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The mule-bone

Chapter 4: CHARACTERS
By Langston Hughes
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About This Book

A three-act comic drama set in a small southern town that follows two close friends whose competing affections for a single woman ignite a personal quarrel that ripples through the community. The action moves from a storefront porch to parlor and public meeting, presenting a wide ensemble of elders, ministers, gossiping neighbors, and local officials whose rivalries, loyalties, and petty ambitions turn mundane disputes into farce. Using lively dialect, music, and physical comedy, the work sketches everyday rituals, church rivalry, and communal justice with both affectionate satire and plainspoken social observation.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The mule-bone

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Title: The mule-bone

a comedy of Negro life in three acts

Author: Langston Hughes

Zora Neale Hurston

Release date: October 2, 2006 [eBook #19435]
Most recently updated: July 22, 2023

Language: English

Credits: Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MULE-BONE ***

[Transcriber’s Note: A few obvious typo’s in stage directions have been fixed, though nothing in the dialogue has been changed.]

THE MULE-BONE

A COMEDY OF NEGRO LIFE IN

THREE ACTS

By LANGSTON HUGHES and ZORA HURSTON

Contents

ACT ONE
ACT TWO
ACT THREE

CHARACTERS

JIM WESTON: Guitarist, Methodist, slightly arrogant, agressive, somewhat self-important, ready with his tongue.

DAVE CARTER: Dancer, Baptist, soft, happy-go-lucky character, slightly dumb and unable to talk rapidly and wittily.

DAISY TAYLOR.
Methodist, domestic servant, plump, dark and sexy, self-conscious of clothes and appeal, fickle.

JOE CLARK.
The Mayor, storekeeper and postmaster, arrogant, ignorant and powerful in a self-assertive way, large, fat man, Methodist.

ELDER SIMMS.
Methodist minister, newcomer in town, ambitious, small and fly, but not very intelligent.

ELDER CHILDERS.
Big, loose-jointed, slow spoken but not dumb. Long resident in the town, calm and sure of himself.

KATIE CARTER: Dave’s aunt, little old wizened dried-up lady.

MRS. HATTIE CLARK.
The Mayor’s wife, fat and flabby mulatto high-pitched voice.

THE MRS. REV. SIMMS.
Large and agressive.

THE MRS. REV. CHILDERS.
Just a wife who thinks of details.

LUM BOGER.
Young town marshall about twenty, tall, gangly, with big flat feet, liked to show off in public.

TEET MILLER: Village vamp who is jealous of DAISY.

LIGE MOSELY: A village wag.

WALTER THOMAS.
Another village wag.

ADA LEWIS: A promiscuous lover.

DELLA LEWIS: Baptist, poor housekeeper, mother of ADA.

BOOTSIE PITTS: A local vamp.

MRS. DILCIE ANDERSON: Village housewife, Methodist.

WILLIE NIXON.
Methodist, short runt.