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The Amen Corner
Only a boy preacher who had grown up to become one of America's most eminent writers could have produced a play like The Amen Corner. To his first work for the theater, James Baldwin brought all the fervor and majestic rhetoric of the storefront churches of his childhood -- along with an unwavering awareness of the price those churches exacted from their worshipers.The Amen Corner is a play about faith and family, about the gulf between black men and black women and black fathers and black sons. It is a scalding, uplifting, sorrowful, and exultant masterpiece of the modern American theater.
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First published January 1, 1954
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About the author
James Baldwin
385 books16.9k followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Works of American writer James Arthur Baldwin, outspoken critic of racism, include Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), a novel, and Notes of a Native Son (1955), a collection of essays.
James Arthur Baldwin authored plays and poems in society.
He came as the eldest of nine children; his stepfather served as a minister. At 14 years of age in 1938, Baldwin preached at the small fireside Pentecostal church in Harlem. From religion in the early 1940s, he transferred his faith to literature with the still evident impassioned cadences of black churches. From 1948, Baldwin made his home primarily in the south of France but often returned to the United States of America to lecture or to teach.
In his Giovanni's Room, a white American expatriate must come to terms with his homosexuality. In 1957, he began spending half of each year in city of New York.
James Baldwin offered a vital literary voice during the era of civil rights activism in the 1950s and 1960s.
He first partially autobiographically accounted his youth. His influential Nobody Knows My Name and The Fire Next Time informed a large white audience. Another Country talks about gay sexual tensions among intellectuals of New York. Segments of the black nationalist community savaged his gay themes. Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panthers stated the Baldwin displayed an "agonizing, total hatred of blacks." People produced Blues for Mister Charlie , play of Baldwin, in 1964. Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, defended Baldwin.
Going to Meet the Man and Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone provided powerful descriptions. He as an openly gay man increasingly in condemned discrimination against lesbian persons.
From stomach cancer, Baldwin died in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France. People buried his body at the Ferncliff cemetery in Hartsdale near city of New York.
Works of American writer James Arthur Baldwin, outspoken critic of racism, include Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), a novel, and Notes of a Native Son (1955), a collection of essays.
James Arthur Baldwin authored plays and poems in society.
He came as the eldest of nine children; his stepfather served as a minister. At 14 years of age in 1938, Baldwin preached at the small fireside Pentecostal church in Harlem. From religion in the early 1940s, he transferred his faith to literature with the still evident impassioned cadences of black churches. From 1948, Baldwin made his home primarily in the south of France but often returned to the United States of America to lecture or to teach.
In his Giovanni's Room, a white American expatriate must come to terms with his homosexuality. In 1957, he began spending half of each year in city of New York.
James Baldwin offered a vital literary voice during the era of civil rights activism in the 1950s and 1960s.
He first partially autobiographically accounted his youth. His influential Nobody Knows My Name and The Fire Next Time informed a large white audience. Another Country talks about gay sexual tensions among intellectuals of New York. Segments of the black nationalist community savaged his gay themes. Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panthers stated the Baldwin displayed an "agonizing, total hatred of blacks." People produced Blues for Mister Charlie , play of Baldwin, in 1964. Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, defended Baldwin.
Going to Meet the Man and Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone provided powerful descriptions. He as an openly gay man increasingly in condemned discrimination against lesbian persons.
From stomach cancer, Baldwin died in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France. People buried his body at the Ferncliff cemetery in Hartsdale near city of New York.
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December 7, 2024
It’s an awful thing to think about, the way love never dies!
The power of James Baldwin’s work is that all of it is autobiographical. In The Amen Corner Baldwin draws from his experience with his own inflexible minister father and his youth spent as a child preacher in the Black church. The long opening scene where Pastor Margaret Alexander leads a church service (the scene takes up 17 pages in the written work) has an authenticity that would be impossible without intimate knowledge of the subject. Likewise, the tragic family dynamics (in both Margaret’s own family and her extended church family) have a power and reality that could only be mined from experience.
In his introduction, Baldwin writes of finally coming to terms with his feeling about his problematic relationship with his deceased father, realizing at last the tribulations his father faced that shaped him into the man he was. He writes how he finally realized that he had loved his father, and longed for his father to love him back. In Baldwin’s first work, Go Tell It on the Mountain, the hard, demanding, often cruel minister father was based on Baldwin’s dad. I believe that Baldwin was still writing about his father in The Amen Corner, but purposely presented him as more sympathetic, humanizing him by switching his sex and making him a mother. The tragic figure of Margaret Alexander, the switch from patriarch to matriarch, was Baldwin way of showing the humanity of a parent he at last realized he loved.
And this play is high tragedy — tragedy on a Shakespearean scale. After losing a baby at birth Margaret left her husband, rejected the secular world, and lost herself in the solace of religion. She reinvent herself as a powerfully righteous, unbending Holiness preacher, taking over a storefront Harlem church. When the play opens, she has ministered there for ten years, but the reappearance of her estranged and now dying husband is the catalyst for her losing all — her son to the World and adulthood, her tragically lost love to death, her church to the elders who now see her as a broken woman with feet of clay, and her illusions about herself.
