David Benedict Part of the instant appeal of “Friends” was that, from the get-go, the relationships between the members of the gang who hung out in the apartments above Central Perk felt not just likeable but absolutely lived-in.
The same is absolutely true of the perfectly meshed cast of Lynette Linton’s beautifully directed National Theatre production of Pearl Cleage’s “Blue for an Alabama Sky” in London.
Cleage’s 1930s-set rooming-house drama is far more wide-ranging — it ultimately encompasses tragedy as well as comedy — but its glowing hallmark throughout is its ability to keep audiences basking in its warmth.
Glowingly lit by Oliver Fenwick with a palette rising to richly expressionist crimson, Frankie Bradshaw’s towering, vividly atmospheric set goes from the front stoop to the rafters of a down-at-heel Harlem house.
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