The Bridge Party

The setting of The Bridge Party is the meeting of an African American women's bridge club in the South of the 1940's. A group of women have gathered for their weekly bridge party hosted by the daughters of Emma Edwards, Theodora, Leona and Marietta. The play dramatizes the ways in which these women deal with the racism of their era while still maintaining their dignity and sense of self. At the same time, the women are faced with their own personal dilemmas. We learn that Cordie Cheek, a young black man, has been acquitted of the charge of molesting a white woman. Leona, pregnant and separated from her husband, must confront her mother-in-law Mary Jane Barnes. At the beginning of the second act, Marietta reports that Cordie Cheek has been tortured and lynched on a bridge outside town. The women, still struggling with family issues, are confronted by newly-deputized white officers going house-to-house through the black area looking for guns to confiscate. Using “mother wit,” Emma Edwards thwarts the renewed attempt of the deputies to seize the guns in the house. The play ends with Marietta's speculations about the possibility of race war and the ultimate achievement of justice. Seaton based the play on family stories describing the way of life of middle-class blacks in the South before the modern civil rights movement. This play is not a "docudrama" of her family's life but rather a presentation of a part of the African American experience that is often overlooked. Ruby Dee, Adilah Barnes, Michele Shay, Kim Staunton and Lynda Gravatt appeared under the direction of Glenda Dickerson in The Bridge Party at the University of Michigan in 1998. Mizan Nunes appeared under the direction of C.C. Antoinette in The Bridge Party at the New Federal Theater in 1998.