Language, structure and form in Princess & The Hustler - AQA

• Chinonyerem Odimba wrote Princess & The Hustler as a play in three acts.

• It has a cyclical structure, so it starts and ends in a similar way with Princess in her cupboard world.

• Odimba uses stage directions to give additional details about how lines should be delivered or how actors should behave.

• Mavis and Wendell’s lines are written to sound like Jamaican patois to illustrate how the Caribbean community in Bristol might speak.

Remember

As Princess & The Hustler is a play, it is important to read and consider the stage directions carefully.

Think about the purpose and effects of stage directions and word choices, rather than just identifying them.

The play begins with Princess alone in her pageantry world in the cupboard. She places “a crown made of cardboard and tinsel” on her head and announces herself the pageant winner.

The plays ends with Princess back in her cupboard room. This time Wendell, her father, is there. He places “a crown of the most wonderful sparkles” on her head and announces her the pageant winner.

Apart from Wendell’s presence and loving support, the other key difference in the final scene is that:

for the first time she imagines a pageant where all the beauty queens look like her.

This is significant as it shows that Princess’s feelings about her own appearance and self-worth have changed over the course of the play.

The stage directions instruct that “A line of the most beautiful Black women of all sizes and nations” joins Princess on the stage and she takes a bow “with her fellow queens”.

The ending shows Princess empowered and confident, supported by her family and community.

In Act Two, Scene Four, Mavis talks to Margot about when she and Wendell left Jamaica to live in England. She says they married in 1945 and she was pregnant with Junior when they arrived, so it is implied that they emigrated as part of the Windrush generation in 1948 onwards.

All of Wendell’s lines replicate Jamaican patois. For example:

When mi come to dis country I was ar good man. Ar soldier. Fight far King an’ country.

Some of Mavis’s lines use patois too – particularly when she is speaking with Wendell.

Princess & The Hustler is written using vernacular speech – that means the characters speak like ordinary people.

To make the dialogue even more realistic, Odimba uses specific speech directions, which she lists under “Things” at the start of the play.

For example, Odimba uses:

• Ellipsis to show when a character should pause or “trail off”. For example: "I think I hear something…"

• Overlapping speech indicated by /. For example:

PRINCESS. Beauties of the West /

MAVIS. What you say?

PRINCESS. Nothing Mummy /

MAVIS: Good.

These techniques illustrate how comfortable the characters are as they talk over and interrupt one another – like close family would.

Odimba gives stage directions throughout Princess & The Hustler to instruct how lines should be delivered. For example:

LEON (whispering). Look I better be going…

This helps Odimba to communicate what emotions she wants the actors to portray in those lines.

Most of Odimba’s stage directions, however, focus on physical instructions which might non-verbally communicate ideas and insights about the characters to the audience too.

Example 1

In Act One, Scene One, Princess is about to argue back with her angry mother and “tell tales” on Junior, when Junior:

gestures a ‘shush’ at PRINCESS behind MAVIS’s back.

This simple gesture could have many interpretations. It could show that Junior is:

• Protecting Princess from getting into an argument with Mavis
• Ensuring that Mavis is not angered further and can enjoy Christmas day
• Exerting control over Princess as the older sibling.

Example 2

When Margot first meets Wendell she pulls up a chair “very close to WENDELL” and sits down:

crossing her legs seductively.

This instruction from Odimba reveals Margot’s flirtatious nature. It could also hint at more complex aspects of Margot’s character that the audience don’t learn through the dialogue. For example, the suggestion that she might exoticise Wendell because he is a Black man.

There are just four “places” specified by Odimba at the start of the play.

1. Mavis’s front room – sparsely decorated

2. Princess’s cupboard room – only lit when she is in there

3. The other room – a bedroom

4. The Docks, Bristol

Almost all the scenes happen within the house, apart from Act One, Scene Six, which takes place on the docks.

This helps to focus the action on the domestic life of the James household, emphasising the theme of family and the importance of home.

The docks scene helps to set the play in its wider geographical context of Bristol city. It also emphasis how irresponsible Wendell is, when he leaves Princess and Lorna in this unfamiliar environment.

At the start of Act One, Odimba specifies that:

The stage opens like a big box – as though opening the front of a doll’s house.

Odimba may have made this choice to:

• Create the idea that the audience are being given a glimpse into a private, personal story
• Suggest the idea of a ‘time capsule’ – this play is set in a very specific historical period: the Bristol Bus Boycott
• Make links to the idea of childhood and make-believe mirroring Princess’s imaginary world.

Test your knowledge of the language, structure and form of Princess & The Hustler by taking this multiple-choice quiz.