title right what's going on here what is the scheme I know what you're doing you recommended Conrad once before and you had Greg sing for the next like six months yeah Greg Greg and inadvertently we were talking about that in grad school and he just used the word which as an American we don't yeah I don't know that's a plain word or an insult that is used here and so Greg just chuckled it cuz it sounds so stupid you know I mean that word just sounds stupid and uh there's another student class that got upset but gently corrected Greg it's not his fault no that's not my plan Alex that's not my plan I'm not a I don't hear any more Conrad narcissist recommendations so anyway this this play I'm a little derailed I don't know where to go so it Alex is right for me the formless you're talking about the Greeks and the there these formless theories the formless theories which are kind of like the humanities and the play can they persecute the lead the main character of the play Emperor there's no his name is Brutus Jones and he was a Pullman operator the train line he has a few murders that he committed he escaped from jail he made his way to this Caribbean island within two years he's totally taking it over he's convinced the natives that only a silver bullet can kill him so he runs around unblasted by the natives and and works with just uh just squeezes them of all their their money and is a tyrant and so the plays so then there's some conclave of natives in the hills and O'Neill says that a subtle beat of a drum a Tom Tom drum begins kind of like the tall tell tale heart gets louder and louder Emperor Jones realizes or is told by another man named Smithers that there is a there's an uprising going on so he flees into the woods deeper and deeper he has an escape route he has a gun five bullets which is a silver bullet and he plans on killing himself with the natives were ever catching but as he flees deeper into the woods the drum beat gets louder and louder and wherever he looks are these formless fears with just little light eyes glowing eyes and he eventually and shoots at them then they disappear for time drunk beak gets louder and and finally I don't know do we want to ruin the end I mean he doesn't come to a good end yeah it's tragedy we should talk about it right so the whole time he's having flashbacks right it's flashback hallucinations flashbacks and yeah the man he murdered in the die scheme etc. killed a then he goes to prison he kills the prison guard with a shovel right and then he eventually escapes prison at that moment I believe yeah island and now he's building people yeah I've seen I've read interpretation to this play like he has a few there's an it's in play that bony will pulse some things from other interpretations have it as a story probably with Tucson will mature the Haitian the Haitian dictator who I got freed Haiti depending on your perspective I guess and it's but I don't think it's it's that I see it more I see the parallels of this play more with King Lear and the amenities and so it's a deepest psychological unraveling of a man who is already unwell so he's already partially unraveled but what power power power just pushes that unraveling along there's great there's two small points and then we can get into some there's you mentioned a lot of things are happening and that's a lot of stage direction which is written by a Neil it seems I mean it seems obvious right so like unlike the Greek plays where there appears to be very little stage direction I mean most of the scenes and there are eight scenes I think begin and then sometimes they're even interrupted reverse verse with a lot of stage direction like the sound of the beats and kind of things or what's happening but the second thing so there's a lot of stage direction hey and then B is I mean it's mostly just him yeah two to seven she's the narrator it's just yeah and so it's book in the beginning the end it's him and one guy the beginning smithers and at the end I guess the end it's him and some other folks like us will say no ruin the end again but there are other characters in 237 I assume you're producing this because the people he imagines or ideas the hallucinations of flashbacks I assume those people are on I think I'm right that some of those people actually come on stage to yeah like the guy Jeffy kills from the dice game and yeah I think they have to be on the stage but then they have to like dissipate disappear yeah there's a lot of these direction about how the lighting works so I imagine that you would bring lights forward and backward and things would fade out and you know he would shoots at people and then they're just gone they're not like a body on the ground so when they all say I love to see the movie you know that there were this was made in 1930 we are with the famous actor Paul Robeson I don't know if I'm pronouncing is I'd love to see that I have it but they're famous stills of that film yeah I started watching it it fills in a lot of the backstory like it goes back to the beginning and then it only gets later in the movie to the play one thing I'll say is in terms of text the first scene is about half the play as far as text is but it can't obviously be half the play right so I imagine the scenes two through six seven I think would be a quick anymore two to six have a lot of silence right there's a lot of gaps and certainty and so and also the stage direction like the clearings he finds himself in are very specific ones round which is triangular the way a road runs there's an altar in one and and just the structure of it which I think it also goes to the fact and let's just ruin the play right it's an extremely disorienting set of scenes one by one they don't obviously connect it's not like he's walking down a path and then there's finally he comes out of the path to a clearing and then