When Langston Hughes posited whether a raisin in the sun would explode, his Harlem Renaissance poem inspired playwright Lorraine Hansberry’s award-winning play. Hughes’ words could just as easily apply to James Baldwin’s play The Amen Corner, a Harlem story about religion, repression, and the inevitable combustion that arises from that combination.
Now playing at Shakespeare Theatre Company, The Amen Corner, directed by Whitney White, examines the hypocrisy and holiness of one black churchgoing community. Pastor Margaret Alexander, played by Mia Ellis, shepherds her flock with an iron staff while her grip on her straying 18-year-old son David, played by Antonio Michael Woodard, is weakening. Baldwin’s play was first produced at Howard University in 1955.
As the church’s pastor, Ellis works her diaphragm with a singsongy bellow. She whoops and spins around the altar, working her congregation into a hysteria. Ellis can bring this level of energy to her role as the pastor, but falls flat doing her part as the heartbroken and shaken wife. The scenes with her husband Luke—a sultry Chiké Johnson who arrives in a tempting cloud of cigarette smoke—should be tragic and romantic. Instead, when Ellis breaks down, her tears seem forced and her chemistry with Johnson feels wooden.
The cast’s comedic timing, on the other hand, never misses a beat. As Sister Moore, E. Faye Butler threw herself into such a joyful fury in the first few minutes of the show on press night that she sent a button on her Sunday best flying down stage.
In the show’s program, STC artistic director Simon Godwin draws parallels between “the domestic and spiritual tragedies” in The Amen Corner and the company’s more traditional Shakespeare fare. Certain beats clearly resonated differently with various members of the crowd this week. While white theatergoers sat still during many of the church service scenes, black audience members burst into laughter at some of the specific references to black churches. “Now I ain’t here to take up a lot of your time,” Butler said, before launching into a lengthy speech, a familiar church experience that prompted laughs.
That’s not to say all the jokes are jubilant. Harriett D. Foy, playing Margaret’s protective sister Odessa, shines with side-splitting quips that, by the second act, melt away to reveal an aching vulnerability and anger. And anyone who has been raised in a severe, religious household will be able to identify with the repressed emotions of the adolescent David, who explodes in the last act. Through darting eyes and painful sweat, Woodard expresses 18 years of bottled up emotions that finally release in a powerful reckoning for his mother.
The production’s lighting designer, Adam Honoré, deserves his own standing ovation. Honoré manages to separate the static set of the combined church and apartment with subtle shading and gives the effect of a long church service with early golden hour light that morphs into a bright, white afternoon.
The supporting players gird this compelling show as the members of the congregation who transition scenes with powerful gospel music. The choir, with a standout performance by singer and actress Francese, delivers a fire and brimstone climax lit with hellish red lights.
The Amen Corner runs at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Sidney Harman Hall through March 15. Tickets $35-$120. Runtime approximately two hours and 30 minutes with one intermission.