This play has no individual villains. Margaret is portrayed as hard, unbending, self righteous, but we clearly see that as a shield she has used to protect herself, and can glimpse the woman beneath. Her son David appears weak, deceitful, but he’s just a youth struggling to enter adulthood on his own terms against an overwhelmingly controlling parent. Luke, Margaret’s husband, may be a scapegrace, a drunk, a man who has failed his family, but we still see him as a wounded man who lost his love and his family, but always maintained a solid wisdom about life and love that his wife couldn’t face. Even the elders of the church who gossip about Margaret and plot to take away her church aren’t really villains. We see their humanity, their struggling lives caught between the inflexible expectations of their pastor and the terrible realities of their world. Everyone is imperfect. Everyone is human. The only villain in this tragedy is offstage — the cruel, oppressive reality of white supremacy that forces all of them into constrained and humiliating lives of poverty and hopelessness. Because, of course, Baldwin only writes autobiography, and no fact of his life was more real than that.
The power of James Baldwin’s work is that all of it is autobiographical. In The Amen Corner Baldwin draws from his experience with his own inflexible minister father and his youth spent as a child preacher in the Black church. The long opening scene where Pastor Margaret Alexander leads a church service (the scene takes up 17 pages in the written work) has an authenticity that would be impossible without intimate knowledge of the subject. Likewise, the tragic family dynamics (in both Margaret’s own family and her extended church family) have a power and reality that could only be mined from experience.
In his introduction, Baldwin writes of finally coming to terms with his feeling about his problematic relationship with his deceased father, realizing at last the tribulations his father faced that shaped him into the man he was. He writes how he finally realized that he had loved his father, and longed for his father to love him back. In Baldwin’s first work, Go Tell It on the Mountain, the hard, demanding, often cruel minister father was based on Baldwin’s dad. I believe that Baldwin was still writing about his father in The Amen Corner, but purposely presented him as more sympathetic, humanizing him by switching his sex and making him a mother. The tragic figure of Margaret Alexander, the switch from patriarch to matriarch, was Baldwin way of showing the humanity of a parent he at last realized he loved.
And this play is high tragedy — tragedy on a Shakespearean scale. After losing a baby at birth Margaret left her husband, rejected the secular world, and lost herself in the solace of religion. She reinvent herself as a powerfully righteous, unbending Holiness preacher, taking over a storefront Harlem church. When the play opens, she has ministered there for ten years, but the reappearance of her estranged and now dying husband is the catalyst for her losing all — her son to the World and adulthood, her tragically lost love to death, her church to the elders who now see her as a broken woman with feet of clay, and her illusions about herself.
This play has no individual villains. Margaret is portrayed as hard, unbending, self righteous, but we clearly see that as a shield she has used to protect herself, and can glimpse the woman beneath. Her son David appears weak, deceitful, but he’s just a youth struggling to enter adulthood on his own terms against an overwhelmingly controlling parent. Luke, Margaret’s husband, may be a scapegrace, a drunk, a man who has failed his family, but we still see him as a wounded man who lost his love and his family, but always maintained a solid wisdom about life and love that his wife couldn’t face. Even the elders of the church who gossip about Margaret and plot to take away her church aren’t really villains. We see their humanity, their struggling lives caught between the inflexible expectations of their pastor and the terrible realities of their world. Everyone is imperfect. Everyone is human. The only villain in this tragedy is offstage — the cruel, oppressive reality of white supremacy that forces all of them into constrained and humiliating lives of poverty and hopelessness. Because, of course, Baldwin only writes autobiography, and no fact of his life was more real than that.
March 7, 2020
This review is also published on Medium: https://medium.com/ballasts-for-the-m...
“She done gone too far, she done got too high.” –Brother Boxer
“It’s time for her to come down.” –Sister Moore
James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner is a dramatic play that tells the story of a Black Pentecostal storefront church in Harlem in the 1950s, but the story could have been told about any Black Church in any region of the country in 21st Century America. This tragedy unfolds on a Sunday morning when the pastor of the church, Sister Margaret, preaches her fundamentalist sermon on living holy and righteous. She chastises a church member who is considering taking a job driving a liquor truck and tells a young female parishioner with a sick baby to leave her husband because he doesn’t go to church. The church loves their pastor especially the Amen Corner which is made up of three elders of the church, Brother Boxer, Sister Boxer, and Sister Moore.
This all changes when a person from Sister Margaret’s past comes to the forefront and causes a rupture to develop in the church and in Sister Margaret’s own family. The elders of the church do not like these developments and now believe that Sister Margaret herself is not living and did not live the life she is preaching about and as the quotes above suggest, the elders feel compelled to take action.
Baldwin has written a powerful play which I had the pleasure of seeing performed recently. The play teaches us the downsides of fundamentalism. It causes church members not to see their pastors as people with human frailties and it causes pastors to place stringent rules on their congregation who in turn feel it’s impossible to be a Christian in a mostly secular world. As Baldwin’s play closes the reader learns that there are few heroes in this drama but there are definitely antagonists, and it may not be the people you expect.
“She done gone too far, she done got too high.” –Brother Boxer
“It’s time for her to come down.” –Sister Moore
James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner is a dramatic play that tells the story of a Black Pentecostal storefront church in Harlem in the 1950s, but the story could have been told about any Black Church in any region of the country in 21st Century America. This tragedy unfolds on a Sunday morning when the pastor of the church, Sister Margaret, preaches her fundamentalist sermon on living holy and righteous. She chastises a church member who is considering taking a job driving a liquor truck and tells a young female parishioner with a sick baby to leave her husband because he doesn’t go to church. The church loves their pastor especially the Amen Corner which is made up of three elders of the church, Brother Boxer, Sister Boxer, and Sister Moore.
