Blues for an Alabama Sky (Style)

Style

Setting: Harlem, New York

Blues for an Alabama Sky is set in Harlem, New York City, during the era of the Harlem Renaissance. This setting is important to Cleage’s fictional story, which takes place in a real historical and geographic context. In order to appreciate the significance of this setting, it is helpful to have an understanding of the significance of Harlem to African-American history. Beginning in the late nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth century, the Harlem district of New York City came to be identified by its high concentration of African-American residents. African Americans began to occupy apartments in Harlem beginning in the 1890s. Lenox Avenue, in particular, became known as the African-American residential area of Harlem, and 125th Street was known as the “Main Stem” of Harlem’s commercial district. In Blues for an Alabama Sky, Cleage refers to specific streets in Harlem that are historically significant, a stylistic choice that works to firmly locate her play in a specific historical and cultural context. Her description of the “Time and Place” in which the play is set mentions that Margaret Sanger was in the process of opening a family planning clinic on 126th Street. Guy mentions that the apartment Angel had been living in, paid for by her former gangster boyfriend, was on Lenox Avenue. As the play opens, Guy and Leland are helping a drunken Angel stumble down 125th Street in the middle of the night. At one point, Guy tells Angel that, in order to be successful, she needs to look beyond her small, limited world of Harlem, asserting, “For prospects, you gotta look past 125th Street.” Angel later states that she does not want to end up “a broke old woman, begging up and down 125th Street.” Toward the end of the play, a remark by Guy captures the sense that Harlem had once promised to be a bastion of African-American culture but became a disappointment to many, as the community suffered from the economic hardships of the depression era. He comments, “Harlem was supposed to be a place where Negroes could come together and really walk about, and for a red-hot minute, we did.” Cleage thus utilizes a specific historical setting in which to capture the mood of an era through fictional characters.

Historical Fiction

Cleage’s play can be categorized as historical fiction because of the stylistic choice of integrating real historical figures into a narrative focused on fictional characters. Cleage successfully and convincingly integrates the historical with the fictional, creating characters who are acquainted with such important historical figures as Adam Clayton Powell, the activist and political leader; Margaret Sanger, the pioneer in family planning; Josephine Baker, the famous nightclub performer; and Langston Hughes, the celebrated poet of the Harlem Renaissance.