Race, war and history collide in this play, set in 1874, the year of the Red River War on the southern plains as a group of black troopers of the Tenth Cavalry, Buffalo Soldiers, are sent to suppress an uprising of the Southern Cheyenne. During the night, on a dusty, sagebrush covered island in the middle of the Red River, the black soldiers capture a young warrior called Buffalo Hair, a black man who has chosen to live among the Cheyenne ever since they saved his life. The soldiers find their captive to be a foe from without and within. To Buffalo Hair, his captors are slaves to the white man and enemies to his true people, the Cheyenne. In the morning, a hundred Cheyenne warriors will come to the river to take Buffalo Hair back. Now the soldiers must choose whether to stay loyal to the army and fight, or let Buffalo Hair go and to save themselves?
“Playwright Carlyle Brown aptly exposes the ambiguity of racial identity and the tragedy of the divide and conquer mentality which pitted African-Americans against Native Americans. Buffalo Hair is powerful stuff.”
-Insight News
“Basing his play on…historical fact, Brown takes a new slant on the traditional Western, attempting to come to terms with history, to rewrite and reclaim the past. He moves beyond typical melodrama and fashions a powerful examination of the complexities of race.”
-Equal Time
Developed at The Playwrights’ Center 1994 Play Labs in Minneapolis
World Premiere: Penumbra Theatre Company, St. Paul, Minnesota
Published: Dramatists Play Service