Blues for an Alabama Sky by Pearl Cleage

a critique by Korinn Annette Jefferies korinnannette.com

Before I write a critique of a play, I like to have an idea of the playwright’s intentions. Sometimes I watch or read interviews, but I believe the script is the most telling. In the case of Pearl Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky, the script gives us a lot of information that has historically been disregarded in production.

From its premiere, and seemingly from its inception, age has played a strange role in Blues for an Alabama Sky. When you read the character descriptions it can be assumed that age matters— there are very clear ages assigned to most of the characters. Delia is twenty five, Sam is forty, Leland is twenty eight, and Guy, whose age matters the least, is described as ‘thirtyish.’ Angel, however, has a more complicated age. She is described as “a thirty four year old Black woman who looks five years younger” and unlike most people who cast this role, I believe this description is vital to one’s understanding of the play. With this description, Cleage is establishing an internal conflict for Angel: she is a woman whose youth is only in appearance, and that fleeting youth drives many of her decisions in the play.

At the beginning of the play Angel’s boyfriend breaks up with her, and her large reaction to this separation gets her fired from her job. By the time Leland approaches Angel romantically, her feelings of desperation are exacerbated and she exhibits this by trying to convince Sam, with whom she has no romantic connection, to marry her. Angel’s age is, in part, responsible for her decision to go out with Leland, who is six years younger than her. He is so noticeably younger than Angel that in Scene 3, Guy refers to him as a “boy” and makes remarks about his boy-ish nature (p.34). It is very clear that Angel is excited to be desired by anyone, and even more so by someone who may think she is younger than she actually is.

This dynamic between Angel and Leland is often lost when the play is staged due to the perceived age of the characters. As I mentioned before, this is not a rare occurrence. When the show premiered in 1995, Phylicia Rashad, at age 47, portrayed the role of Angel and while she has always been a very beautiful woman it is highly unlikely that at 47, she looked 29. The Playmakers Repertory Company production of Blues for an Alabama Sky did not deviate from this established trend, casting an actress whose perceived age exceeded her late twenties. And while it is a choice, it is not one that contributes to the overall understanding of the play.

In the Playmakers production, Leland also appeared to be significantly older than 28, which completely erases the depth of the relationship between he and Angel. When both characters appear to be significantly older than they are intended to be, it is harder for them to garner sympathy from the audience. So much of both Leland and Angel’s behavior can be attributed to youth and ignorance, and when they both appear older than the age they are written to be, their behavior becomes less excusable and more damning. This is particularly true in the case of Angel, whose beauty and youth up to this point have always made a way for her— the audience should be able to see her youth fading gradually throughout the play so that an emotional connection to her character can be established and maintained. Without the context of age and Angel’s personal internal conflict, she just seems selfish.

I think the relationship between Sam and Delia is also worth discussing. In an interview with playwright Jacqueline E. Lawton, Cleage says she wishes they had more time to love each other but the visual of their age difference onstage makes the relationship between these two characters incredibly cringe-worthy and I was actually happy it ended. In the production of this piece at Playmakers, both Delia and Sam were cast accurately for age and it is such a jarring difference that it really makes their relationship unappealing. Sam, by Cleage’s description, is forty and his interest in Delia, twenty five, is a bit odd. While I can understand lust by proximity, their storyline regarding abortion clinics and the baby boom in Harlem at the time just doesn’t make any sense. Their relationship is more of a political statement than an actual relationship, showing two seemingly opposing viewpoints coming together for the betterment of the world. To be honest, it’s almost like Cleage just wrote whatever for their ages— I can’t quite find a reason for there being such a large age gap between Sam and Delia, and I imagine the story wouldn’t be much different if Sam were even five years younger.

When I first read Blues for an Alabama Sky I loved it. I think Cleage’s writing is timeless and her characters feel extremely familiar on the page. But seeing this work staged at Playmakers definitely muted my excitement. Playmakers staged this piece on a beautiful, very inoperable set. There was a lot of inconsistency with pantomiming doors, entrances that were rarely used, and parts of the stage that just didn’t lend to the development of the story at all. I will not go into costumes because I’m noticing a trend in Playmakers neglecting to properly dress and style their Black actors. I have been a patron of Playmakers for almost ten years now, and for it to be a professional theatre, this show was incredibly disappointing.

I do, however, look forward to reading more of Cleage’s work.