Blues for an Alabama Sky

by Pearl Cleage

Theatre script, playbook

Genres: Plays, Theatre, Drama, Read For School, School

81 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1999

About the author

Pearl Cleage is an African-American playwright, essayist, novelist, poet and political activist. She is currently the Playwright in Residence at the Alliance Theatre and at the Just Us Theater Company. Cleage is a political activist. She tackles issues at the crux of racism and sexism, and is known for her feminist views, particularly regarding her identity as an African-American woman. Her works are highly anthologized and have been the subject of many scholarly analyses. Many of her works across several genres have earned both popular and critical acclaim. Her novel What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day (1997) was a 1998 Oprah's Book Club selection.

Reviews

[Illiterate · Rating 3 out of 5]

African American dreams amid a reality of religion & homophobia, broken families & unwanted babies, guns & violence.

[Richard Seltzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saw the play at the National Theater in London. Well done.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Guy: You don’t love him
Angel: He’ll never know the difference.
Guy: Yes, he will.
Angel: And then what?
Guy: He’ll never be able to forgive you for the lie.
Angel : Just like you.
Guy: No. I forgive you everything. That’s why we’ve always traded.
Angel: and why is that?
Guy: because you let me see how beautiful I was.

RAAAHHHHHHHH. homosexuals and harlem renaissance. Just what I needed.

The 1st act was a little slow, but then that 2nd act? GAGGED MAWMA. Overall loved this, hope that’ll I’ll be able to see a production of it one day. Angel has my heart

[Tucker Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of my favorite litcharts reads yet, i think second only to paradise

[Alaina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book during my uni freshman year, for my literature class. While I personally prefer watching plays rather than reading them, this was a very interesting read! This play is set in Harlem, after the Harlem Renaissance and in the beginnings of the Great Depression, and follows the lives of Angel, a former back-up singer at the Cotton Club; Delia, a social worker at the Margaret Sanger family planning clinic and proponent for birth control and family planning; Guy, a costume designer at the Cotton Club and aspiring designer for Josephine Baker; Sam, a doctor at the Harlem Hospital; and Leland, an Alabama native new to Harlem.
I liked this play due to the diversity of the character cast and the relationships between everyone, especially as the play progressed and revealed differing perspectives on love, dreams, and family planning. Everyone has their own lives going on, but at the end of the day, they're all connected and just trying to navigate the demands of life together. I also appreciated how historically accurate this book was and took key figures of the Harlem Renaissance into account: I could really see and understand how Josephine Baker and her story served as a muse for this book. Overall, it was a great read with a plot that totally hooked me in, and was fascinating to analyze!

[Elizabeth Dunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

—First performed 1995. This play takes place in 1930 in Harlem, NYC. All of the characters are African-American. Angel is showgirl involved with an Italian-American mafioso. She lives with Guy, an openly gay costume designer-maker who hopes Josephine Baker will bring him over to Paris to work for her. Their neighbor, Delia, is involved with Margaret Sanger’s efforts to bring a birth control clinic to Harlem. Their friend, Sam, is a doctor at a Harlem hospital.

Angel, who had hopes for a future with her white boyfriend, learns that he has just become engaged to a white woman and yet has the gall to show up at her performance and sit in the front row. Angel tells him off from the stage in front of the crowd and gets drunk. Guy, with difficulty, walks her home.

On the way home a gentleman stranger takes Angel’s other arm and helps get her home. The next day he visits and introduces himself. Leland is a widower visiting from Alabama whose views on matters such as homosexuality are much more conservative than the group of friends’ views. He is initially drawn to Angel because she resembles his late wife but develops a serious interest in her.

Angel doesn’t love Leland and says so but he thinks she will grow to love him. Angel sees Leland as someone who can reliably provide for her. But Guy is inviting her to come to Paris with him when Josephine Baker comes through. Angel finds herself pregnant and significant events occur in each of the characters’ lives.

[Chloë Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

like a solid exploration of queerness and reltionships and love and class and all those things in the harlem period. and i think incredibly well written. idk about its staying power like i think it will have staying power canonically but for me in my individual life i havent found myself thinking of it much or turning to it as a source for inspiration or really doing anything with in in the time since finishing it. i do believe that it has helped me think through how folks in the north considered folks in the south in the wake of the great migration in a more concrete and palpable way, and for that i am really grateful. and overall i think of it as a solid good read. 3.5 stars

[Logan Czernia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first act was incredibly plain- I had a hard time focusing and thought that this was going to be one of those plays that I read for school and then never think about again.
I have not been able to stop thinking about the second act since I read it. It really picks up.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Teaching for Lehman College.

[Sherrice Mojgani · Rating 5 out of 5]

No idea why I haven't read this before

[Ella Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing play

[Ella Marroquin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this play, read it for Play Analysis class and did a project on it. I immensely enjoyed this story of people trying to reach their dreams. Beautiful.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great unexpected ending

[Matt Bickerton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heartbreaking, if inevitable. Very interested to see how it's staged in the round.

[nevaeh galluccio · Rating 3 out of 5]

This play definitely didn’t go where I expected it to. Leland is definitely an interesting character and I don’t really know what to think of him - I assume part of it was showing how even people of the same race can have drastically different moral values. It’s also interesting seeing conversation about abortion back before it was more widely accepted as a practice. I think each character felt a little archetypal but in a way that served the story pretty well. Sam’s ending was pretty upsetting and it was built up to pretty well.

[mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for school.