Performing Racial Trauma: Fragmented Subjectivity in Kennedy s Funnyhouse of a Negro and Jackie Sibblies Drury s Fairview

Abstract

This paper analyzes how trauma is aesthetically represented in Adrienne Kennedy’s Funnyhouse of a Negro (1964) and Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview (2018), focusing on the theoretical lens provided by Cathy Caruth. Trauma, as understood by Caruth, is marked by belatedness, repetition, and an inability to be fully assimilated into conscious experience. This paper asks three key research questions: How do Kennedy and Drury represent trauma formally and thematically in their plays? In what ways does Cathy Caruth's theory help illuminate the psychological and historical dimensions of these works? And how do these plays challenge theatrical conventions to embody the aesthetics of trauma? Kennedy and Drury use theatrical fragmentation, non-linear temporality, meta-theatrical devices, and psychological dissociation to embody these characteristics of trauma. In doing so, both plays confront the lasting effects of racialised violence, identity fragmentation, and epistemic injustice. This paper argues that the theatrical aesthetics of both plays do not merely portray trauma as a theme; rather, trauma structures their very form, rupturing realism and coherence to evoke the disorientation inherent in the traumatic experience.