Okay, I’m a member of Generation Y.  While it has its benefits (Oregon Trail, Where’s Waldo, and the fact that I have a computer in my kitchen), it also means that I lack a certain cultural knowledge about, well, anything that happened before the 1990’s.

So working on Fetch Clay, Make Man—a play about the unlikely friendship between controversial former Hollywood actor Stepin Fetchit and heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali—has been quite an experience.  So much for me to learn!  Fortunately, as a child of the 1980’s, I immediately thought of digital media and social networking as a way to fill in my knowledge gap.  And of course, both Ali and Fetchit are represented on Youtube.

So here’s the first part of our Generation Y video roundup—some excerpts of Stepin Fetchit in performance.  If you’ve never seen it—it’s quite something!  The first is from Judge Priest, the second is him performing the song “Lazy Richard.”

What do you think?  Is he cleverly subverting the social order of his time, or is he perpetuating a stereotype?  Share your comments below by clicking on the “comments” link, then come and see Fetch Clay, Make Man and see playwright Will Power brilliantly engage the question.

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 3:37 pm and is filed under Fetch Clay, Make Man, Get Connected, Multimedia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.