This all changes when a person from Sister Margaret’s past comes to the forefront and causes a rupture to develop in the church and in Sister Margaret’s own family. The elders of the church do not like these developments and now believe that Sister Margaret herself is not living and did not live the life she is preaching about and as the quotes above suggest, the elders feel compelled to take action.
Baldwin has written a powerful play which I had the pleasure of seeing performed recently. The play teaches us the downsides of fundamentalism. It causes church members not to see their pastors as people with human frailties and it causes pastors to place stringent rules on their congregation who in turn feel it’s impossible to be a Christian in a mostly secular world. As Baldwin’s play closes the reader learns that there are few heroes in this drama but there are definitely antagonists, and it may not be the people you expect.
May 19, 2017
"No one yet knows, or is in the least prepared to speculate on, how high a bill we will yet have to pay for what we have done to Negro men and women. She is in the church because her society has left her no other place to go. Her sense of reality is dictated by the society's assumptions, which also becomes her own, of her inferiority"
This play is heart breaking and the introduction by Baldwin really makes it clear just how little freedom is enjoyed by the african american population at large. Margaret Alexander has no choice but to subscribe to the notion that she must be the archetypal, strong, black woman. This will stay with me for a long time, as much of Baldwin's works tend to do. He is uncompromising in his critic of american society and i applaud him for it!
This play is heart breaking and the introduction by Baldwin really makes it clear just how little freedom is enjoyed by the african american population at large. Margaret Alexander has no choice but to subscribe to the notion that she must be the archetypal, strong, black woman. This will stay with me for a long time, as much of Baldwin's works tend to do. He is uncompromising in his critic of american society and i applaud him for it!
October 17, 2014
A great analysis of the church and a reminder that only people who are with out stones can throw bricks!
January 12, 2018
Το θεατρικό κείμενο, όπως ομολογεί κι ο ίδιος ο Baldwin στον πρόλογό του, μιλάει αρκετά για τον ίδιο, όχι μόνο εξαιτίας της ερήμωσης της προσωπικής του ζωής, αλλά και λόγω του πατέρα του, τα βάρη του οποίου αποτυπώνονται, όπως κι η διάσταση της απομόνωσης, στο πρόσωπο της Margaret. Ως εκ τούτου είναι δικαιολογημένη η σύγκριση του The Amen Corner με το Go Tell It on the Mountain, το πρώτο του κι ημι-αυτοβιογραφικό μυθιστόρημα. Αφενός και τα δυο μελετούν εκ θεμελίων αφρο-αμερικάνικες οικογένειες που περιστρέφουν όλη τους τη ζωή γύρω από την Εκκλησία, κι αφετέρου και στα δυο υπάρχει διακριτή η συμβολική σφαίρα του γονέα-πάστορα. Η αδυναμία του The Amen Corner, σε σύγκριση με το Go Tell It on the Mountain, είναι πως η συνολική του δομή θα μπορούσε να μετακινηθεί από τη μελέτη στενού χαρακτήρα των θεμάτων σε ευρείες εξερευνήσεις της Μαύρης κοινότητας, των προβλημάτων και των συμπεριφορών της, αλλά αντιθέτως, ακολουθώντας τις κυριαρχικές φυσιοκρατικές συμβάσεις της εποχής, επί παραδείγματι το έργο του Arthur Miller, φαίνεται άκαμπτο συγκριτικά, στερείται της ευελιξίας του μυθιστορήματος. Σε αντίθεση με πολλούς αθεϊστές βέβαια, ο Baldwin χειρίζεται με τη μέγιστη λεπτότητα το θέμα ενός θεσμού που τον έχει φροντίσει και καταστρέψει, χωρίς την πικρία που θα περίμενε κανείς, κατανοώντας τις συνθήκες που δημιουργούν μια τέτοια ανάγκη για ανακούφιση και καταδεικνύοντας στην τρίτη πράξη τι θα πρέπει να είναι η εκκλησία σε αντίθεση με αυτό που έχει γίνει.
Στο The Amen Corner η Margaret, ο κεντρικός χαρακτήρας του έργου, είναι πάστορας στην Εκκλησία, ένα χώρο ασφάλειας, αυτο-οργάνωσης μέσα σε έναν ρατσιστικό κόσμο, κι εντούτοις με ρατσιστικές συμπεριφορές στους κόλπους της, κυρίως ως προς τη θέση της γυναίκας στην κοινωνία (She done forgot it ain’t the woman supposed to lead, it’s the man). Η Margaret λαχταρά την Εκκλησία όχι ως μέρος τελειοποίησης της αγάπης αλλά μάλλον ως καταφύγιο από τα ανεπίλυτα προβλήματα, καταφύγιο που καταλήγει μια πνιγηρή υπενθύμιση της πραγματικότητας, στον αντίποδα του Luke που ως μουσικός της jazz είχε μια ζωή μεστή σε προσωπική έκφραση μέσα από τη μουσική του.