from the clearing calls it's not like I just rain on places and the difficulty is is he runs in the stage direction says this he runs often not where you would think he should run right in the opposite direction and he ends up kind of looping back almost to where he started right so he basically goes in a circle and comes back to the natives and and and so he meets his demise so we should set up what's going on right the natives are rebelling do we speak about this yeah what I have a question what do you think causes them to lose their fear right so they've been so suspicious yeah yeah that he's not lose it really right I mean because isn't the the final scene so sorry so the news have an uprising against him finally and we don't see this until the end when they finally catch him and kill him but in the beating all night long we learned because some others sort of lays us out he's asking what's the other guy's name the leader of the the lamb the island lamb yeah what they've been doing all night is apparently is molding silver down into a bullet so they remain superstitious and maybe what gives them some confidence is that they can like they believe this superstition only silver bullet can kill him which is false right what happens when we try to shoot him and misfire and so he said no one can kill me except with silver bullet so they make us they fashion silver bullet so they're still relatively superstitious they just think they have the totem or whatever that they need to actually make it happen though is that that's maybe not satisfactory but that's at least part of it no I guess for me that taking I was curious why you think they take that first step so what is it about is peculiar brand of tyranny that taxing the heck out of them right doesn't like he's just taking all their stuff all of their money I just assume that they're just they're just about I mean that's a question they don't have their answer that they just they're done I think he saw no limits in his tyranny yeah and I think he saw no limits because he used to be a slave he doesn't he say that he learned this from the word is that clear that he was a one that wasn't that was clear to me I'm sure I think that there's the one scene that like his body was sleeping on the floor yeah there's a stand straight in it's not like it seemed to imply that he was I'm with you Alex right just wasn't 100% there I thought there's some ambiguity that maybe it's still within living memory yeah this is 1920 yeah but I mean I think he says that he learned it from the white man well I thought that he did his tyranny yeah he does I thought he learned that just as the Pullman operator on the listening in on the conversations that he heard I mean just hearing the conversations between white men on the train that was his education so it was bound through a perverted education interesting so I think he he learns it from the white because he talks about how they the lynching and murdering and stuff like that right so I think he he's a view of powers distorted right like it's not political right where he wasn't it's not his relationship to white people was not being taxed and all that sort of stuff and and they're like his king or something like that it's a general sort of societal sort of difference right that's enforced in violence and things like that between two classes you could say not one person over the other right and it's not clear that like any white person had to invent some silver bullet right the way that they did so he's in a way created the conditions for their rebellion right and encourage it but I think he I think he's past experiences and right he was part of a Baptist church right and there's a kind of teaching going on there about liberation right but it's it's otherworldly so it doesn't seem like he has any kind of worldly training and how to how to govern right like that he thinks just a matter of overcoming stupid people or cheating even his manner of speech isn't particularly I mean it doesn't really kind of education I mean it seems like O'Neill is trying to trade him and sort of semi-literate or not I mean not well spoken but it wasn't rhetoric that enabled him to overpower these people that we've seen that's true yeah this is lies there's force and trickery yeah what was the purpose of even amassing all of that wealth sound like he could spend it on yeah yeah that's one thing well he does have nice things right he's got this nice chair he's got this nice palace at the beginning yeah he's got nice clothes everything sold FLS what's that everything Scarlett right yeah well whitens the most of stuff whitened in Scarlett yeah I was reading something about the play so right the he's is a right-hand man is this cockney guy right who the trader the cockney trader yeah who was there's who he was Jones was his right-hand and then he kind of rose to the ranks because one thing Jones has and just gets back to his anger I think in violence is he's courage right it's not something that this cockney has we it's we're talking about the relationship between the Emperor and the Brutus and his cockney right yeah so sorry yeah so there's there's a controversy because the only white guy in the play is the Emperor's right-hand man and apparently there was a scene in a movie version right that where the cockney guy lights his cigarette and they felt like they had to cut it because there's a white man like a cigarette you have to keep in mind at times but I think there's a kind of there's a striking reversal there that Jones takes pleasure in he kind of taunts the white man quite a bit yeah well and so a pleasure at having once he has the opportunity sort of overcoming it but again it seems to have to be a matter of like stupidity and overpowering the racial racial aspect of this I mean what's it we said 1920 this seems awfully what it seems like