‘The Blacks’ not the only thing missing from Karamu’s ‘Day of Absence’ Bob Abelman Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal The pre-vaudeville minstrel shows of the mid-19th century are considered the first theatrical art form that was distinctly American. They featured white entertainers in blackface makeup performing comedy and song-and-dance routines that caricaturized plantation slaves for white audiences. God bless us. As one would imagine, minstrel shows were particularly popular in the South before the Civil War, as a way of reinforcing widely held racist stereotypes and countering the abolitionist movement. A century later, in 1965, playwright Douglas Turner Ward borrowed this art form to shed light on the state of racism that was inspiring the civil rights movement. In his satirical fantasy play “Day of Absence,” which served to launch the pioneering Negro Ensemble Company in New York City, Southern whites were caricaturized by black actors appearing in whiteface and behaving as broadly as their old minstrel show counterparts. Karamu Theatre has resurrected Ward’s one-act for reasons best left to the audience’s sense of social awareness. For more of this article, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/bob_abelman/