Στο The Amen Corner η Margaret, ο κεντρικός χαρακτήρας του έργου, είναι πάστορας στην Εκκλησία, ένα χώρο ασφάλειας, αυτο-οργάνωσης μέσα σε έναν ρατσιστικό κόσμο, κι εντούτοις με ρατσιστικές συμπεριφορές στους κόλπους της, κυρίως ως προς τη θέση της γυναίκας στην κοινωνία (She done forgot it ain’t the woman supposed to lead, it’s the man). Η Margaret λαχταρά την Εκκλησία όχι ως μέρος τελειοποίησης της αγάπης αλλά μάλλον ως καταφύγιο από τα ανεπίλυτα προβλήματα, καταφύγιο που καταλήγει μια πνιγηρή υπενθύμιση της πραγματικότητας, στον αντίποδα του Luke που ως μουσικός της jazz είχε μια ζωή μεστή σε προσωπική έκφραση μέσα από τη μουσική του.
Sometimes – what we want - and what we ought to have – ain’t the same. Sometime, the Lord, He take away what we want and give us what we need.Δραματικό κέντρο του έργου είναι η θέση της μητέρας μέσα στην Εκκλησία· η Margaret κυριαρχεί ως πάστορας και κερδίζει την αίσθηση του εαυτού και του προσωπικού σκοπού της μέσω της θέσης της, κι όμως προκαλεί πραξικόπημα εναντίον της από τους πρεσβύτερους. Ως χαρακτήρας βρίσκει απάγκιο στην Εκκλησία καθώς η κοινωνία δεν της αφήνει άλλο περιθώριο, με την αίσθηση της πραγματικότητας να υπαγορεύεται από την ιδέα της κοινότητας για την κατωτερότητά της, όντας όχι απλώς γυναίκα αλλά και μητέρα που μεγαλώνει μόνη της το παιδί της. Η ανάγκη της για επιβεβαίωση αντανακλάται στην ανελέητη ευσέβεια, παράλληλα με τα σχόλια του ποιμνίου της, ως επί το πλείστον φαλλοκρατικά, που την περιορίζουν στο φύλο της. Σύμφωνα με τον Baldwin:
Her triumph, which is also, if I may say so, the historical triumph of the Negro people in this country is that she sees this finally and accepts it, although she has lost everything, also gains the keys to the kingdom[…]She gains herself.
September 21, 2020
3|5
- Book Riots 2020 Read Harder Challenge -6.Read a play by an author of color and or queer author -
- Book Riots 2020 Read Harder Challenge -6.Read a play by an author of color and or queer author -
August 30, 2023
I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about reading a play, but once again (no surprise) Baldwin makes some interesting and complex points of discussion regarding the Black community and the church specifically the role the church plays in it's treatment of Black women. It isn't my favorite of the works that I've read from Baldwin this year, but its still worthy of praise. I'm currently working through his entire backlist with Erica and Josh. If you're interested in hearing more of my in-depth reviews of this one, be sure to check out our live show discussion here: https://www.youtube.com/live/jVYuqkqO...
February 13, 2025
💌 book 11 of 2025 🧸💌
this is my first play by james baldwin. this is about a woman pastor named sister margaret who has been leading her small church for years. she has a son named david who plays piano for the church, a sister named odessa, and an ex husband named luke.
it seems like margaret has everything together until luke walks back into her life after 10 years, throwing EVERYTHING off balance. the same people who idolized her are demeaning her, tearing her down. her son david who passionately played piano for the church is “suddenly” going after the world, after sin.
to margaret and her sister, this shift is jarring. but is it though? that is a question that baldwin probes at during the second and third acts. as the curtains open in those acts, it’s like baldwin reveals that there were sin and uncertainty that were hiding underneath the surface. the characters all had a choice to see the truth or turn from it.
i also liked how baldwin addressed accountability and its nuances. spiritual leaders (or any leaders for that matter) should be held accountable. they shouldn’t be treated like special little unicorns who are perfect. they should be treated as human. but baldwin also shows the downside—some characters go too extreme and attempt to tear down the very leader they respected only the day before. how far should accountability go? is his question—to the point of dehumanizing and stripping that person of grace?
this was such a good play. the plot was pretty easy to follow. its cohesive and fluid. the characters are fleshed out. the dialogue feels very real. i will say that it’s rich in christian themes. that could be a good or bad thing, depending on your background. you might not understand everything, but i still think it’s worth giving a shot.
as i reflect on this, im going to leave it at 4 ⭐️ there’s something missing in here that makes me a little hesitant to rate it higher.
this is my first play by james baldwin. this is about a woman pastor named sister margaret who has been leading her small church for years. she has a son named david who plays piano for the church, a sister named odessa, and an ex husband named luke.
it seems like margaret has everything together until luke walks back into her life after 10 years, throwing EVERYTHING off balance. the same people who idolized her are demeaning her, tearing her down. her son david who passionately played piano for the church is “suddenly” going after the world, after sin.
to margaret and her sister, this shift is jarring. but is it though? that is a question that baldwin probes at during the second and third acts. as the curtains open in those acts, it’s like baldwin reveals that there were sin and uncertainty that were hiding underneath the surface. the characters all had a choice to see the truth or turn from it.
i also liked how baldwin addressed accountability and its nuances. spiritual leaders (or any leaders for that matter) should be held accountable. they shouldn’t be treated like special little unicorns who are perfect. they should be treated as human. but baldwin also shows the downside—some characters go too extreme and attempt to tear down the very leader they respected only the day before. how far should accountability go? is his question—to the point of dehumanizing and stripping that person of grace?
this was such a good play. the plot was pretty easy to follow. its cohesive and fluid. the characters are fleshed out. the dialogue feels very real. i will say that it’s rich in christian themes. that could be a good or bad thing, depending on your background. you might not understand everything, but i still think it’s worth giving a shot.
as i reflect on this, im going to leave it at 4 ⭐️ there’s something missing in here that makes me a little hesitant to rate it higher.
