James Baldwin’s “The Amen Corner,” performed
by the North Star Players under the direction of David Shakes, opened at MuCCC (142 Atlantic Avenue) on Tuesday evening. Between moving monologues, well-navigated layers of moral ambiguity, and singing that will
give you goosebumps, this production is community theater at its finest.
Through the course of the play, Baldwin unpacks the
many complexities and conflicts riding the members of a family and a small
congregation of a storefront church. Themes include an estranged husband, a struggling
mother, a son spreading his wings, and the ways a “bully pulpit” can be used as
leverage rather than true leadership. And it’s ultimately about crucial
struggle to love people through the worst of everything; the play preaches that
love will be the thing that delivers us.
In short, “The Amen Corner” follows the story of a beloved
pastor, Margaret (Deborah Solomon), who has raised her son, David (James
Kates), largely alone, and whips her congregation into holy order through energetic
sermons. She asks them to lead purely righteous lives, leaving no room for moral
half-stepping even where it concerns means of survival or support of a fallen family.
Early on, Baldwin provides a hint about the damning secret
Margaret harbors, when she cavalierly suggests that Mrs. Jackson
(Whitney M. Randall), whose infant is gravely ill and whose husband is
disinterested in the church, leave said husband.
The sudden reappearance of Margaret’s dying husband
Luke (Tremell Hale) sets in motion her steady fall
from grace. A damning revelation creates doubt within her congregation, and she
is accused of hypocrisy and worse.
What follows is Solomon’s engaging performance of Margaret’s stubborn
pushback against these developments, and her retreat into the cold refuge of her
holy mantle. Kates quickens his formerly obedient yet cagey David with a palpable
struggle to express his ideas to his domineering mother. And the various
players portraying members of the critical congregation are a welcome source of
mirth, with their excellently executed expressions, clever mannerisms, and subtle
asides, in an otherwise heavy tale.
In one particularly catalyzing conversation between estranged
father and son, it is revealed to us the event — one that we can easily imagine
would rend even the closest of couples — that set each parent on their current
path.
Hale plays a world-weary and patient Luke who is frank about
his own faults, but encourages his son to follow his heart. It wasn’t music
that led to his downfall, Luke claims, but the loss of his family. Hale and Kates
expertly convey the brutally awkward and cuttingly earnest nature of the
moment, in which father and son try to piece together what is left in the time
that remains.
“The Amen Corner” is semi-autobiographical. Baldwin wrote parts
of himself into David, who epitomizes his experience in wrestling himself away
from the church. Baldwin was a child preacher, but left the practice, and later
the country, and spent his life honing his eloquence and arguments, and serving
as a driving force in the background of the Civil Rights Movement.
The evening wrapped with a discussion led by Thomas Warfield,
assistant professor at NTID, which consisted of audience members weighing in on
their reactions to the play, and cast members disclosing the various ways their
characters’ experiences mirrored their own.
Though the play was written in 1954, and was a reflection on
Baldwin’s experiences from even earlier decades, the various themes of the role
of religion and familial turmoil still feel immediate. “Baldwin wrote about
ordinary people, but kind of tore them open,” Warfield said.
Performances continue each evening through Saturday, January
23, at 7:30 p.m. Following each performance, a talk back will be held, led by
different members of the community. Tickets are $15 ($10 students) for Thursday through Saturday nights. A discussion and
reflection with the cast will be held Monday, January 25, 1 p.m. at MuCCC (suggested donation $5 per family). For more
information, call 866-811-4111 or visit muccc.org.
This article appears in Jan 20-26, 2016.
