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Blues for an Alabama Sky By Pearl Cleage Alliance Theatre Playwright in Residence Directed by Susan Booth Alliance Theatre Artistic Director Study Guide Created as part of the Alliance Theatre Institute for Educators and Teaching Artists By Barry Stewart Mann Teaching Artist On the Alliance Theatre stage April 15-‐May 10, 2015 On stage: ABOUT THE PLAY
Blues for an Alabama Sky chronicles the aspirations and tribulations of five characters whose lives intersect in an apartment building in Harlem over an eight-‐
week period during the summer of 1930. As the playwright Pearl Cleage notes in setting the action, “The creative euphoria of the Harlem Renaissance has given way to the harsher realities of the Great Depression.” The characters battle economic hardship and the challenges of finding success in a society where racism, sexism, and homophobia challenge them at every turn. The lives of the onstage characters are set against a panoramic view of the vibrant African American culture of the period, as they interact with key historical figures, move among iconic community landmarks, and play roles in evolving social movements. The play was commissioned by the Alliance Theatre in 1995, and had its world premiere on the Alliance stage under the direction of former Artistic Director Kenny Leon. In 1996, the production was remounted as part of the Cultural Olympiad in conjunction with Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Games. In the twenty years since its premiere, the play has received numerous stagings across the country, at such flagship venues as Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, Hartford Stage Company, Arena Stage in Washington, DC, and the Denver Center Theatre. Phylicia Rashad as Angel Allen and Mark Young as Guy Jacobs in the original 1995 Alliance Theatre production.
The Creative Mind: ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Pearl Cleage is an acclaimed Atlanta-‐based playwright and novelist. In addition to Blues for an Alabama Sky, her plays include The Nacirema Society, Flyin’ West, Bourbon at the Border, and A Song for Coretta. She has written eight novels, including Babylon Sisters, I Wish I had a Red Dress, Baby Brother’s Blues, and What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day, which was an Oprah Book Club selection and spent nine weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Pearl and her husband, writer Zaron W. Burnett, Jr., collaborated on the award-‐winning performance series Live at Club Zebra! for 10 years. In 1973, Pearl was a speechwriter for the Maynard Jackson campaign and later served as his first press secretary. She is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, and the Alliance Theatre’s Playwright in Residence. WHO’S WHO in the world of BLUES . . .
CHARACTERS who appear in the play: ANGEL ALLEN -‐ a thirty-‐four-‐year-‐old black woman who looks five years younger, former back-‐up singer at the Cotton Club. GUY JACOBS – a thirtyish black man; costume designer at The Cotton Club. DELIA PATTERSON – a twenty-‐five-‐year-‐old black woman; social worker on staff at the Margaret Sanger family planning clinic. SAM THOMAS – a forty-‐year-‐old doctor at Harlem Hospital. LELAND CUNNINGHAM – a twenty-‐eight-‐year-‐old black man from Alabama; a six-‐week resident of Harlem. OFFSTAGE CHARACTERS who play key roles in the action of the play: Langston Hughes (1902-‐1967) was a poet, columnist, activist, and leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance. At the time of the play, in 1930, Hughes was 28 years old, and very popular. That year, his first novel Not Without Laughter was published, earning the Harmon Gold Medal for Literature. He is celebrated for such poems as “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and “A Dream Deferred.” Josephine Baker (1906-‐1975) was an American-‐born dancer, singer, actress, and activist who emigrated to France. According to her official website, “Famous for barely-‐there dresses and no-‐holds-‐barred dance routines, her exotic beauty generated nicknames "Black Venus," "Black Pearl" and "Creole Goddess.’ “ She assisted the French Resistance during World War II, and became an activist in the American Civil Rights Movement, refusing to perform for segregated audiences in the United States and speaking alongside Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King at the March on Washington in 1963. At the time of the play, she was the toast of the Paris nightclub scene. Langston Hughes, in a photo taken by Carl Van Vechten in 1936; Josephine Baker, at the Folies Bergère in Paris Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. (1865-‐1953) was the founder and pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, which had 10,000 members at its peak and was the largest Protestant congregation in the country. He helped to found the National Urban League and was a trustee of numerous historically black colleges and schools. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (1908-‐1972) was a member of the United States Congress, representing the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. As a young man, he followed in his father’s footsteps as pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church. From the 1930’s through the 1960’s, he progressed from being a vocal advocate for voting rights, housing and jobs for African Americans to being one of the most influential and controversial politicians on the national scene. At the time of the play, he was a recent college graduate – young, attractive, and the son of a prominent and wealthy Harlem family. Margaret Sanger (1879-‐1966) was a nurse, educator and activist in the field of family planning. She opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S. in 1916, helped to legalize contraception in the United States, and founded organizations that eventually became Planned Parenthood of America. Richard Bruce Nugent (1906-‐1987) was a writer, painter and popular personality of the Harlem Renaissance. Though there were many homosexual artists and performers in Harlem at the time, Nugent was one of few who openly proclaimed his homosexuality. He is the ‘Bruce’ whose parties the characters attend in the play. OFFSTAGE CHARACTERS who are referred to but play no role in the action: Booker T. Washington (1856-‐1915) was an author, educator and public speaker, founder of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, which later became Tuskegee University. He was sometimes criticized for his conciliatory tone, which accepted a certain degree of racial subservience. Marcus Garvey (1887-‐1940) was a Jamaican-‐born speaker and activist who advocated for African Americans to return to their ancestral homeland in Africa. He founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association, a Black Nationalist organization, and several companies to assist blacks wishing to emigrate. Garvey was revered as a visionary by some in the Civil Rights Movement, and denounced by others as a traitor to the Negro cause. At the time of the play, having been expelled from the United States on legal grounds, Garvey was an elected councilor in his native Jamaica. Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, John D. Rockefeller, and Fats Waller John D. Rockefeller (1839-‐1937) was a wealthy American business leader and philanthropist. Through Standard Oil, which he co-‐founded, and the fortune he derived from it, he helped to shape both the American oil industry and the practice of corporate charity. Fats Waller (1904-‐1943) was a popular jazz musician and comedy performer, and a forerunner of modern jazz piano. His signature songs included “Ain’t Misbehavin’”, “The Sunny Side of the Street,” “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby” and “Honeysuckle Rose.” FROM HARLEM TO TUSKEGEE: Where it all happens
The play is set in an apartment building in Harlem, where Guy Jacobs and Angel Allen share an apartment, and across the hall Delia Patterson lives alone. Both apartments are visible to the audience, and the action moves back and forth between them, with occasional scenes occurring on the street below their windows. Through the characters’ comings and goings, and the places they describe, Cleage evokes the world of 1930 Harlem far beyond the tow apartments’ walls. In 1930, Harlem was a lively and cultured place, day and night. The Harlem Renaissance, which is the period of the 1920’s and 1930’s when African American culture, centered in Harlem, blossomed through the exuberant proliferation of poetry, dance, theatre, music, visual art and a vibrant night life, was in full swing. The characters in the play refer to nightclubs, churches, avenues and other locales that have become legendary in the history of the era. A Night-‐Club Map of Harlem, by African American cartoonist Elmer Sims Campbell, first published in Manhattan Magazine in 1932 The Cotton Club was opened by boxer Jack Johnson in 1920 at 142nd St. and Lenox Ave. When Johnson had trouble maintaining it, the club was sold to gangster Owney Madden in 1923 (while he was in prison), and turned into a whites-‐only venue where the elite came to see the finest African American performers. Regular favorites included Cab Calloway, Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, and Lena Horne. The Savoy Ballroom was a venue on Lenox Ave. at 141st Street that opened in 1926. It was famed as the home of the Lindy Hop, a popular dance. Unlike many other clubs, the Savoy was integrated: blacks and whites freely and openly socialized, drank, and danced together. Two bands played every night, and in the 1930’s they would engage in a competition, with the winner decided by the audience. Hamilton Lodge was a well-‐known venue on 155th St, north of Harlem’s central cultural district. It was the site of drag balls, where both men and women cross-‐
dressed. The Hamilton Lodge Ball was New York’s signature drag ball, and attracted up to 8,000 people at its height. Ike Hines’ Place was a restaurant in the basement and first floor of an apartment building – a popular and respected establishment frequented by athletes – especially boxers and jockeys -‐ and entertainers, such as those mentioned in the play. It was mainly patronized by African Americans, but Caucasians would often stop in to experience the scene. Catskills refers to the region around the Catskills mountain range in the southeastern part of New York State, approximately 100 miles north-‐northwest of New York City. The area has long been a favorite vacation destination for city-‐