December 15, 2024
James Baldwin's first play, which he wrote and published (against the strong advice of his editors), in 1954. Even at this distance, it's easy to see why they might have been uncomfortable with it.
A brutally honest and revealing glimpse into the world of the storefront black church, showing the ways in which the mantle of holiness covers a world of tribulation. Every character wrestles in some way with the struggle between being in this world and being of it.
As my friend who encouraged me to read this play said, there are no villians----Baldwin masterfully illuminates the complex emotions and conditions that motivate all the action. It's a wonder how he was able to flesh out each one of the characters in such a short play.
That old nugget "religion is the opiate of the masses" is very much at play here (the amen chorus operates like a mantra), but as the play unfolds, the difficulty of clinging to that comfort in the face of real world matters becomes more and more stark and tragic.
The play also has a lot to say about the relationship between black women and black men--- that part was a little less successful for me. I think Baldwin's view of sexual relations became much more nuanced over time in his later works.
Still, there is an element of autobiography to all of his writing, and this can be seen as a snapshot of his understanding of male/female dynamics at this moment in time.
I listened to a wonderful production on Audible that really brings the play to life. Highly recommend.
A brutally honest and revealing glimpse into the world of the storefront black church, showing the ways in which the mantle of holiness covers a world of tribulation. Every character wrestles in some way with the struggle between being in this world and being of it.
As my friend who encouraged me to read this play said, there are no villians----Baldwin masterfully illuminates the complex emotions and conditions that motivate all the action. It's a wonder how he was able to flesh out each one of the characters in such a short play.
That old nugget "religion is the opiate of the masses" is very much at play here (the amen chorus operates like a mantra), but as the play unfolds, the difficulty of clinging to that comfort in the face of real world matters becomes more and more stark and tragic.
The play also has a lot to say about the relationship between black women and black men--- that part was a little less successful for me. I think Baldwin's view of sexual relations became much more nuanced over time in his later works.
Still, there is an element of autobiography to all of his writing, and this can be seen as a snapshot of his understanding of male/female dynamics at this moment in time.
I listened to a wonderful production on Audible that really brings the play to life. Highly recommend.
March 4, 2020
I am still amazed this play was even written, let alone eventually performed in the theatre (10 years after being published), considering the age and lack of renown of Baldwin at the time. I think it speaks volumes to his fierce determination to make his mark in the world of letters, and to his prodigious talents as a writer and social critic.
In "The Amen Corner" one could say Baldwin goes "back to his roots" to write a play involving a preacher, but in his fiction and his essays he never leaves his roots. His life is his work, much like a man of faith - or in this play, a woman - one might say.
For such a short play, it sure has a lot to say about a lot of things. But it is Baldwin, so I was unsurprised, yet still impressed. Even in such a storied element of Black America, the Black Church, does Baldwin wield his verbal acumen and biting critique to spin a sorrowful vignette about the troubles of being a leader in the church, and as a result, a leader in the community.
Margaret is a complicated woman leading a complicated life. She struggles to keep her congregation on the path to righteousness, seemingly unaware that her own walk with the Lord is about to become rather treacherous. She is trying so hard to do the right thing, the right way, and Baldwin brings us into her heart, life, and soul, laying bare the way that her desire for righteousness tears Margaret at every turn. Overlaid with that burden, we learn she is a unmarried Black woman, with a teenage son, leading a Black church - a Black church with its own struggles, financial, personal, and spiritual - and we are left with a layering of immense import.
Baldwin surely speaks from his life here, and that makes his players and their travails much more real, believable, and distressing. Each act of the play details an aspect of Margaret's life and the forces aligned to bring her to heel. What I enjoy is the play speaks to the social realities of the times in all their harshness and beauty, bypassing symbolism for truth. One could probably find parallels in the arc of the plot to some saint or Jesus if that is your wont, but Baldwin isn't interested in oblique commentary. He writes will all his might and intensity, as always. Life for the Black person in America is tough all the time, and no one sees that better than Baldwin. He infuses the play with life, life that is made all the more problematic by it being a Black life in a White Supremacist land. Baldwin never shies away from what he believes as a Black man, and I am continually amazed at his ability to speak honestly about racism and the realities of life in his work.
A sad play for me, but one that ends with hope. Typical Baldwin, always leaving you with that little piece of hope in this dark world.
In "The Amen Corner" one could say Baldwin goes "back to his roots" to write a play involving a preacher, but in his fiction and his essays he never leaves his roots. His life is his work, much like a man of faith - or in this play, a woman - one might say.
For such a short play, it sure has a lot to say about a lot of things. But it is Baldwin, so I was unsurprised, yet still impressed. Even in such a storied element of Black America, the Black Church, does Baldwin wield his verbal acumen and biting critique to spin a sorrowful vignette about the troubles of being a leader in the church, and as a result, a leader in the community.
Margaret is a complicated woman leading a complicated life. She struggles to keep her congregation on the path to righteousness, seemingly unaware that her own walk with the Lord is about to become rather treacherous. She is trying so hard to do the right thing, the right way, and Baldwin brings us into her heart, life, and soul, laying bare the way that her desire for righteousness tears Margaret at every turn. Overlaid with that burden, we learn she is a unmarried Black woman, with a teenage son, leading a Black church - a Black church with its own struggles, financial, personal, and spiritual - and we are left with a layering of immense import.