an odd it seems like this if you told me this 60s I think okay but like 1920 seems a little early for this kind of racial politics racial play I don't know it's certainly different from the kind of racial entertainment you get which was the mystery shows at the time right so yeah it's a really good point this is right this is when minstrel shows were extremely fine this seems to be like the anti-minstrel show in many ways yeah I mean yes and he's a and O'Neill when they meet the film version insisted that Robeson play Emperor Jones right and he's a commanding figure right yeah I mean you read the play and it's very easy because the language is so sort of uneducated to think oh this guy's not intelligent but then when you see Robeson or see like this commanding large figure right confidence obviously intelligence also susceptible I think you do get a sense that he's more complex than we did was saying I think that he learns his to get the relationship he learns his tyranny from smithers so smithers have ruled the island in his own way prior to right I mean prior to Jones's arrival he already had a low estimation of the natives he already taxed them and pillaged them in his own way but he had he had restrained or was fear so he didn't go too far he survives at the end smithers does yeah when Jones's murder there's no reason for smithers to survive they should kill smithers yeah he was helping them find him because it doesn't know that he's tipped off to what was going on right and you know he warrants his his colleague he does warn him that that's certainly strange there's so much animosity between my thought why did he tip him off and I think the only reason tell me if you think this is right or wrong but the only reason I can think of this he's he is obviously impressed with Jones right and maybe he wants to see like if he doesn't tell him he's a dead man he's gone for sure right but if he tells him he might see any seems like kind of delighted even in the fact what he thinks that he's gotten away right he seems kind of delighted in that I'm like oh that's pretty impressive right you did it you know it's weird it's the play it's one of these plays where you're left more with certain unsettled feelings because trying to talk it through the three of us are somewhat intelligent it's the play getting to its depth is almost as mysterious as the island itself going on in the island it's like triple canopy I think that it's the play should have shrouded in certain so you don't know whether Jones is man rather he's become a kind of King Lear you don't know whether to profoundly dislike the man or feel bad for him you're unsure about the status of the natives and then you're you'd triple ensure of what these humanities type figures are these formless fields what's what seems to be missing to me is I would mean he has some kind of insight right I guess there are all things is sort of first off it was not immediately clear to me you know just reading the first time that the first hallucination was an hallucination I took me a second but oh wait this is clearly not this is not real but then the second thing is I did sort of sense the idea that he was having hallucinations I took I took on Neil to be saying that he has hallucinations because it's connected to his tyrannical actions except I didn't see much in the Emperor's self-reflection that indicated any kind of guilt or recognition that he'd done you know just what I kind of did what I had to do and yeah I was angry maybe there's some with Jeff I was just angry and I killed him but mostly just seems like he's just this now he seems like he just seems like a terrible human being thrown through whereas like in the humanities it's right what's the rest he's his plague because he's committed murder but he was a justified murder and he's like not sure if it's justified maybe it wasn't pious to kill his family members and so there's this like moral conflict and that seems to be what's dogging him it's just not as clear he wants to come this guy just like I'm out for the money and like did it off in money I knew it's any scene in the first scene it's even like I kind of knew it come to this and stuff I got this bullet here to kill myself it was gonna come to the end at some point just something I was like I'm riding it on red or black you know I'm just rolling under that until I lose I think that's why especially recently they're I've attracted how many times it's been performed in the past few years but I have seen reviews but I looked this up a long time ago people just saying it's out and out a racist play right so that's also the N word and that O'Neill just set up this unthinking black man made him bestial crazy and and he gets what's coming to him right and if that's it then there's no more depth to the play right then you just said something racist you know the racist thing is kind of obviously wrong because I mean he's black and he's despising the natives who are black correct so the N word is I'd have to go back and go check let's see my recollection is the N word is exclusively him just driving the natives that's right yeah no the snidders uses it the one act actually but I mean oh right right still I mean what I mean I imagine people would respond I say well yeah but this is a white author giving himself liberties to create this right but I think it's obviously wrong because there is an incredible depth to the play which is the very reason he despises the natives there is because they're superstitious right they buy into any kind of nonsense what happens to him he falls prey to superstition and why does he fall prey to superstition it's not because of something innate stupidity in him it's a combination of his guilt on the one hand and then the woods on the other and I think there's a degree with what's that the woods I agree with but I don't