RENAISSANCE MEN (AND WOMEN) The cast of “Blues for an Alabama Sky,” playing at Theater Five at Theater Row. The play, by Pearl Cleage, takes place in two almost-adjoining Harlem apartments in 1930 or.
IT’S A GOOD TIME to be black in Harlem, When you go to church on Sunday, the minister is Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Everybody’s favorite bon vivant neighbor is the poet and dramatist Langston Hughes. The nice lady who’s helping set up a women’s health clinic nearby is Margaret Sanger. And one character is always getting letters from the performer Josephine Baker, who’s far away, reigning as the toast of Paris.
GAL PALS Angel, a sexy club singer (Alfie Fuller, left) and Delia, a virginal social worker (Jasminn Johnson), may seem like unlikely friends, but living across the hall from each other brings them together. Delia thinks Angel should learn to type.
But the Depression has begun, and joblessness is taking its toll on this vibrant arts community, just as it is on the rest of the country. One character has every intention of getting away.
HE IS WHAT HE IS Guy (John-Andrew Morrison) — with his next-door neighbor, Delia — is a talented costume designer and a gay man who is as out as any black American man could be in 1930. He loves clothes (costume design is by Asa Benally). And he has dreams of making a new life in Paris.
Ms. Cleage has written an old-fashioned play, in the best sense of the word. We get to know each of the five characters, and then things happen to them.
As Act I begins, Angel (Alfie Fuller), a jazz singer who enjoys a drink or two or 10, is having an exceedingly bad night. Her gangster boyfriend has dumped her, thrown her out of their place and fired her from the club. Her friend Guy (John-Andrew Morrison), a proud gay man and costume designer, takes her in (“You’re over here half the time anyway. What’s the big deal?”). But he has a lot on his mind, corresponding with and sending costume samples to Josephine Baker — and convinced that she’ll soon send for him. And if he goes to Paris, he’ll take Angel along.
I’LL DRINK TO THAT Guy, Angel and their good buddy Sam (Sheldon Woodley), a neighborhood physician, throw back a few whenever they can. Prohibition be damned!
One of their best pals is Sam (Sheldon Woodley), a bachelor doctor who seems to spend a lot of time delivering babies and then goes to his friends’ apartment to drink and carouse. The group’s good girl is Delia (Jasminn Johnson), the social worker next door, determined to liberate black women by bringing reliable birth control to Harlem. Delia knows a lot about sexual intercourse —its mechanics and its dangers, anyway — for someone who’s never had it. She’s 25, which was old- maid territory back then.
TUSKEGEE AIRHEAD Khiry Walker as Leland, a grieving Alabamian visiting Harlem, with Angel, who has been unlucky in love. Leland bought that dress for her, by the way, and she did with it what she could.