Baldwin surely speaks from his life here, and that makes his players and their travails much more real, believable, and distressing. Each act of the play details an aspect of Margaret's life and the forces aligned to bring her to heel. What I enjoy is the play speaks to the social realities of the times in all their harshness and beauty, bypassing symbolism for truth. One could probably find parallels in the arc of the plot to some saint or Jesus if that is your wont, but Baldwin isn't interested in oblique commentary. He writes will all his might and intensity, as always. Life for the Black person in America is tough all the time, and no one sees that better than Baldwin. He infuses the play with life, life that is made all the more problematic by it being a Black life in a White Supremacist land. Baldwin never shies away from what he believes as a Black man, and I am continually amazed at his ability to speak honestly about racism and the realities of life in his work.
A sad play for me, but one that ends with hope. Typical Baldwin, always leaving you with that little piece of hope in this dark world.
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February 22, 2024Would be worth reading for the introduction alone; concise, incisive, beautiful. Have read a handful of Baldwin essays before, but this was my first full-length piece. I wish I could have seen it on the stage (even as a person who enjoys theatre, reading plays can be tough, and I think I enjoy Baldwin’s direct authorial voice more). Looking forward to Notes of a Native Son very soon.
July 31, 2023
Brilliant from top to bottom - a joy to read and see on stage.
March 1, 2019
C’est parce que ce récit m’est familier que je vois la justesse des propos et de la mise en scène.
L’église cet exutoire ou les méandres du quotidien viennent s’y confondre. L’amalgame est tel que l’objectif principal, censé être salvateur & rédempteur s’en trouve flou.
Tellement de pêchés capitaux subsistent dans ce lieu dit saint q’une chose est certaine tout ceci n’est que simple histoire d’hommes.
Soeur Margaret est une pastoresse impitoyable qui régit d’une main de fer une congrégation qui lui obéit au doigt et à l’oeil. Jusqu’au jour ou son mari qu’elle a abondonné dix ans plus tôt réapparaît. Deux mondes vont alors entrer en collision l’un spirituel & l’autre terrestre. Comment convaincre de la véracité de sa «sanctification » quand on a eu une vie « de chair » avant et que l’on n’est pas si pure que l’on voudrait ?
Si la bigoterie permet de faire une caricature comique presque pathétique de toute une congrégation (ou plus largement de cette partie très croyante de la population noire), les machinations humaines jamais loin rendent les piliers de l'église friables.
L’église cet exutoire ou les méandres du quotidien viennent s’y confondre. L’amalgame est tel que l’objectif principal, censé être salvateur & rédempteur s’en trouve flou.
Tellement de pêchés capitaux subsistent dans ce lieu dit saint q’une chose est certaine tout ceci n’est que simple histoire d’hommes.
Soeur Margaret est une pastoresse impitoyable qui régit d’une main de fer une congrégation qui lui obéit au doigt et à l’oeil. Jusqu’au jour ou son mari qu’elle a abondonné dix ans plus tôt réapparaît. Deux mondes vont alors entrer en collision l’un spirituel & l’autre terrestre. Comment convaincre de la véracité de sa «sanctification » quand on a eu une vie « de chair » avant et que l’on n’est pas si pure que l’on voudrait ?
Si la bigoterie permet de faire une caricature comique presque pathétique de toute une congrégation (ou plus largement de cette partie très croyante de la population noire), les machinations humaines jamais loin rendent les piliers de l'église friables.
September 15, 2024
perfect on a sunday. james baldwin never disappoints.
November 29, 2015
First, let me say that I have a tremendous bias, as James Baldwin is my favorite author and I have not come across a work of his I haven't liked. As one who has spent a great deal of time in the church before migrating into the "world" I can say with a fair amount of accuracy that his depiction of the church is perfect (even in the present day). Baldwin does well to highlight the yearning for church not as a place to refine one's love but rather as a place of refuge even though one's problems go unresolved and ultimately become a haunting reminder of reality. But unlike the many atheistic apologists, Baldwin handles with the utmost delicacy the matter of an institution that has damaged him in such a way without the bitterness one would expect; he understand the conditions that breed such a need for the congregants of any church and in the third act shows Margaret understanding what the church should be as opposed to what it has become; that loving one another is the objective. As far as this story operating as a play, I can't exactly critique with any real authority. However, as a mere reader, I found the unit set to be troublesome. Having both scenes simultaneously present may not have been as big an issue as the coming and going of the characters across the sets. Aside from that the elders, though minor as they were, were indistinguishable until the second act. To me, they were crowding around the same sentiment that would have served one character. All in all though, the way Baldwin involved many issues into a tiny volume was masterful to say the least. I was not at all disappointed.
January 24, 2019
A close look into the workings of the black church. How Pride, Envy, sexism ... lives and thrives in the presence and house of the holy spirit. And later Forgiveness.
In short even God can not save the black community. He is just the blanket used as a cover for the disunity and thirst for power, and what people are willing to do for to take and keep this power in the name of God.
In short even God can not save the black community. He is just the blanket used as a cover for the disunity and thirst for power, and what people are willing to do for to take and keep this power in the name of God.
January 17, 2021
Wonderful how he writes youth, age, female, male, the gamut of human experience through the lens of seeking salvation while trying to live. A beautiful, thoughtful and very moving heartbreak of a play. Would love to see it staged.
