(Langston Hughes image credits from google)
On November 1, 2010 I went to the Macaulay building to watch the langston Hughes reading by David Mills. I went in expecting a basic reading of his poetry similar to our other readings with Jonathan Foer and Jhumpa Lahiri, but David Mills surprised me when he walked in with no introduction and began his readings of Langston Hughes. He did not have a paper or a book which he read off, he had the stories and poems memorized. His surprise entrance captured the audience’s attention but his spectacular acting kept audience engaged throughout the entire reading. David altered his voice dramatically from character to character. He played all sorts of characters from a college student, to a sassy woman, to a passionate pastor, a police officer and a frightened deacon. He mentioned at the end that he had a lot of room to interpret the poems. He said that he added a lot of extra movements, reactions, and sound effects.
At the end of the performance he stopped acting and became himself ” David Mills ” and began to explain the works and their historical context. Hughes addressed problems with racism, segregation, and the advancement of the black community. I was able to appreciate the works of Langston Hughes so much more because not only did David read them to us but he acted it out. This helped me visualize Hughes poems and begin to understand them.
