Adopting a transnational approach to localized historical events and cultural productions, this essay explores the impact of the Italo-Ethiopian war in New York City, on Italian and African communities in particular, through the study of the connection of two plays by the Federal Theatre Project — the censored “living newspaper” Ethiopia (1936) and Orson Wells' “voodoo” Macbeth (1936) adapted for the Negro Unit of the FTP in Harlem — and the militant histrionic work of the Italian immigrant radical press in the same period, especially Carlo Tresca's Il martello This analysis posits a diasporic cultural terrain in which performance on and off stage played a central role in registering and mediating this most pressing issue of the day, including cross-racial affiliations and antagonisms on both sides of the Atlantic and in capturing the relevance of diasporas in national formations. In their experimentation with new media and technology and new ways of expressions, these cultural productions also shed new light on the history of the theatre worldwide, making visible in their script and live performance the connections among several populations across the globe brought about by histories of colonialism and emigration.
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