August 9, 2018
I'm typically not one to read plays or even really enjoy plays. This play, however; I'd most definitely go to see it performed. What a brilliant portrait of one of part of America.
March 31, 2019
Picked this up because I realized I've read and re-read some of his novels and essays, but had yet to read either of his plays. What disturbed me about this play and its characters were what he meant to bother the audience with and it brought it all back - the hypocrisy, the grandstanding, the inferiority complexes and envy masked as smugness, and many other factors of growing up in a church that I do not and have never missed. That he centers the play on a woman pastor wasn't ahead of it's time, but really just on time (which of course put Baldwin ahead of the time in general) and I admired the dexterity of it. Men don't write women as well as they often think they do. She really got on my nerves, even in and especially the third act, but she felt genuine - as did her dilemmas, which continues for many who choose or find themselves paired with and/or raising a males. Good read - especially for a Sunday!
October 23, 2024
This audiobook is PERFORMED by a whole cast. It’s like it was a recording of the actual play. There was the utmost full display of emotion in the delivery and even singing! I would highly recommend the audiobook as it does the play such justice!
I appreciate this plays lens regarding the church, faith, the black community, parenthood, gender, but mostly how sinning can become a contentious conversation and what it means to really trust in God and walk with Him. The character development of Sister Margaret is profound and her husband Luke returning home due to facing death. This is a play I could only dream of seeing in my lifetime, but I’m glad the audiobook can give me a sliver of the masterpiece.
I appreciate this plays lens regarding the church, faith, the black community, parenthood, gender, but mostly how sinning can become a contentious conversation and what it means to really trust in God and walk with Him. The character development of Sister Margaret is profound and her husband Luke returning home due to facing death. This is a play I could only dream of seeing in my lifetime, but I’m glad the audiobook can give me a sliver of the masterpiece.
February 27, 2025
I’ve finally read one out of two James Baldwin plays 🙂.
The Amen Corner explores hypocrisy and societal expectations within a Black church in Harlem. It centers around a pastor, Margaret, whose authority and past choices are challenged by her community when her estranged husband reappears.
Baldwin does a solid job with the tension (religious devotion vs personal desires), and how the merger of them can lead to judgment and a loss of control when beliefs (morals) differ.
The Amen Corner explores hypocrisy and societal expectations within a Black church in Harlem. It centers around a pastor, Margaret, whose authority and past choices are challenged by her community when her estranged husband reappears.
Baldwin does a solid job with the tension (religious devotion vs personal desires), and how the merger of them can lead to judgment and a loss of control when beliefs (morals) differ.
April 5, 2024
Okay maybe I do like plays and I need to read more. Only reason for less stars was because the themes were too similar in focus to Go tell it on the mountain which did them fantastically.
December 10, 2024
crying at work once again just wow
July 21, 2013
A theatre and book review; I saw the performance at the National Theatre in London on 7/20/13.
James Baldwin began to write this play in the summer of 1952, after he returned to New York after spending four years in Paris. While he was there he completed his first novel, Go Tell It On the Mountain, and after he borrowed money from Marlon Brando he returned home in an attempt to sell the novel. The Amen Corner, like Go Tell It On the Mountain, is set in a black church in Harlem and is semi-autobiographical in nature, as both works feature young men who are brought up in a religious environment which is simultaneously nurturing and stifling, and each must decide whether to reject the church and the hypocrisy contained within it, in order to be true to himself and his personal desires, or embrace it and become subjugated to the parent or community that desires to keep him within it.
Unlike Go Tell It On the Mountain, whose protagonist is the young man John, The Amen Corner's central character is Sister Margaret, pastor of a church whose members respect her more than they embrace her. She is firm in her faith in God, but she is unyielding and harshly critical toward those who would challenge or question her opinions as the church's leader. She has a teenage son, David, who plays piano in the choir, who she puts forth as an example of a good Christian young man and as a personal vindication to those who doubted that she could raise him as a single mother, given the numerous worldly temptations that brought down many black young men in postwar America.
Margaret is shaken by the news that her former husband, Luke, a talented jazz trombonist, has returned to town to perform a gig downtown. Neither she nor David has not seen him for the past 10 years, and Luke is in poor health due to tuberculosis and the ravages of life on the road. He turns up at her apartment, located beneath the church, just after Sunday service, and both David and several church elders learn about the secret that Margaret has hidden from all of them, which leads to crises on several levels. David feels betrayed by his mother as well as his father, and must decide whether to follow her wishes to stay with her in the church, or to pursue a career as a musician. The elders question whether Margaret is spiritually fit to lead the church, given this new information about her and Luke. And Margaret herself faces a crisis of confidence and faith, as her son appears to be drifting away from God and to the lure of the world, while Luke's presence makes her realize that her own house is not in order.
The National Theatre's production of The Amen Corner was a very spirited one, filled with humor and pathos within the rich experience of a sanctified black church. As I mentioned to Fliss during intermission, when Sister Margaret asked the congregation to bow its heads in prayer during the first act, I started to do the same, until I realized I was watching a play and that I was not in a church service! The gospel songs were very well done, and each actor, major or minor, was very good and portrayed his or her character quite accurately. This was another superb National Theatre performance, and at £12 it is one of the best bargains in London at the present time.