see the kill I think there's a little bit where he's got at least there's fears right there's a lot of fear for sure yeah there is some guilt according you know like when he sees the shot and I think that's an embodiment of the power and the sort of cunning of the natives but and he's wrong about it right because they're not there but but there's a kind of there's a way in which I think there's a subtle commentary here as he's torn between the baptism under which he was raised and the native religion which you know which he manipulated to some degree right he finds himself torn between them so I think there's a comment here on the relationship between religion and context right there's a way in which the liberation Christianity of of his youth is related to the context of being a slave or among you know the freed slaves right and there's a way in which these sort of dark fears and and sort of superstitions are related to the nature of the woods where you don't know what's lurking right behind the tree and it could be the thing you fear most of all even a man that you've killed and there's all these noises and you don't know the drums are getting louder but then sometimes it seems softer but they're getting quicker he's never sure how far away they are and so it's a kind of ominous kind of echo that's I mean it's probably they never get far closer because he's just kind of circling around but I do think there's some kind of relationship there between uncertainty and the context of uncertainty and the kind of religion that appeals to him because why doesn't it affect why don't you think the woods affects Smithers in the same manner well you don't go into them I mean that's one reason right I mean he stays back in the clearing right that it's it's it's Jones who thinks that he's capable and get over overcome this one of the ways I think about this is like when you read like about old superstitious things that people believe like oh when you yawn a spirit's coming out of your body or like if you feel this ache it's like a demon or something it's like well how else you can explain all those on your leg starts twitching right you know or like all those on your mouth just opens and like it feels like you can't close it like something's in your your mouth like you know Greg is one of his early morning workouts like you have the sense that there's there you're something outside of you is controlling you there's a way in which these superstitions though they are strictly speaking false do point to a real uncertainty or lack of control or something like that that that makes sense like so the point of the play the depth of the play is they think he's smarter than this but there's a kind of wisdom or kind of reason that this kind of superstition has arisen that could be meaning connected to his tyranny in the sense that he's not sufficiently political right he doesn't understand he doesn't even understand I think the basics of the people is good right he just thinks of them as dumb he doesn't see why they believe what they believe does that make sense yeah so two things on that one is a lesser point but even my feelings right don't tax the heck out of people so like he just he doesn't even understand the limits of how much you can take from them if you're actually just a little more clear side about how much you could please them you probably have her petriated rule much longer like just lower the taxes a little and lengthen it we as others understood that yeah so then the other thing I'll say is even his Christian his brand Christianity struck me as superstitious my son right so it wasn't clear what the solidity of the basis of his own like there are obviously well his understanding I'm just re-saying what I said that his like I've been baptized therefore I'm good it struck me as like what were the grounds of his believing that his particular banded Christianity wasn't different from the these native superstitions they seem very much the same to me it's interesting yeah and that goes to the point right because he says he goes to that they're like churches or whatever and I pretend I put Jesus on the shelf or something etc I just I'd wail as loud as they do you know but he would be susceptible to a not just by virtue of context but but to the fact that like that was the same grounds for his own right right so once you put him in a situation where the religion kind of makes sense all of a sudden you know yeah find yourself susceptible can I throw a question out there we've been describing as a tyrants yeah he seems to be purely financially motivated there's no sexual stuff or even murderous stuff right or as I could tell there is that the last person to leave the first person to see in the place of women leaving and she's coming from one gateway to the other and I think Jones comes to us I was wondering whether you think that was maybe sexual side like she's coming from I didn't see it on clean I thought she was doing something like domestic chores that's why that's why I thought yeah maybe so I mean yeah but I was just I didn't think he was just waking up and it was late in the day right it might that I misread that like he was just coming he was just waking up it was like only three hours until sunset and he had to get out of town already there's napping or sleeping way yeah he must have been taking an apple thing but I was he was asking why doesn't his tyranny take on the different yeah time to think it was what do they want to do they want to do all the things you're not allowed to do they can kill whoever they want they can take whatever they want here he has a background in murder it's not hard yeah but it's strangely I don't know at least the way it's presented the most conspicuous I strangely circumscribed yeah sometimes I wonder whether he's just still in jail he's dreaming all this I mean it's