Carry Me Back to Morningside Heights is an American play about a young Jewish man who insists on becoming a slave to an African-American law student as a personal penance for the years of wrongs whites have done to blacks. It was written by Robert Alan Aurthur and premiered on Broadway in 1968, where it ran for seven performances.
| Carry Me Back to Morningside Heights | |
|---|---|
 Playbill cover from 1968 Broadway production | |
| Written by | Robert Alan Aurthur |
| Date premiered | 27 February 1968 |
| Place premiered | John Golden Theatre, New York |
| Original language | English |
| Subject | race relations |
| Genre | comedy |
Plot
editA Jewish civil rights worker, Seymour Levin, plagued by white guilt, he offers his services to a Black law student, Willie Nurse, as a slave as recompense for American slavery. Levin is more and more exploited by Nurse until Levin is chained to a radiator and Nurse's fiancée sexually assaults him.[1]
Carry Me Back to Morningside Heights is a three-act comedy play.[2] It takes place at an apartment in Morningside Heights, Manhattan.[3]
Production history
editThe 1968 Broadway production was directed by Sidney Poitier and was produced by Saint Subber in association with Harold Loeb. There were five roles in the play – Louis Gossett as Willie Nurse, David Steinberg as Seymour Levin, Johnny Born as Henry Hardy, Cicely Tyson as Myrna Jessup, and Diane Ladd as Alma Sue Bates.[2]
The show had one preview and opened on February 27, 1968. It ran for seven performances at the John Golden Theatre, closing on March 2, 1968.[2][3]
Critical reception
editCarry Me Back to Morningside Heights was widely panned. The New Yorker described it as "however inadvertently, anti-white, anti-black, and anti-Semetic."[4] The New York Times called the play racially insensitive and critiqued the poor writing.[1] In his memoir, director Sidney Poitier said "the play didn't work – not on any level. The critics dumped on the writing and the direction, but most of all, the direction."[5] The play was profiled in the William Goldman book The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway.[6]
References
edit- 1 2 "Theater: Insensitive Racial Comedy". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2026-05-02.
- 1 2 3 "Carry Me Back to Morningside Heights". Playbill. Retrieved 2026-05-01.
- 1 2 "Carry Me Back to Morningside Heights – Broadway Play – Original". Internet Broadway Database. Retrieved 2026-05-02.
- ↑ Gill, Brendan (1968-03-09). "The Theatre - Usable Pasts". The New Yorker: 123 – via Internet Archive.
- ↑ Poitier, Sidney (1980). This Life. Knopf. p. 294. ISBN 0394505492.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ↑ Goldman, William (1984). The season : a candid look at Broadway. Internet Archive. Limelight Editions. ISBN 978-0-87910-023-0.