The Bridge Party [3] - Irving

The Bridge Party portrays the strength of a group of black women who gather for their weekly bridge game as they cope with a house-to-house search of the black community in the wake of a lynching. The setting of The Bridge Party is the meeting of an African American women’s bridge club in the South of the 1940s. A group of women have gathered for their weekly bridge party hosted by the daughters of Emma Edwards, Theodora, Leona and Marietta. The play dramatizes the ways in which these women deal with the racism of their era while still maintaining their dignity and sense of self. At the same time, the women are faced with their own personal dilemmas. We learn that Cordie Cheek, a young black man, has been acquitted of the charge of molesting a white woman. Leona, pregnant and separated from her husband, must confront her mother-in-law Mary Jane Barnes. At the beginning of the second act, Marietta reports that Cordie Cheek has been tortured and lynched on a bridge outside town. The women, still struggling with family issues, are confronted by newly-deputized white officers going house-to-house through the black area looking for guns to confiscate, Using “mother wit,” Emma Edwards thwarts the renewed attempt of the deputies to seize the guns in the house. The play ends with Marietta’s speculations about the possibility of race war and the ultimate achievement of justice.see less