a stupid illumination but no it's not because it's never really made clear how he how he gets out of jail and gets all the way to a Caribbean country yeah I mean the path is obscure or why smithers can't imagine how I'm escape on his ship yeah that's best there's character in assumptions that's I honestly was wondering that because he's the henchman so the evil character sort of he's a comic book with his mother she's I don't know so I don't know what his name Brutus is that help with the tearing stuff I mean I just like does the name matter at all just give some a Roman name yeah it's pretty important Roman a brutally you know the one of the potential killers of potential tyrant yeah it's just like I'm dancing around I've never really been able to capture this play in my own head it frustrates me sometimes because I enjoy reading it so much so I guess real quick by the way you said that you said a slight advantage that maybe it's an hallucination you still in jail yeah it occurred to me his uniform that is what he's wearing his sort of molytes yeah it actually looks remarkably close to what a border would have worn how much of a whole thing is it was like he's killed me he's just killed somebody he's just killed Jeff for example and this is all I don't know that just occurred to me that makes this it's a very similar kind of uniform I'm always reminded of how like when poor people become rich they do what they think rich people would do right so Steve Martin's film The Jerk is a good example of this right where he gets rich and then he's at this restaurant and he's like they ordered this food as a fancy place and he turns his wife he goes don't look down not now and she's like just look up look up and he calls the waiter and he says sir there is snails in her food like there's so many snails I can't even see the food right so just realized she's supposed to eat snails and then he complains that the wine is old he wants the newest stuff you know like yeah there's there's a way in which maybe maybe his idea of being fancy and an emperor is to have like a nice version of the of the emperor of the port of the Pullman of the border clothes yeah I have a you know a uniform right and also everything is painted scarred right everything is like bright red and it's very kind of garish so then how would you so I have a question maybe to try and get at the meaning of this play how would you universalize his character if it's not just about not racist thing by O'Neill none of us think that how do you universalize this play what would be the lesson here is it just that the man like his madness is interesting like King Lear's madness interests us there's also theological elements to Lear of course that make an extremely deep play it's a good question I sort of wondered if you mentioned Lear I sort of saw like a like an ill-educated Coriolanus character here like more like he's sort of I mean anger spiritedness sort of not really knowing what you I mean the Luca part is sort of throwing for a loop I guess but just sort of a self-assertion not wanting to be not wanting anyone else to rule him I don't know of course there's a part of our lives didn't want to rule he's also way more inquisitive like Coriolanus doesn't want yeah that's why he said the Luca part he's a quiz if you want stuff yeah so it's like I mean it seems like he's really is all lakes sorry I was just thinking maybe it has to do with the universal character what maybe was a slave I mean these workers work fairly commonly former slaves and like what is a slave you know I mean we did this a little bit when we did the Frederick Douglass narrative right like if you if you completely trap someone's mind and enslave them and turn them to kind of beast what are the limits of their what kind of imagination they have what does freedom look like what does oh yeah can you only imagine I'm selling and this goes kind of what else was saying earlier if this is if all you understand is that the white men used to oppress you and and power there's no real alternative there's no like the alternative this isn't like we actually come together to figure out a little bit together well it's well society is one group or another so I may as well be the guy doing it I don't know yeah go now so yeah at the end of scene five this is the pastor's I was thinking of in the end of scene five when he's being sold he says is this the auction he says are you selling me like they used to before the war right so I took that to be a side of he used to be a slave and he was freed so yeah it's a big use yeah it's a big use but I mean it seems to me to more churches so if he used to be a slave and then he's freed what is his education it's so I think one narrative you could you could spin out of this is Jones is assigned Brutus Jones is a symbol of what happens when you take this population that's lived in absolute you know destitute objects slavery no education you set them free you don't give them education all they know is trickery and machinations right and what happens when someone like that has to finally have a position of responsibility all they know is acquisition and trickery they don't realize the susceptibility of people to superstition meaning the people that they're in charge of or ruling in this case they don't recognize their own susceptibility so maybe it's it's a kind of call to responsibility maybe that would be one way to think about it about about the effect of politics if you if you don't you know treat this newly free population with some responsibility or some education but you don't somehow integrate them into into sort of educated you know a Republican society right where you're sort of educated to debate about the issues of the day all he knows is is what the white man taught and all the white man taught him was was manipulation that makes sense is that