Knock Me a Kiss was inspired by the sensational events surrounding the 1928 marriage of W.E.B. Du Bois’s daughter, Yolande, to one of Harlem’s great poets, Countee Cullen. The marriage marked the height of the Harlem Renaissance and was viewed as the perfect union of Negro talent and beauty. It united the daughter of America’s foremost black intellectual, cofounder of the NAACP and publisher of Crisis Magazine, with a young poet whose work was considered to be one of the flagships for the New Negro movement.
Knock Me a Kiss was originally produced by Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago. The production was directed by Chuck Smith and featured Yvonne Huff as Yolande DuBois, Jason Lee as Countee Cullen, Morocco Omari as Jimmy Lunceford, LeShay Tomlinson as Lenora, Celeste Williams as Nina DuBois and Dexter Zollicoffer as W.E.B. DuBois.
In addition to other productions across the country, Knock Me a Kiss was produced in New York by Woodie King Jr.’s New Federal Theatre in association with Legacy Creative Arts Company. The production was directed by Chuck Smith and featured Erin Cherry as Yolande Du Bois, Sean Phillips as Countee Cullen, Morocco Omari as Jimmy Lunceford, Gillian Glasco as Lenora, Marie Thomas as Nina Du Bois, and André De Shields as W.E.B. DuBois.
Photo by Lia Chang
This production garnered eight AUDELCO awards including award for playwriting (Charles Smith), directing (Chuck Smith), Lead Actor (Andre De Shields), supporting actress (Marie Thomas), Lighting Design (Shirley Prendergast), Costume Design (Ali Turns), Scenic Design (Anthony Davis), and Sound Design (Bill Toles).
The New Federal Theatre/Legacy Creative Arts Company production was also featured at the National Black Theater Festival. Out of the 40 plays and musicals and countless readings and workshops of other new plays that year, Perry Tannenbaum wrote in Back Stage, “Among the best was Knock Me a Kiss.”
Tannenbaum also wrote, “the denouement of Charles Smith’s play (was) arguably the most significant moment of the entire festival.”
Synopsis
The play opens as jazz bandleader, Jimmy Lunceford, pursues a willing but apprehensive Yolande. She demurs, insisting that she and Jimmy be married in a manner consistent with her stature. Meanwhile, Du Bois tries to convince Countee Cullen to take a wife of great breeding, stature and education. When Countee realizes that Yolande appears to possess all of the attributes outlined by the elder Du Bois, he sets out to win her affection. When Yolande is forced to choose between her passion for Jimmy and marrying Countee, her overwhelming devotion to her father overpowers her heart.
The marriage is a triumph of pomp and pageantry, but fails to be a union of man and woman. Finally, Yolande and Countee go their separate ways: Countee travels to Paris with his close friend Harold Jackman and Yolande goes back to Jimmy only to find that she is no longer wanted.
“In one blistering scene after another – with dialogue that is alternately highly poetic, down-and-dirty, eerily disturbing and fiercely authoritarian – Smith exposes the lies and the blazing truths that animate his characters.”
Hedy Weiss of the Chicago Sun-Times
Cast size: 3 m., 3 w.
Knock Me a Kiss is available through Dramatic Publishing.