Granny Maumee; The rider of dreams; Simon the Cyrenian

by Ridgely Torrence

SIMON THE CYRENIAN

Note.—Although Cyrene was in northern Africa, the wall-paintings in the vast Cyrenian tombs depict black people instead of brown.

That Jesus’ cross-bearer was a black man, as the early painters represented him, is a fact that holds a certain suggestion bearing upon a phase of modern society.

It has been the author’s design that all the characters in this play should be represented by persons entirely or partly of Negro blood; and this intention has been carried out in the original stage production. Simon is a full-blooded Negro, Battus is a little less dark, Acte is a mulatto as were most Egyptians of the later dynasties. Her attendants comprise both mulattoes and Negroes. The Roman characters are played by persons of slighter negroid strain.