possible yeah that makes total sense I mean so he's this all-powerful guy and this is he does he manipulate their superstition to deify himself at all in their eyes like the silver bolt he can't be killed except by silver bolt does that sort of make him a kind of demigod or something like that he's not he's not he's not you know this supernatural shroud yeah okay because even the witch even the witch doctor isn't accorded the same kind of respect yeah or the crocodile god it's also a kind of brilliant trick right because you're saying you need silver to kill me also you have no money because I've taken it from you so they're putting to a really like horrible something a lot I've heard this way to a real day no one was really taxed by the way this is a fictional story Alex yeah they have to I'm sorry the trick the trick seems to be I'm just realizing it's not true seems to be you don't only kill me with this thing that's really expensive but also you have no money right but they they come together right they're sacrificing it's not clear where they get the silver problem but yeah yeah yeah the other universalizing interpretation I have but it's a stretch is that that is that Brutus isn't a stand-in for African Americans and their plight he is a stand-in for the white man who thinks that he can rule by magic and trickery and sooner or later the people that he has under his thumb will will figure out a way to rebel and his little tricks won't work squeezing them of all of their possessions isn't gonna work and a come up and subsoar will happen and he will be left with his nightmares so the nightmares of slavery and all of the impast and justices that is too much of a stretch but so if he's Brutus who's Caesar is it slavery is it's Smithers like because it is similar in that sense right he's overcome some obstacle which obstacle we want to identify a Caesar right and then he's somehow had this so did he do you think he deposed Smithers and that was his rise to power you know Smithers is smartly create up to him and then eventually the people gonna turn against him right I don't know honestly this all seems apart of me wants to say a lot of this is this is like a a theoretical game for Smithers he is like a perverted Prospero he's just like a let loose all of these forces on this island at no point what do you want to say Greg oh at no point does Smithers ever try and wheel him in but Smithers has out now racial hatred toward the to the Islanders yeah what was your theory about them it's just something I was trying to check the etymology of it might be related to them or branch and so therefore he's he's an extension of the force that gets to Jones I don't know it's so funny Brutus is such an interesting neighbor than Jones like the most common English surname and in Smithers right so like a variation on the two most common English surnames but I like that the most evil person of course in play was an Englishman he's worse than Brutus he's more clear-sided his evil has he's not plagued by nighttime terrors yeah I give this only mercenary he really it doesn't seem like he cares one way or another he just likes to see the chaos I kind of feel bad for Brutus I mean he's I mean he's he's not a like again he's not an educated guy or he's been dealt with the I mean he has his flaws right his anger is the most obvious of them right and his acquisitiveness and willingness to sort of hurt the Islanders but I mean if he was raised in slavery and then he was sort of you know in causally if you're being lynched and killed in any number of ways and that's the way of the world according to him I mean it's not his fault strictly speaking that he doesn't know better was it on a train you said in the jerk that the jerk was ordering the fancy food did you say that or my mission now that was just a mission I was just mentioned only but like he was a porter so I mean his job was I assume like tending to the needs of wealthy travelers and so then that there's something to that I think I think that's a much more common I said he said you get around wealth yeah that's what he would have overheard in the car you want to be around but not just I don't mean like the nefarious parts I mean like there's a kind of enemy about being around wealthy people but not of them and so then thinking that having money will make him up that class that makes sense I thought it was more like well that makes sense to me I thought more fundamentally is just because it's tied to his meaning mission yeah probably yeah that seems fair but if you happen to slay people very old that's my only problem is 60s right yeah which what in which we do it in a slave is very young but not you were not for him to have an adult slave who was breed he'd be happy to be variable like in some ways it is it seems to be set when it was written roughly 1910s or 1920 I don't think so I mean it's you think it's before that it struck me as it might be you know shortly after the Civil War I mean not and so if we're looking it's hard to tell this you're on an island God knows you know what year it is and there is a kind of magical out of time kind of the southern the southern option seemed like it's the way it was described me to seem like it was what maybe this cousin speed is rather the audience that way but it may seem like it was in the distant past yeah but that's not to be out to the invention it would have to be after the invention of the railroad yeah yeah it's not just not just that technology but the popularized technology yeah yeah and that's after the Civil War well yeah filled with you see a quarter on a train do you know that I assume so but I don't get any number of places but the Poland borders were specifically to trains mm-hmm I guess I was invented in 1864 the Pullman car oh yeah there is it yeah there's a train yeah yeah so Pullman cars were the