Some 25 or so years ago, I saw Flyin’ West, a boldly-written drama depicting a family of black women trying to hang on to their Kansas homestead in 1898.
There is no record that this play was ever staged in New York City, so probably I caught it at Crossroads Theatre Company in New Brunswick or maybe even Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, where it premiered. Flyin’ West was quite a popular work among regional theaters back in the middle 1990s.
Although I forget specifics about that production, let me tell you that after a quarter century and multitudes of shows witnessed since, I still recall the charm of this drama’s “fine colored women” characters and the intensity of their doings in Flyin’ West.
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★★ review here.]
Its author, Pearl Cleage, is an old-school playwright whose realistic dramas about African-American people rarely are produced by our local companies, shame on them.
So it’s great to finally get a look at the playwright’s Blues for an Alabama Sky. First staged in Atlanta in 1995, the play receives its overdue New York premiere in a Keen Company production at Theatre Row, where the show opened on Wednesday.
The drama happens in Harlem over some six weeks during the summer of 1930, when the darkening Depression already is dimming the hi-de-ho high life of the Harlem Renaissance.
Symbolic of these busted times is Angel (Alfie Fuller), a blues singer who just lost her nightclub job and her gangster sugar daddy. Losing her love nest (and most of her clothes) in the break-up, Angel moves in “temporarily” with her old hometown pal Guy (John-Andrew Morrison) and ponders her next move.
A blithe spirit who enjoys a proto-gay existence as a dress designer, Guy also feels the chill of changing times. So Guy aspires to leave Harlem by venturing to create fanciful frocks for expatriate star Josephine Baker, reigning over far-off Paris.
Their lives entwine with Delia (Jasminn Johnson), a nice neighbor who is a social worker trying to establish a birth control clinic in the neighborhood. Then there is Sam (Sheldon Woodley), a party-hearty physician at Harlem Hospital who eventually strikes sparks with earnest Delia.
Into this raffish bunch wanders Leland (Khiry Walker), a visitor from Alabama still trying to get over the death of his wife in childbirth. Smitten by Angel’s somewhat seasoned charms, Leland naively pursues her.
Might the church-going Leland be this tarnished Angel’s meal ticket out of Harlem? Or does Angel think Guy’s unlikely dream about taking her to Paris might come true? Angel is revealed to be a pretty hard-boiled canary as the two-act play develops. Its conclusion is suddenly tragic.
With its casual references to luminaries such as Langston Hughes and talk about the nearby Abyssinian Church, Smalls Paradise, and evicted families sitting among their possessions on the sidewalk, Blues for an Alabama Sky offers a sepia snapshot of Harlem as hard times beckon in 1930. If some of the play’s talking points sound hackneyed, its inventive story, the vivid characters, and their flavorful ways of expression compensate for an occasional cliché.
In this disappointing Keen Company production, squarely directed in every way by LA Williams, the performances by a group of capable actors only intermittently jelled into a semblance of life at last Sunday’s matinee.
A purple-tinged impression of two flanking apartments designed by You-Shin Chen, lighted in somber shades by Oona Curley, provides decent environs for a play that has yet to be fully realized by its director and actors. Bluesy, even soulful, music composed by Lindsay Jones appropriately accents the drama.
It’s been my experience that Keen Company shows tend to be under-rehearsed, so hopefully with additional performances this production will do better by Cleage’s absorbing period study in disillusionment and the desperate desire to escape it.
In the meantime, has Blues for an Alabama Sky ever been optioned as a movie project? Cleage’s black and bluesy storyline would really open up beautifully on film.
Blues for an Alabama Sky opened February 19, 2020, at Theatre Row and runs through March 14. Tickets and information: keencompany.org