dwellers; additionally, from the 1930’s onward, hotels in the Catskills became fertile breeding grounds for singers, comedians and other performers. In the play, the characters refer to friends who have a get-‐away house in the Catskills. Folies Bergère (fo-‐LEE bear-‐ZHAIR) is a nightclub and cabaret located in Paris, France. First built as an opera house in 1869, the grand music hall converted to a revue format in the 1880’s. The shows at the Folies Bergère were popular and risqué – women often performed in elaborate costumes that were very revealing. In addition, the concept of negritude – from the French word meaning ‘negro-‐ness,’ it denoted cultural pride among French people of African descent – led to shows that celebrated the foreign and exotic, such as those of the American expatriate Josephine Baker. Cover from a program from the Folies Bergère, showing the type of elaborate costume Guy Jacobs might have designed; the Tuskegee Airmen, circa 1943. Tuskegee, Alabama is a small city in the east-‐central part of the state, and an iconic locale in African-‐American history. It is the site of the Tuskegee Institute, which was founded by Booker T. Washington and hosted both the agricultural work of George Washington Carver and the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments. Tuskegee is also known for the Tuskegee Airman, the first African-‐American aviators in the United States military.
Thinking about . . . SOCIAL ISSUES
Though set in 1930, Blues for an Alabama Sky deals with an array of social issues that were very topical when the play was written in 1995, and remain topical today. They can be the springboards for rich discussions. Racism The characters in the play are very aware of being part of a ‘demimonde’, to use Guy’s word, that is considered peripheral, and in many ways inferior, to the dominant culture. In 1930, Jim Crow laws, that enforcing the segregated legacy of slavery, were still in effect in many parts of the country. The Harlem Renaissance marked a rise in culture and the arts among African Americans, especially in New York City but certainly with ripples that went far beyond. Marcus Garvey’s calls for Black Nationalism and even a return to the African homeland inspired racial pride. How has society changed since then, and how is it still the same? What aspects of racial relations clearly place the play in another era, and what moments in the play could easily play out among friends in adjacent apartments in 2015? Left: A sign from 1943, in Rome, Georgia, from the era of Jim Crow laws effectively segregating the races in public life. Right: the cover of Margaret Sanger’s publication advocating for family planning.
Birth Control/Family Planning In the play, one character works in the emerging Family Planning movement, alongside its founder, Margaret Sanger, and another obtains an abortion for an unwanted pregnancy, which is performed illegally by a third character. Delia’s work to open a clinic in Harlem is a running plot line through the play, and offstage action includes an act of violence against the clinic. Women’s health rights, family planning, and abortion are still very present in our national dialogue. Abortion was illegal in the United States in 1930, and remained so until the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973, which voided abortion bans based on a woman’s right to privacy. How can our society and our laws balance and reconcile differing views about the definition of life and its beginning? When a decision to end a pregnancy is being considered, how should the conflicts among the rights and beliefs of the mother, the father, and, if either is a minor, their parents and family members be resolved? Homosexuality The 1930’s in the United States were generally a much less permissive period in terms of the norms of sexual behavior, but the play features an openly homosexual character and many allusions to the homosexual subculture of New York City. Guy Jacobs, a flamboyant costume designer, would probably be amazed at the advances that have been achieved in the Gay Rights movement over the past 85 years, and especially over the past decade: he likely wouldn’t dream of being able to marry, to openly father or adopt a child, or to march in a parade proudly proclaiming his sexuality. What do you make of the moment when the characters clash directly over the issue of Guy’s homosexuality? How does that kind of clash still play out in contemporary culture – in schools and social settings among young adults, and in the culture at large? Men dancing together at a ball in Harlem Prohibition The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, banning production, importation, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages, was ratified in January of 1919, and went into effect a year later. It lasted for 13 years, until its repeal in 1933. During that time, the government found it very difficult to