Boston's Alternative Source!
 
Feedback

[Theater reviews]

Harlem renaissance
The Huntington revisits The Amen Corner

BY ANNE MARIE DONAHUE

A hint of the evangelical creeps into director Chuck Smith’s streets-of-Chicago accent when he talks about James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner, which opens this week in a production mounted jointly by the Huntington Theatre Company and Chicago’s Goodman Theater. “Baldwin was a prophet,” exclaims Smith as he flings his hands heavenward, high above the eccentrically self-decorated denim cap he calls his “work hat.” Baldwin wrote The Amen Corner almost a half-century ago, shortly after the 1953 publication of his autobiographical first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, and just before Notes of a Native Son, his acclaimed 1955 collection of essays. But according to Smith, a resident director at the Goodman, there’s nothing dated about the play, a family drama that unfolds as the congregation of a small Harlem storefront church sings gospel together and slowly falls apart.

The Amen Corner, Smith argues, is timely in its treatment of social problems and timeless in its central story, which concerns matters of the tattered heart. But he believes that for decades the play remained too far ahead of its time for commercial success. “I don’t think white audiences were ready for it even in 1965,” when the play finally reached Broadway and proved a financial flop. “I understand that the performances were beautiful, but the white theatergoing public back then just wasn’t interested in a Broadway play that was centered on the black church.”

In Chicago, however, The Amen Corner has long been a favorite in the black community, produced regularly not only in theaters but also in African-American churches, which tend to have the gospel choir Baldwin requires ready at hand. “I cut my teeth on The Amen Corner,” says Smith. “But this is the first time I’ve directed it. And in directing it, I’ve discovered that the church is just a background for this gorgeous love story, which is really at the heart of the play. And everybody loves a love story.”

Loath to give away much about a play that may be unfamiliar to Boston playgoers, he only sketches the love story. “A man who feels he’s going to die has a yearning to reconnect with his family. So he comes back after 10 years to be with the love of his life, who is his wife, and also to see his son. But it’s a difficult merge. She’s gotten over what she used to feel for him, or so she thinks, and has followed her calling in the church. And the son doesn’t realize how much his father cares for him. But in the end their story is an affirmation of true love, bittersweet and powerful.”

Smith is more forthcoming when I ask about the contemporary relevance of The Amen Corner. “In one scene between the son and his mom, for example, she tells him some of the very same things we hear today about the dangers of falling off. She tells him that a young man has to watch out and be very careful in this world today, because you can find yourself hooked on drugs or alcohol. Or you can find yourself homeless or in some other kind of terrible way. She goes through this whole litany of the problems that young people are having. And they’re the same problems young people are having today. Each one of them strikes home. Right now. Today. Is this play dated? I say, no way. Baldwin told us we had to watch out for all these things. And then — bingo — now they’re happening. This man knew what he was talking about.”

And does he think white playgoers in Boston might turn out to be more interested in The Amen Corner than their Broadway counterparts were in 1965? Smith grins and strokes a Donald Duck pin on his work hat. “I hope so. We had good mixed audiences for this same production in Chicago, though a few white folks did walk out early on. I think anyone who’s got a feel for gospel music will love this show, which has a lot of really gorgeous new gospel tunes by William Kilgore, along with a few of the old standards. If we don’t get them in the opening church scene, we might not keep them. But I have a feeling we’re gonna get them.”

The Huntington Theatre Company presents The Amen Corner at the Boston University Theatre May 18 through June 17. Tickets are $12 to $55; call (617) 266-0800.

Issue Date: May 17-24, 2001