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Pat Bowie as Sister Margaret neatly suggests the strong sexual nostalgia lurking under the matriarchal discipline. The show itself, like the 1987 Tricycle version which moved into the West End, is directed by Anton Phillips, who captures well its mix of spiritual vehemence and vestry politics. The play's destination is easily visible but Baldwin takes the scenic route. But audiences are much quicker now than they were in the 50s, and you feel the spiritual awakening of Sister Margaret, a beskirted version of Ibsen's Brand, is too long coming. As someone cattily remarks, "no wonder that woman make so much noise when she up in the pulpit." Baldwin also captures the boy David's urgent need to escape.
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Even Sister Margaret's one-time sexual vigour is held against her. He conveys with particular vividness the vicious backbiting of these hot-gospellers. Rather too late in the day, Sister Margaret embraces the New Testament rather than the Old and learns the value of love.Īs someone "born in the church", Baldwin understands this world extremely well. And the church elders use her private problems, and her temporary absence in Philadelphia, to stage a coup d'etat. Her son, David, runs off to join a jazz band rather than become a pentecostal piano-player. The trombone-playing husband she discarded comes home to die. It's humane and witty even if its three-act form now gives it a slightly dated feel.īaldwin's heroine, Sister Margaret, is a fiery Harlem preacher who pays a heavy price for her fanatical inflexibility. The Tricycle theatre and Nottingham Playhouse have joined forces to revive The Amen Corner, first seen in 1955, which deals with emotional tribulations in a storefront tabernacle.