A Preview Written by Valerie Curtis-Newton
In her poem "Weekend Glory," Maya Angelou wrote:
… My life ain't heaven
but it sure ain't hell.
I'm not on top
but I call it swell
if I'm able to work
and get paid right
and have the luck to be
Black on a Saturday night.
I’ve been blessed to be that lucky. So lucky that I get to be in rooms with Black people sharing our joy. (If you have seen Black Nativity at Intiman this season, you know what I mean!) Sharing not just our pain, but also our love; our kindness and our courage as well as our hunger, desire and desperation. All of these things are a part of who we are. Our full humanity. It is truly a blessing to be in those rooms. It fortifies me so that I can go out into the world and do my part to add something. When you get right down to it, I make theatre in general to bring people together. I make Black theatre specifically to present Black people in our full humanity.
Langston Hughes wrote in "I, Too" :
“They will see how beautiful I am
—And be ashamed.”
But more than anyone’s shame, I’m interested in advancing our rising up. We can truth tell and rise up. We can heal and rise up. We can laugh and rise up. We can cry and rise up. We can see how beautiful we are and rise up. I believe that the theatre can help us do that. I have seen it in the work of many of my favorite playwrights, Alice Childress, Dominque Morriseau, Lynn Nottage, Adrienne Kennedy, Suzan-Lori Parks, Lorraine Hansberry, and Pearl Cleage; they manage to do it. They all set out to tell stories of the humanity of Black people. Sometimes, they want to present it in a way that is light and fun, and other times, they want to present us in a way that provokes. They create stories that can break our hearts while they uplift and inspire us.
Pearl Cleage’s Blues For An Alabama Sky is such a work. I am excited to be directing its upcoming production at Seattle Repertory Theatre. This is a fascinating story filled with characters we can care about in a world full of life, music, and style. Some of you may not have heard of Ms. Cleage. She is an Atlanta-based award-winning playwright, highly acclaimed journalist, and best-selling novelist. Her plays, novels, poems, and essays reveal powerful, poignant truths about the lives of black women and the black community. Her most well-known plays include Flyin’ West, Bourbon at the Border, Pointing at the Moon, and What I Learned in Paris. Her first novel, What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day, was a New York Times bestseller. She is also the author of I Wish I Had a Red Dress, Mad at Miles, and Deals with the Devil. I’m in the midst of my own Pearl Cleage mini-festival. It starts with the Rep’s Blues For An Alabama Sky and ends in April with the Guthrie Theatre’s The Nacirema Society Requests the Honor of Your Presence at a Celebration of Their First One Hundred Years.
"We can truth tell and rise up. We can heal and rise up. We can laugh and rise up. We can cry and rise up. We can see how beautiful we are and rise up. I believe that the theatre can help us do that."
I’m entering a period of deep conversation with Cleage’s work. Directors are always asked, “Why this play?”, “Why now?” Here are some of the insights this time with Pearl has given me:
“Why this play?”: It's beautifully written. It's poetic, it’s funny, it’s honest, it's frightening, it's courageous, and it's fierce. It's all of those things. This play vividly evokes a Harlem, NY, during its Renaissance—the period between WWI and The Great Depression. A Harlem that gave Black Americans a place to lean into the dream of freedom. This is really a play about dreamers envisioning themselves free. It drops the names of some of the Black stars of the day, such as Josephine Baker, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Langston Hughes, and Claude McKay, as well as some of the famous places like The Cotton Club and the Savoy. It depicts a Harlem Renaissance full of dancing, laughter, parties, and the sounds of jazz.
What I really love is that Pearl Cleage is very interested in talking about how Black people treat each other within our community. About how these characters navigate their relationships. The hard conversations that they must have in order to be in relationship with each other. I do not believe in safe space, but I believe in brave people in every space. This play does too. That is “why this play.” It's about how you get through struggle, who you lean on, how you lean on them, how you show up as your authentic self, without trying to turn yourself into what someone else wants you to be.
“Why Now?” What does a play about the 1930’s have to tell us today? Playwright Cleage has said about Blues, “The story is set in 1930, but it isn’t about 1930. It’s about truth and honor and love and fear and friendship, topics which don’t grow old. Writers are always writing about the complexities of being human. Time and place are merely the specific backdrops in which we chose to place our explorations. If we get it right about the people, the question of relevance is moot.”
Blues for an Alabama Sky cast members Esther Okech-Lewis and Yusef Seevers
The specific background issues of this play are still relevant. Reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, healthcare equity, and economic opportunity are all impacting our lives today. We need to build stronger communities to thrive. Better, more compassionate communities. Ms. Cleage and I share a sense of theatre as a vehicle for community building. Leaning into it is intrinsic to its nature: putting us in relationship with each other. She has said, “Writing is a solitary activity. At some point, you have to stop telling your friends how wonderful the work is going to be and go sit down somewhere by yourself and put those words on paper. With a novel, you write it alone, and people experience it alone. With a play, you write it alone, but when it goes into production, you become part of a big, exciting, messy collaboration with artists, directors, designers, actors, producers, and, finally, the audience itself. Once it opens, you are able to experience the piece as part of a group of other people. You can hear what works by the live, human responses around you. When it works the way you hoped it would, there is no better feeling.”
Which brings me back to Maya Angelou and the feeling of being lucky: I get to direct a spectacular play with a talented cast (Ayanna Bria Bakari, Jamar Jones, Ajax Dontavious, Esther Okech-Lewis, Yusef Seevers) and an amazing design team ( Matt Smucker, Melanie Burgess, Larry Fowler and Porsche McGovern) with the support of Dámaso Rodriguez and the Seattle Rep team. I/we will soon get to share it with this community. Lucky me!
If they want to learn how to live life right
they ought to study me on Saturday night.
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