Princess Tam Tam

I walk into Princeton University’s Berlind Theater on Mother’s Day and a painting of Ms. Josephine Baker hangs high above the blue-tinted stage. Ms. Baker never dances out with her long lanky legs and toothy smile, (like one would hope) but her presence is felt through that painting. She is the sun in the sky of the set illuminating the characters (and character flaws) in Pearl Cleage’s, Blues for an Alabama Sky. 

The current production of the story is being directed by Nicole A. Watson with precision and grace. She channels Ms. Baker in her stage direction—creating a dance of methodical movements between actors and audiences.

I am NOT surprised to see the painting of Ms. Josephine Baker. This is the last sign I need. I know folks think I am rude, but I have to do it. I pull out my phone. Turn the light all the way down and search for the contract from Fabienne in my email. I sign it with my finger. Our address will be 5 rue de Médicis if the creek don’t rise. Josephine’s Bookshop in Paris. I’ve done it. I press send. It’s real now, Ms. Josephine. It’s real. I put away my phone and watch the play.

We can almost hear Ms. Josephine, loud and “laughing like a free woman,” throughout this production which takes place in a 1930s Harlem tenement. She seems to know the answer to the question that all Cleage’s characters are asking–how do free women move? Is there a way out of bondage without running? 

Yes. Expansion. 

This story begins with Cotton Club singer Angel played by confident and charismatic, Crystal A. Dickinson, having just been fired from her job at a nightclub. Angel is down on her luck and her finances, like most in the throws of the Great Depression. Through Angel we meet her cast of close friends, Delia (Maya Jackson), an activist social worker, who is working with the church to organize a family-planning clinic; Sam (Stephen Conrad Moore), a doctor, who delivers babies at Harlem Hospital, and Guy (Kevin R. Free), Angel’s costume designing friend and caretaker, who is leading the charge for the group to follow Ms. Josephine Baker’s footsteps straight to Paris. “Ce va?”

Guy is my favorite character, even though Kevin R. Free did some stumbling over lines, I think once he finds his flow, he’s going to spit fire into the role which will increase our emotional connection to him and Angel. Kevin R. Free is going to make audiences laugh more and cry more the longer he plays that role. He and Dickinson have great chemistry.

Guy is the narrative’s creative. He is determined to stitch together a plan that gets him and Angel out of living off the scraps of a divested Harlem. His plan is to take his friend to see the glorious City of Lights on Ms. Josephine Baker’s dime, so Guy sleeplessly designs showstopping costumes for Ms. Josephine Baker. He sews while Angel flits about trying to become a singer. Guy’s plan appears to be working until Angel meets Leland Cunningham (Brandon St. Clair), a grieving Southern suitor from Alabama who just may hold the key to Angel’s financial freedom. 

What did those who became the intellectuals and artists of the Harlem Renaissance gain from migrating away from their lives in the South and heading up North? Folks like my grandfather got freedom from lynch mobs and sharecropping. Yes. But he lost his land rights, right? 

Likewise, what did those intellectuals and artists, like Josephine Baker of the Harlem Renaissance gain from leaving the United States for Paris? But also what did they lose? What is the cost of freedom—especially for women?

Angel and Guy sit at the crux of this story about escaping, with differing approaches to how to free themselves from a spiraling social situation.

The playwright, Pearl Cleage, is many things that I hope to be someday. A novelist, a dramatist, an essayist, and a poet. She was raised in the Black Arts Movement and you can tell. She started telling stories when she was just two years old to her older sister. She’s alive to see her work done and redone time and time again. Blues for an Alabama Sky came into my life at the right moment, Ms. Cleage.

I’m officially off to Paris to build Josephine’s Bookshop this summer and I hope you’ll join me physically or follow along online. 

As you can see, Ms. Josephine Baker is speaking, and continues to remind us to “laugh like free woman.”

Happy Mother’s Day.