enforce, and bootlegging and speakeasies became common across the land. With the Depression in full force in 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt campaigned for the presidency on a platform including the repeal of Prohibition, believing that legalizing alcohol would play a role in the nation’s economic recovery. The characters in the play are constantly drinking alcohol, indicative of the general disregard that many had for Prohibition. Nowadays, while alcohol is legal, many other substances are not. One of them, marijuana, is finding more tolerance, with states and municipalities legalizing its use for medical or personal recreational purposes. Does a society have a right to ban or regulate the use of certain substances? Does the government have a legitimate interest in controlling citizens’ behavior? If so, who should make such decisions, and how should they be made? What role should scientists and medical experts play in the legislative process? Disposal of illegal ‘bootlegged’ alcohol during the Prohibition Era. Prostitution Two of the characters in the play allude to having been prostitutes in their younger years. They speak of those experiences in a fairly offhand fashion, showing neither pride nor shame. Prostitution is illegal in most places in our country and in the world, but is still often referred to as “the world’s oldest profession,” and still exists across the globe. Our society puts a premium on individual liberty, but recognizes that complicated interplay of power, economics, gender, and human sexual desire that leads individuals to engage in prostitution, as whether as prostitutes, customers, or brokers and managers. Should prostitution be completely banned, completely legal, or managed and regulated in some way? How can society reconcile different views on human sexuality and people’s rights to engage in consensual relationships? Words to the Wise . . . VOCABULARY
Literati -‐ well-‐educated people who are interested in literature Guy: I do not think my nerves are strong enough for an evening with the literati. Philistines -‐ literally, natives of the ancient land of Philistia, in southern Palestine – a people who came into conflict with the Israelites during the 12th and 11th centuries BC; colloquially, a materialistic individual who looks down on intellectual or artistic values. Sam: He thinks we’re a bunch of amoral Philistines. Suffragettes – women working to achieve voting rights for women, from ‘suffrage’, meaning the right to vote Delia: Now he thinks we’re a bunch of free-‐loving suffragettes out to destroy the Negro race. Tawdry – showy and attention-‐getting, but cheap and of low moral value Guy: It is tawdry. And so what? So are we all! Tawdry and tainted and running for our natural lives! Correspondence course -‐ a course of study in which instruction and communication occur through the mail. Delia: I’ve got this typing correspondence course. Sunday Promenade – a leisurely social walk taken on a Sunday afternoon after church Guy: If you think I’m going to join the Sunday promenade carrying a plate of leftover collard greens, you could not be more wrong! Bootlegger – an individual producing or selling illegal alcoholic beverages, specifically during Prohibition Sam: I met a bootlegger and found a cure for hangover in the same week. Demimonde – a social group that exists outside the mainstream culture, from the French, meaning “half-‐world” Guy: He may have long money but he’s not going to try and feed the entire Negro demimonde! For Further Study . . . SOURCES AND RESOURCES
Anderson, Jervis, This Was Harlem: A Cultural Portrait 1900-‐1950 (New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1982) Behr, Edward, Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1996) Chesler, Ellen, Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992) Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2004) Greenberg, Cheryl, To Ask for an Equal Chance: African Americans in the Great Depression (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2009) Johnson, James Weldon, Black Manhattan (New York: Da Capo Press, 1930) Powell, A. Clayton, Sr., Against the Tide: An Autobiography (New York: Richard B. Smith, 1938) Rampersad, Arnold, The Life of Langston Hughes (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) Schroeder, Alan, Josephine Baker (New York: Chelsea House, 1991) Washington, Booker T., Up From Slavery (1901) Abyssinian Baptist Church: http://www.blackpast.org/aah/abyssinian-‐baptist-‐church-‐1808 Josephine Baker (official website): http://www.cmgww.com/stars/baker/about/biography.html Pearl Cleage: http://www.pearlcleage.net/ Hamilton Lodge and Rockland Palace, site of ‘drag balls’ in Harlem: http://bohemiarealtygroup.com/hamilton-‐lodge-‐ball-‐rockland-‐palace/ Harlem Renaissance: http://www.history.com/topics/black-‐history/harlem-‐renaissance Night-‐Club Map of Harlem, by cartoonist Elmer Sims Campbell (1932): http://bigthink.com/strange-‐maps/476-‐go-‐late-‐a-‐night-‐club-‐map-‐of-‐harlem Prohibition http://www.history.com/topics/prohibition All images included in this Study Guide are in the public domain or are licensed for reuse in educational applications.