Spunk Kenny Leon’s True Color Theatre Company’s production of Spunk: Three Tales by Zora Neale Hurston at the 14th Street Playhouse on September 25, 2013, presented the audience with a very culturally embellished version of Hurston’s original three tales: “Sweat,” “Story in Harlem Slang,” and “The Gilded Six Bits.” Zora Neale Hurston strived to portray the reality of life as an African American in the early 1900s through native dialect in her short stories and novels. Her most notable production, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is a prime example of her effort to illustrate the life of the everyday Negro in search of a better life. Each of the short stories portrays a different, yet comparable view on African American culture in separate areas of the United States. Director Hilda Willis depicts this play, adapted by George C. Wolfe, in the most literal variation of Hurston’s original stories; the actors from True Colors Theatre Company perform the short stories verbatim. This production is energized with selections of blues music to help the audience feel the attitude of the era in which the play occurs. Wolfe’s adaptation of Hurston’s Spunk infused the original three short stories with delineative and characteristic blues music, highlighting the mood during the era of the Harlem Renaissance and Black Migration. “Sweat” tells the story of a woman named Delia who suffers in an abusive relationship with her husband, Sykes. Her husband tries multiple methods of coercing Delia to leave, including verbal abuse and bringing a venomous snake into their household. She toils through the relationship as Sykes openly cheats on her with a more voluptuous woman. Sykes proclaims in the text, “Ah sho’ ‘bominates a skinny ‘oman,” when trying to woo and impress his other woman, and, “Ah'm so tired of you Ah don't know whut to do. Gawd! how Ah hates skinny wimmen," when fed up wit Delia’s resilience and unwillingness to leave (Sweat p. 2, 5). In the end, his plans for the snake to sneak up on Delia backfire, ending with his slow and painful demise as the cold river of venom crept up to “extinguish that eye which must know by now that she knew” of his infidelity” (p. 9).
The second installment of the play Spunk brings the audience to a scene set in the streets of Harlem title “Story in Harlem Slang.” Two male prostitutes, Jelly and Sweet Back, struggling to make ends meet in the hustle and bustle of New York City try to make the other believe that they have found a faithful sugar mama who funds their every need. Both refuse to give into “the bear,” confession of poverty, and continue “beatin’ up their gums,” talking to no purpose. As they attempt to catch each other’s bluff, a fine young “coal scuttle blond,” black woman, walks by swinging her hips in a lustrous manner, enticing the males further. Once she realizes that the men are not meritorious and solely seeking to “collar a hot,” eat a meal, and get some “jelly,” sex, she quickly puts the fear of “The man,” law enforcement, in their minds and “airs out,” or leaves, the scene (Spunk). The last short story, “The Gilded Six Bit,” concludes the play with a powerful message of everlasting love. Joe and Missy May live happily in Eatonville, Florida, with an established home and steady work. One day, Joe takes Missy May to the opening of a new ice cream parlor established in town by a wealthy man from the north named Otis D. Slemmons, known in Missy May’s mind as "Dat heavyset man wid his mouth full of gold teeths" (The Gilded Six Bits p. 3). Little did Joe know about the moves Otis Slemmons had been placing on his wife. The moment Missy May first set her eyes on Slemmons’ gilded six bit gold coin, she immediately wanted for Joe to have gold, too. That instance marked “de first time [she] ever seed gold money.” She believed “it lookted good on [Otis] sho nuff, but it'd look a whole heap better on [Joe]" (p. 5). One day, Joe left work early to surprise his wife; sadly, he encountered Otis Slemmons in bed with Missy May. She had fallen for the splendor, grandiosity, and wealth that Otis represented in her mind. Longing for her husband’s forgiveness, Missy May promises to obey and fulfill his every desire henceforth. After silent days and nights, Missy May decides to rid Joe of her presence, believing that to be his wish. Reluctantly, she stays to prove her determination and love for her husband. The conception of their first child really sparks the match in Joe’s head that Missy May never meant to do him wrong; after many months of neglect, Joe traveled down to Orlando for errands and took a detour to his favorite candy store. With Otis Slemmons’ gilded coin, Joe spent “all dat in kisses.” While there, he though of his “lil boy chile [at] home now. Tain't a week old yet, but he kin suck a sugar tit and maybe eat one them [molasses] kisses hisself" (p. 11). The True Colors Theatre Company take advantage of their minimal stage space and set to immerse the audience into the era of Spunk and create the illusion of an enormous space. Although the stories focus mainly on dialogue between the players, True Colors used an upper stage for the narrator to oversee the action as it unfolds downstage, or close to the audience. All players in the company acted as narrators, which displayed to the audience the feeling and importance of community during the Harlem Renaissance and Black Migration. So much unhappiness and desire for change and improvement consisted throughout the play. This circles all three of the stories back to spunk, which is defined as courage, determination, grit, and gumption. Delia, Jelly, and Missy May showed tremendous spunk in their tales of redemption, pride, and unconditional love.
The integration of blues music into the short stories of Zora Neale Hurston added an integral element of cultural connection to the play. The music gave life and sentiment to the words that they players portrayed while connecting the seemingly three starkly different stories. In moments of sadness and hurt, the music slowed, reflecting the sympathy that Wolfe and director Willis wanted the audience to feel. In moments of heat and anger, the speed of the music picked up, raising the heartbeat of the audience and drawing them into the story line even more. The genre of blues, indigenous to the descendants of African slaves brought to the Americas during the age of modernization, carries the history of a nation fighting for freedom within each strum of the guitar string. Blues music is not legato and flowing like classical music; instead, musicians finger pick their instruments, allowing each individual note to stand alone, symbolic of the torture African slaves endured when the arrived in the New World. The popular sensation of blues music erupted as a means of demonstrating the negative emotions African Americans felt towards their past and the positive emotions they harvested in hopes for a more prosperous future. The genre of blues outlines a time in the history of America where the African American population noticed the need to rise up and begin creating a new cultural identity as contributing members of the American society.
The three short stories that comprise the play Spunk already realistically represent the lives of African Americans during the era of Black Migration and Harlem Renaissance. Blues music emphasizes the overall cultural mood of the time period in avenues that mere words cannot reach. This adaptation of Spunk: Three Tales by Zora Neale Hurston by George C. Wolfe brings modern relevance to the messages that Hurston wanted to convey to contemporaries of her time period eighty years ago through music. From reading the original tales, the True Colors Theatre Company fulfilled and even exceeded my expectations of the play with the outstanding performance and dedication to bringing these stories to life on stage.

Works Cited
Sweat. Zora Neale Hurston. http://lists.wsu.edu/pipermail/english/attachments/
20130206/4fdc96a6/HurstonSweat.pdf. 1926. Web. 9 Oct. 2013.
Spunk: Three Tales by Zora Neale Hurston. By George C. Wolfe. Dir. Hilda Willis. 14th Street Playhouse, Atlanta. 25 September. 2013. Performance.
The Gilded Six Bits. Zora Neale Hurston. http://www.bhscpa.org/0708HW/bells/ bellamlit/thegildedsixbits.pdf. 1933. Web. 9 Oct. 2013.