The Mule-Bone

Written together by two giants of the Harlem Renaissance, this comedy unfolds in the all-Black town of Eatonville, Florida, where two friends and fellow musicians fall out over a woman named Daisy. When one man knocks the other flat with the hock bone of a mule, the whole town takes sides, splitting neatly along the lines of its two churches for a hearing that becomes as much a performance as a trial. Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston filled the play with folk speech, humor, and song, though a bitter quarrel over authorship kept it off the stage in their lifetimes. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.