Dawn. Same as Scene Two, the dividing line of forest and plain. The nearest tree trunks are dimly revealed but the forest behind them is still a mass of glooming shadow.
The Emperor Jones
SCENE VII: In the Forest. Night.
The foot of a gigantic tree by the edge of a great river. A rough structure of boulders, like an altar, is by the tree. The raised river bank is in the nearer background.
SCENE VI: In the Forest. Night.
A cleared space in the forest. The limbs of the trees meet over it forming a low ceiling about five feet from the ground.
SCENE IV: In the Forest. Night.
In the forest. A wide dirt road runs diagonally from right, front, to left, rear. Rising sheer on both sides the forest walls it in. The moon is now up.
SCENE III: In the Forest. Night.
In the forest. The moon has just risen. Its beams, drifting through the canopy of leaves, make a barely perceptible, suffused, eerie glow. A dense low wall of under-brush and creepers is in the nearer foreground, fencing in a small triangular clearing. Beyond this is the massed blackness of the forest like an encompassing barrier.
SCENE II: The edge of the Great Forest. Dusk.
The end of the plain where the Great Forest begins. The foreground is sandy, level ground dotted by a few stones and clumps of stunted bushes cowering close against the earth to escape the buffeting of the trade wind. In the rear the forest is a wall of darkness dividing the world.
SCENE I: In the palace of the Emperor Jones. Afternoon.
The audience chamber in the palace of the Emperor—a spacious, high-ceilinged room with bare, whitewashed walls. The floor is of white tiles. In the rear, to the left of center, a wide archway giving out on a portico with white pillars.
The Emperor Jones
CHARACTERS
BRUTUS JONES, Emperor
HENRY SMITHERS, a Cockney Trader
AN OLD NATIVE WOMAN
LEM, a Native Chief
SOLDIERS, adherents of Lem
The Little Formless Fears; Jeff; The Negro Convicts; The Prison Guard;
The Planters; The Auctioneer; The Slaves; The Congo Witch-Doctor;
The Crocodile God