Super Short Summary

An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is a metatheatrical adaptation of Dion Boucicault's 1859 melodrama. It follows BJJ, a Black playwright, who, while dealing with depression, decides to re-stage the original play about George Peyton, who inherits a debt-ridden Louisiana plantation, and his love for Zoe, a technically enslaved, white-passing woman. The play critiques historical and contemporary representations of Blackness in American theater. Depictions of systemic racism, slavery, and violence may be distressing for some readers.