Dear Mr. Parr,
I have a few questions for you on your play His Eye is on the Sparrow. What did you have in mind for Ethel's character? Did you keep your story as close to her life as possible or did you use her, because of her celebrity, and stretch her truth? Did you use her to accomplish a goal of presenting whites as the saviors of the black race and blaming blacks for their lowly positions in society? Who did you write for? Did you write to educate white audiences and personify black bodies or did you write to appease them, to make them feel whole and holy? Tell me Mr. Parr, who?
Your message contradicts itself, flip-flops, and takes the careful observer through a maze of light and shadows. You spend the majority of the play building up Ethel as strong, resilient, talented, and humble. However, you end it in an entirely different way. You present a handsome white man as the presence that fills the gaping hole missing in Ethel's life, her need for a child. You have her find her salvation and fullness in white society and make her turn on her own race and proclaim herself a "racist" when, in all actuality, the distrust that she feels towards whites is totally warranted. What did you mean to teach? Who did you mean to please? If you were writing the play today, would Ethel still have found her salvation in whiteness?
Wanting to know more,
Vanessa Sims
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