Telling a story that feels modern, savvy and urgent — but set during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s — the new production of Atlanta playwright Pearl Cleage’s “Blues for an Alabama Sky” is solid entertainment.
Running through June 23 at Actor’s Express, the play features an incredible ensemble and a well-told, satisfying story full of humor, passion and suspense.
Centered around five friends in neighboring New York apartments, the show takes place over several months as the struggling fictional characters rub shoulders offstage with cultural luminaries such as poet Langston Hughes, singer Josephine Baker and birth control activist Margaret Sanger. This touch in the script is particularly effective, giving the play a rooted authenticity and emotional stakes. We live in the future that these characters helped build, and our progress emerged from their pain.
Credit: Photo by Casey Gardner Ford
Credit: Photo by Casey Gardner Ford
Cleage is a wonderful writer. Her script is full of wit, warmth and dramatic tension. The characters possess hot tempers and clearly stated political opinions. Cleage understands that intelligent characters unabashedly addressing their differences of opinion is compelling to watch. And she also gives each character a heart the audience can connect with, even when stances differ.
This is bold, necessary material. The characters here are rich with layers, and the plotting masterfully pits them against each other in unexpected ways.
As the play opens, a singer named Angel, played by Tiffany Denise Hobbs, has been jilted by her married mobster boyfriend and is out of a job. Her longtime friend Guy (Damian Lockhart), an openly gay costumer who dreams of Paris, lets her crash on his chaise lounge and tries to ignore how much she drinks.
In the next apartment, an idealistic young woman named Delia (Kenisha Johnson) dreams of opening a clinic in Harlem that promotes women’s health and family planning, and an easygoing doctor named Sam (Christopher Hampton) is intrigued by Delia’s ideas and offers to help fight any opposition she might face.
Desperate for someone more settled, Angel soon attracts the attention of Leland (Jontavious Johnson), a widower who recently relocated from Alabama. Leland is traditionally minded and God-fearing, which clashes with the wilder, liberal culture of Harlem.
The reckless Angel is impulsive and self-centered, which emerges from survival instinct, and she tangles everyone’s fates with hers.
With so many hot-button issues involved in this play — including abortion, gay rights, Black women’s rights and toxic masculinity — it’s surprising to see the ways this powder keg of a plot might explode. But the storytelling structure of this work is very traditional, even following age-old rules set in place by Anton Chekhov. It’s very satisfying.
Credit: Photo by Casey Gardner Ford
Credit: Photo by Casey Gardner Ford
Hobbs and Lockhart are incredible in their scenes together, building the easy, playful chemistry of old friends who know all the ways to build up or wound each other. Hobbs is a powerhouse, making Angel seem smart, likable enough yet dangerous. Alongside her transformative work earlier this year in the Alliance Theatre’s “A Tale of Two Cities,” her range may be boundless.
Lockhart is terrifically funny and assured as Guy, who captures the audience’s heart almost immediately. Much of the play’s lightness centers upon Guy, and Lockhart does beautiful work.
As Leland, Jontavious Johnson plays opposite the showy dynamics of the other performers, instead creating a shy, conservative and sympathetic man who no longer knows his place in the world. Several moments of Johnson’s are heartbreaking.
Hampton and Kenisha Johnson have a crackling romantic chemistry in their sweet subplot, and Delia’s innate awkwardness is also very funny, particularly when Guy tries to help her dress better.
Director Amanda Washington gives the show an easy, lived-in pace, allowing moments where the characters have flirty room to breathe. Most scene transitions don’t occur quickly because of how the set is used. Instead, we watch characters as they walk from the sidewalk, then down the apartment hallway and settle into their flats before a scene truly begins.
Yet this also has an upside. Seamus M. Bourne’s set design means the audience knows what’s coming before the characters do, building anticipation, suspense or dread.
Among other technical elements worthy of praise are the beautiful period costumes by Ricky Greenwell, which distinguish characters such as Guy and Delia even further.
“Blues for an Alabama Sky” is a gem of a show.
THEATER REVIEW
“Blues for an Alabama Sky”
At Actor’s Express through June 23. 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. Ticket prices vary depending on performance date and time and are subject to change. Actor’s Express (at King Plow Arts Center), 887 W. Marietta St. NW, Atlanta. 404-607-7469, actors-express.com.
Credit: ArtsATL
Credit: ArtsATL
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