sleepers that are most luxurious yeah yeah that's what I mean so it's like being sort of going from being a slave to then sort of tending to the very wealthy but I mean so if they started using those like just after the war and then we so we imagined 23 20 years later 30 years you're right you're right they could be said earlier could be earlier yeah but maybe I mean it could also be this would be perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the play that the auction block stuff is like a historical memory it's not like him but it's it's a sort of like this could be black-hearted and he's like yes 30 years and he's heard of this like they used to do to me my kind before the war so I think it's very good news yeah did you know that they're good Marshall and Malcolm X were Pullman Porter's no according to Wikipedia and there's a good name Brutus is good name Alex I think that your interpretation is probably the most satisfactory one which is no one think of this no it's just that it's a it's an indictment on well it's a tale about the the psychological legacy of slavery and neither ways to really get on a meal for this because you could say it's super patronizing that you say well he wrote this play to show this is what happens when you give people freedom quickly or something like this without education so who's gonna yeah you want to be a white guys and so you can interpret it in that way I don't sense any racism from this play so I'm still not totally satisfied with that interpretation I think it's the best one it would be very unstable you can see something saying oh I get I get what it's about like if you don't educate them they're screw up everything right because they don't you don't know anything on the other hand it's like no it's a principle of sound Republican governance that you haven't educated people able to think and it's not their fault they haven't educated right right they need to be given the opportunity as education instead of being scared of giving given lowly jobs where you know they don't you know they haven't learned about about political life right yeah it does seem like the reason he goes towards tyranny is because he doesn't understand the nature of politics right Richard the circumstances but to be fair because slavery is not is not political I mean we're thinking like her to any kind of things right because a different kind of rule and so he would not have been exposed to politics you know properly understood or narrowly in sure if you have despotic rule local rule other kinds rule he's never seen politics or would potentially go to numbers it does say you know that what's often is me toward Brutus it also is that he doesn't rule savagely so you can say they squeeze as the Islanders of their finances what the house finances on an island you know I mean ordering all the coconuts so they can't eat he doesn't do that he takes their gold it's like taking I'm gonna get in big trouble for this for my family it's like taking gold from the Aztecs now gold doesn't help you live better it's it's a relish right that we forge is that right do forage gold bring I feel you know he's a little orgy I feel like you do like hand-dil stuff whatever the case is you know so that's wrong it's wrong to deprive people of of gold that they sought out but he you know what are the Aztecs gonna do with it that came a lot worse it's not used gold is not used when it's out that's right yeah where the where the wealth is coming from it's just if it's just you and a bunch of natives on the island right yeah we're gonna take their their like you know their rudimentary money that won't know it's closed well for example there's no indication that there's any technology in the industry yeah now if he had made your crop he had stolen clothes if he had enslaved them if he had taken their food there's much grave or sins I think then it's unclear to me also that they realize the value of things that he's taking now they may feel it as body guards or like an army that he's oppressing them with right yeah and there's there's pure trickery right yeah yeah yeah yeah it's fine so I think he's a bad person per se he just doesn't I don't know he there's something interesting about that he thinks he's planned everything how he talks about this how he's thought of every single contingency right and part one of the things he thinks he knows is that when he's sleeping everybody else goes to sleep which is a convenient thing to tell yourself because that means nobody's plotting seriously but you know they were plotting to get escaped they were waiting for an app so that they could run away and mount their attack over the evening into the next day yeah the fine that's right going on yeah that's just all it's just there's a kind of arrogance that I think it all does it's well but he doesn't commit suicide right like he he fired I know he doesn't mean suicide he's killed it he does he fire his last bullet at the imaginary which doctor in scene seven or does he still have the silver bullet in the chain he does fire yes okay all right because I was wondering why he was planning on using that on himself commit suicide yeah but it's still the question it's still it's still he's question attack why didn't he go like he knew that he was down the last silver bullet why do you waste on which doctor why did you strike well I think he thinks that's the only way to kill the which doctor like maybe he's completely sublimated the myth he's told I mean he's falling right in same mythology right with the spirits right he's so maybe it's his sort of rejection back to the point about the dating of the play I think maybe ambiguity is intentional right because if we're talking about education whether it's one if it's whether it's a degeneration of the immediately freed slaves or it's a generation or two after the same lesson