Love, hate, and jealousy. Pearl Cleage’s Blues For An Alabama Sky has them all, and an abundance of laughs to boot, in Center Theatre Group’s sensatinal revival of the Atlanta-based playwright’s 1995 hit, directed by none other than its original Alliance Theatre Company star Phylicia Rashad.

The Harlem Renaissance had only recently been cut short by the onset of the Great Depression when first we meet Angel Allen (Nija Okoro), a seductive nightclub chanteuse whose Italian-American gangster boss/lover’s sudden marriage has left the former lady of the evening single, jobless, and with little chance of finding a new gig anytime soon.

The uncoupled and out-of-work songbird does at least have a place to stay chez best buddy Guy Jacobs (Greg Alverez Reid), a gay fashion designer whom the Harlem Renaissance has allowed to live openly and proudly a full four decades before Stonewall.

Unbeknownst to Angel, however, Guy too has been fired, and Mr. Fabulous now pins all his dreams on expatriate star Josephine Baker, to whom he has sent a number of designs in hopes that the toast of the Folies Bergère will offer him a job in Gay Paree.

Next door to the starving artists lives eager young birth control advocate Delia Patterson (Kim Steele), who hopes to open a much-needed family planning clinic in Harlem with the help of handsome local physician Sam Thomas (Joe Holt), friends with all three but decidedly sweet on Delia.

Then comes the fateful summer evening when recent Alabama-to-Harlem transplant Leland Cunningham (Dennis Pearson) enters Angel’s and her friends’ lives, an unexpected arrival that serves as a catalyst for romance and a good deal more, though to give anything further away would spoil what playwright Cleage, director Rashad, and an all-around superb cast have in store.

Rashad, who originated the role of Angie some 27 years ago, proves the ideal choice to helm this 2022 revival, one that scores a comedy’s share of laughs earned by characters who are never anything less that authentic.

Leading lady Okoro follows her standout supporting performances in August Wilson’s Jitney and Two Trains Running with a stunning star turn as a woman whose questionable life choices make Angel her own worst enemy.

Reid steals practically every scene he’s in as an out-and-proud gay man decidedly ahead of his time, as adept sashaying down the avenue as he is capable of defending himself against anyone who’d deem him an abomination.

Musical theater star Steele returns to L.A. fresh from Broadway, pure perfection in her very first play as the still-waters-run-deep Delia, and Antaeus Company vet Holt is equally terrific as Sam, a man whose open-minded embrace of life in all its variations would make him a role model even in 2022.

Finally, Pearson is so instantly likable a Southern gentleman that Leland’s less admirable qualities prove even more startling when revealed.

Adding to the magic made by a mostly L.A.-based cast is Blues For An Alabama Sky’s entirely local design team, headed by scenic designer John Iacovelli and lighting designer Elizabeth Harper, working in sync to create Angel and Delia’s meticulously appointed side-by-side brownstones backed by a Harlem skyline that transitions strikingly from nighttime to sunrise and back again.

Sound designer Jeff Gardner and composer Dontae Winslow join forces in a soundscape that evokes the titular blues while upping the rising dramatic stakes.

Last but absolutely not least are Wendell C. Carmichael’s pitch-perfect evocations of 1930s Harlem fashion and hair, costumes and wigs that transform contemporary actors into visitors from another, more elegant age.

Casting is by Kim Coleman, CSA. Nathan James, Charrell Mack, and Desmond Newsom are understudies. Michelle Blair is stage manager, Camella Cooper is stage manager, and David S. Franklin is resident stage manager.

A crowd-pleasing follow-up to this past winter’s rather more divisive Slave Play, Blues For An Alabama Sky proves pretty darned irresistible. Indeed, I defy anyone not to fall for Pearl Cleage’s electrifying look at the end of that one brief shining moment when African Americans found a haven in a Manhattan neighborhood called Harlem.

Mark Taper Forum, 35 N. Grand Avenue, Los Angeles.
www.centertheatregroup.org

–Steven Stanley
April 15, 2022
Photos: Craig Schwartz Photography

Tags: Center Theatre Group, Los Angeles Theater Review, Mark Taper Forum, Pearl Cleage, Phylicia Rashad