Imperceptible Mutabilties in the Third Kingdom spans the African American experience from slave ships to modern urban America. Combining African drums, images, and wild wordplay, Imperceptible Mutabilities presents a radically different view of history, people, and politics – from the slaveship to the invasion of a two foot cockroach.

Director's Notes

"Third Kingdom" refers to the Kingdom of fungi. When talking to Suzan-Lori Parks about the title; she said that Imperceptible Mutabilities began as an examination of the very small to the big.

"Or as the snail, whose tenderhoms being hit,
Shrinks backward in his shelly cave with pain, And there, all smoth'red up, in shade dothsit, Long after fearing to creep forth again. . . "
Venus and Adonis

Anna Julia Cooper, a 19th century essayist/speaker, wrote about her stance as a black woman on society. “We take a stand on the solidarity of humanity, the oneness of life. . . Women's wrongs are . . . linked with all undefended woe." She believed that mankind was being cheated by utilizing only the white male perspective. "Mankind has had to limp along with a wobbling gait and one-sided hesitancy of a man with one eye." Her cure- to remove the blindfold so that, "one would see a circle where before there was only a segment."

Anna Julia Cooper,
A Voice From the South
Xenia, Ohio, 1992

Author’s Notes – Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom

"SK" is /sk/ as in ask. ... You lie down you lie down but he and she and it and us well we lays down. ... Couldnt see thuh sense uh words workin like he said couldnt see thuh sense uh workin where words workin like that was workin would drop my phone voice would let things slip they tell me get Basic Skills call me breakin protocol hhhhh! Think I'll splat!
from Imperceptible Mutahilities in the Third Kingdom

I write plays because I want to write things that are meant to be read aloud. That's what started me in playwriting and that's what holds me in it: Spellbound.

Writing. And with spelling cast a spell.

I think it's neat that the verb "to spell" is akin to the Old English spell (which means "to talk"). The word "gramrnar" is a distant cousin of the word "charm." When I write plays I take words from the world. I spell them out and fix them on the page. And then with Actor and Director we set those words loose -- back into the world again. Wow: that's Theatre.

Words are like charms. So seduce me.

I see my plays working on people as charms work on people. I try to connect with my audience on at least 2 levels: the conscious and the subconscious -- through the head and through the heart. To do this I do two things: I write down words as I hear them (spelling them as they sound as opposed to spelling them as we are taught to spell them) and I only very rarely use stage directions. What I get are plays in which the physical life is living inside the line itself (instead of in a parenthetical stage direction). I really believe that an action can be indicated by the way in which that word is written down.

All this makes for some funny looking text. The actors, director and crew work with this text to create the production. They're creating, for the audience, a vision of the Third Kingdom. Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom. was a real breakthrough for me. It was with this play that I started trying to write down things as I heard them -- and in falling out with the conventions of spelling and grammar, other conventions such as those of plot and character then fell away. What I had left is IMP a play which is a basic for me -- like a heartbeat, like a breath.

Writing, Presenting, and Witnessing Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kinldom is a challenge every step of the way. As audience members, to meet this challenge you must draw on all your resources. Witness this play as you would witness a friend telling you a dream. Let the words sometimes work on you like music. You will be taking a trip to the place of dreams, to the place of hyper-reality. Witnessing the play will take you to a place where, perhaps, you've never been. It's a place I call the "Third Kingdom" but I don't think the place really has a name. A trip to that Third Kingdom is such an important trip to take. The Third Kingdom is the place where the world does not conform to the way we've been taught to understand the world; the Third Kingdom is the place where yourself sees your Self, a place where the curve of time is visible, a place that is your own soul's eye -- vast and frightening and exciting and also very still. This journey is absolutely necessary and to get there you have to be simultaneously very conscious and completely unconscious: AWAKE. Everybody has their own Third Kingdom. In 1986 I set out to record the landscape of mine and this play is the result of that recording.

S-L Parks