Alfie Fuller Archives - TheaterScene.net

Alfie Fuller

Blues for an Alabama Sky

February 26, 2020

Pearl Cleage’s "Blues for an Alabama Sky" gets a belated New York premiere courtesy of Keen Company in its 20th season. Although seen in many regional theaters since its 1995 premiere at the Alliance Theatre Company in Atlanta with Phyllicia Rashad in the leading role, it has long been overdue in New York even though Cleage is also a successful and acclaimed novelist. Framed as a domestic drama, the play manages to take in the topics of racism, sexism, homophobia, birth control and abortion, poverty, alcoholism, and extreme religious points of view among the bohemians of Harlem, circa 1930. [more]

BLKS

May 20, 2019

Poet Aziza Barnes’ first play, "BLKS," now at MCC Theater Space is raucous, vulgar, outrageous and contemporary in Robert O’Hara’s hilarious, over-the-top production. Following the adventures of three black women roommates from Brooklyn over a day and a half, it shows us how the Girls are living today - Lena Dunham would approve. However, the loud and busy production in the Newman Mills Theater stage will thrill twenty and thirty somethings, while older people may not be in tune with it. It is an insightful view of modern life today from the black female perspective and as liberated as a play can get at this moment in time. There is likely to be a generational divide to this comedy which pushes the envelope. [more]

Is God Is

March 14, 2018

On the basis of “Is God Is,” Aleshea Harris is a new voice in the American theater whose work bears watching in the future. The play is the latest in a long line of revenge stories from the Bible to Quentin Tarantino. The nagging question becomes does Harris have an underlying theme other than the righting of past wrongs by violence. However, Magar’s riveting production never gives the viewer a chance to ponder on this dilemma while the tightly written drama is unfolding before you. While the play has a dark humor throughout, in a parody of the famous Louis Jordan song, it seems to ask the question, “Is God is or is God ain’t?” After witnessing the retribution of the sisters, only the viewer can decide for him or herself. [more]