Gareth's Culture and Travel Blog

This 1995 play, set in 1930 Harlem, was the 10th by American playwright Pearl Cleage. She went on to write 7 more, but I think this is the only one we’ve seen in the UK. Based on this showing, with a great production by Lynette Linton and a handful of terrific performances, I’m wondering why we haven’t seen more.

Harlem in 1930 was going through what was called a renaissance. Writers and musicians flourished. Clubs. bars and speakeasies managed to navigate prohibition. The place had real style and white people flocked there to experience this edgy and somewhat hedonistic cocktail, but it’s four local characters and an arrival from Alabama that are at the centre of the story, with references to real people like Langston Hughes and Josephine Baker. I was surprised that homosexuality and birth control featured so prominently at this time in this place.

Guy Jacobs is a fashion designer who dreams of creating costumes for Baker. He’s openly homosexual, refusing to hide, something that seems to have been accepted by more people than it offended. He shares his apartment with singer, showgirl and friend Angel, who struggles to find her place in the world. Guy’s best friend Sam is a doctor who spends much of his free time letting his hair down with Guy & Angel, all three consuming large quantities of alcohol.

Neighbour Delia is preoccupied with promoting birth control, important in liberating local women, trying to set up an advice centre. She’s sweet on Sam and he on her, but they are more reserved than Guy and Angel so things take time to evolve. Angel’s latest man is like a fish out of water, religious and conservative, shocked by the open homosexuality and promotion of birth control, but she sees stability with him. His arrival, though, turns all of their world’s upside down.

The lead performances are all terrific. Giles Terera plays Guy as out and proud, loud and defiant. Ronke Adekoluejo’s Delia is shy but finds steely determination in her ambition for birth control and melts when her affection for Sam is reciprocated. Sule Rimi conveys Sam’s commitment to his profession as well as his love of the good life. Playing the unsympathetic character against these is hard, but Osy ikhile pulls it off as Leland. We’ve got used to valuing understudies more in recent years and on the night I went Helena Pipe stood in for the indisposed Samira Wiley and acquitted herself really well, with a word perfect interpretation in the pivotal role of Angel.

It lagged a bit in the first half as there was so much back story and scene setting, but the second half was a real dramatic tour de force. I really enjoyed this and would like see more of both Cleage’s writing and Linton’s directorial work.