still applies right which said which would be the purpose of the intention on beginning would say this is a perpetual problem right that will only sort of recur it so maybe it's a respective of race also I think you can relate so you could say it's the condition that whites put blacks in you have the semper judge that's the psychology that Emperor Jones is you know he has in his mind but you can I could easily see different races playing out this play yeah I mean it might have to be as an enslaved people yeah well think about it think about it's a criminal yeah so it's really bad socioeconomic and was in shape that his slavery away is the place though I think the place still works it becomes much more focused on the psyche of Emperor of Brutus their fewer excuses and he just becomes a kind of mad man I think like the shiny it's not so dissimilar from the golden calf episode of the Bible right like people let out of slavery right oh they don't really have laws Moses goes against the laws Aaron messes it up with the superstition stand with golden calf ruins it right because there's this inclination you know whereas Moses has to come down with proper laws that yeah and then there's a there's coming out of slavery there's the need for I don't want to go like a spinosia thing where it's like you need these laws as an intermediate thing sort of force but it doesn't seem like you need a set of laws giving a kind of moral code and a kind of education that prepare people yeah in the number in that scene in the in the Bible aren't the Israelite elders knows that the priest class who should know better aren't they they're encouraging a turn toward the golden calf so it's not just simply the run of the mill Israelites world let's do this are not being guided along right you should know this don't you study this stuff I do but that's not ringing you else but it's certainly blossom I was just trying to think that would be akin to the smithers character yeah you're quiet Greece Greg's got a nice why emperor I mean emperor of a small island almost is a misnomer perc is a show this is further expansion also into politics whenever will be an empire right so some kind something expanding it seems entirely localized like tired or dictator would make sense but just emperor I mean it certainly with Brutus makes you think Caesar well the play was originally titled the silver bullet yeah but you know a person's I was the emperor oh that's true right okay yeah it'd be really fine if this was brought to you by course like they should put on a new stage of course like brings you this this play with cobbiest uses of the N word yeah you're just like I hope you guys down I hope this wasn't a joke oh the original original silver bullet never slows you down you guys come out here this will go visit the brewery and golden beers yeah it's in gold it's just down the road and afterwards I was gonna make a joke about about convincing Greg by my witchcraft my witch doctors because I don't want to convince a friend that you have supernatural powers I just right for your into their heart that was a middle supposed play only I was intrigued by the idea of cults and I really wanted to start one it seems like a great well they became a Strauson career path fair point why I joined a call and it's start one that's true but you're now you're one of the elders right in the way you're getting there I'm you perpetually a doctor with the boning my nose does he join the inner sanctum right with your better daddy stuff it's like forms man I've seen them in the jungle I've seen the forms I don't know where she's all bored I don't show you very tired yeah I hope I didn't let you guys down with this pick no I think we let you down a play no no it's fine I always like I hope you guys like the play you know he's majestic in places you can talk about for hours or of course it's the ice man comes and the comet and no long-days journey tonight that was good I mean there are versions of ice man comes not ice man come out or the KGB kid all right well folks I hope you enjoyed the episode yeah and I think for introducing us to a deal I never read my first as my person yeah I hope they one of those two plays you guys you gave you get it I think much deeper than Arthur Miller or Tennessee Williams were both great playwrights but this guy I think it's because of his so his son was a classic is that Yale PhD I was set to teach there I think committed suicide I was a bit more than ever jeez Greg is me joke about how he wouldn't win father of the year that's true yeah but he was writing police he disowned the daughter that Mary Charlie Chaplin actually yeah I don't know why because she was 18 and I'm good the numbers wrong he was 18 he was 55 or something like that yeah yeah yeah but they produced kids and those kids have had grandkids and I looked all that up and they're all prospering of course how do you do a good chance that his son and I was older than him I did you look that up oh I know that's very strange to disown a man is older than you like if I get that point you know you're probably gonna sell her bullet she's probably about the same age as your father-in-law right I'm almost the same age as my father-in-law's wife oh really yeah that's interesting yes giving fakers to the triple canopy jungle but I mean if your if your father-in-law is like ten years I'm just I'm disowning shut up get out of here yeah go right a play go with your stories money go into a little jungle people I read you know Neil's home life was pretty messed up his father was an actor as was his mother they were constantly touring and they were apparently like mentally ill yeah as actors are want to be yeah he was kind of a self-taught he was a genius that's all good all right okay okay well I'll tell us don't forget like whatever please next episode the end word of narcissist