WHAT do we look for in theatre? Among many other things, a strong sense of time and place. You could hardly have a better example than Lynette Linton’s production of Pearl Cleage’s Blues for an Alabama Sky at the Lyttelton Theatre. The setting is Harlem in 1930 and you actually feel, thanks to Frankie Bradshaw’s meticulous design and some superb acting, that you have been transported to a black community living off hope in a time of hardship.
I saw Miss Cleage’s 1995 play performed by drama students five years ago and I was struck then, as I am now, by its debt to Tennessee Williams. The focus