James Baldwin began to write this play in the summer of 1952, after he returned to New York after spending four years in Paris. While he was there he completed his first novel, Go Tell It On the Mountain, and after he borrowed money from Marlon Brando he returned home in an attempt to sell the novel. The Amen Corner, like Go Tell It On the Mountain, is set in a black church in Harlem and is semi-autobiographical in nature, as both works feature young men who are brought up in a religious environment which is simultaneously nurturing and stifling, and each must decide whether to reject the church and the hypocrisy contained within it, in order to be true to himself and his personal desires, or embrace it and become subjugated to the parent or community that desires to keep him within it.
Unlike Go Tell It On the Mountain, whose protagonist is the young man John, The Amen Corner's central character is Sister Margaret, pastor of a church whose members respect her more than they embrace her. She is firm in her faith in God, but she is unyielding and harshly critical toward those who would challenge or question her opinions as the church's leader. She has a teenage son, David, who plays piano in the choir, who she puts forth as an example of a good Christian young man and as a personal vindication to those who doubted that she could raise him as a single mother, given the numerous worldly temptations that brought down many black young men in postwar America.
Margaret is shaken by the news that her former husband, Luke, a talented jazz trombonist, has returned to town to perform a gig downtown. Neither she nor David has not seen him for the past 10 years, and Luke is in poor health due to tuberculosis and the ravages of life on the road. He turns up at her apartment, located beneath the church, just after Sunday service, and both David and several church elders learn about the secret that Margaret has hidden from all of them, which leads to crises on several levels. David feels betrayed by his mother as well as his father, and must decide whether to follow her wishes to stay with her in the church, or to pursue a career as a musician. The elders question whether Margaret is spiritually fit to lead the church, given this new information about her and Luke. And Margaret herself faces a crisis of confidence and faith, as her son appears to be drifting away from God and to the lure of the world, while Luke's presence makes her realize that her own house is not in order.
The National Theatre's production of The Amen Corner was a very spirited one, filled with humor and pathos within the rich experience of a sanctified black church. As I mentioned to Fliss during intermission, when Sister Margaret asked the congregation to bow its heads in prayer during the first act, I started to do the same, until I realized I was watching a play and that I was not in a church service! The gospel songs were very well done, and each actor, major or minor, was very good and portrayed his or her character quite accurately. This was another superb National Theatre performance, and at £12 it is one of the best bargains in London at the present time.
September 12, 2020
If James Baldwin is a writer impresses you, what's the one thing you think is at the core of his works? Personally, I believe Baldwin was always very fascinated with the idea of Redemption. Having grown up as a church boy himself, he often put his life and experiences, both dripped in religious fervor and redemptive actions, to the backdrop of his fiction. (See Go Tell It To The Mountain, perhaps his masterpiece and also his first novel.)
I harken back to Go Tell It On The Mountain because the bond between that and The Amen Corner is very strong. GTIOTM was filled with church-sermons, hellfires, and people's paths to Redemption. Those things are common in The Amen Corner too: as if Baldwin suddenly decided that he hadn't done nearly enough exploration of those Black Lives boiling in the pulpits of churches in Harlem.
In the neat, revealing introduction to The Amen Corner, Baldwin talks about how after the success of GTIOTM, critics and readers expected him, a Black American writer with frail roots, to continue writing about the pitfalls of religion and the degradation of Black Americans: themes confined to those explored in GTIOTM. Baldwin obviously didn't want that. ( In 1956, two years later, he'd publish the stunningly tragic romance 'Giovanni's Room', which too met with high acclaim, shunning his frosty critics.) Perhaps, The Amen Corner was a break in between, a personal pleasure to Baldwin to showboat his immense skills as a writer: here as a playwright.
Or perhaps The Amen Corner was the real deal! Perhaps this was to be the work that would summon people from all over to worship at the feet of Baldwin, for The Amen Corner is very, very good indeed. (Personally, The Amen Corner is my favorite work by Baldwin so far.) Baldwin's incandescent prose and provoking thoughts run amok, of course as dialogues this time.
"The only thing my mother should have told me is that being a woman is ain't nothing but one long fight with men. And even the Lord, look like, ain't nothing but the most impossible kind of man there is."
Sexist? Blasphemous? Not to James Baldwin, a writer who could turn the most provoking thoughts into shiny written diamonds.
In the hypnotic introduction in The Amen Corner, Baldwin mentions that "thought was also action" and that he was afraid of "thinking my way out of existence." So, perhaps, when writing these miserable Black characters in The Amen Corner, Baldwin was living inside of them and breathing life into them. Perhaps, in writing The Amen Corner, Baldwin redeemed himself - not only as a writer but also as a human being.
I harken back to Go Tell It On The Mountain because the bond between that and The Amen Corner is very strong. GTIOTM was filled with church-sermons, hellfires, and people's paths to Redemption. Those things are common in The Amen Corner too: as if Baldwin suddenly decided that he hadn't done nearly enough exploration of those Black Lives boiling in the pulpits of churches in Harlem.
In the neat, revealing introduction to The Amen Corner, Baldwin talks about how after the success of GTIOTM, critics and readers expected him, a Black American writer with frail roots, to continue writing about the pitfalls of religion and the degradation of Black Americans: themes confined to those explored in GTIOTM. Baldwin obviously didn't want that. ( In 1956, two years later, he'd publish the stunningly tragic romance 'Giovanni's Room', which too met with high acclaim, shunning his frosty critics.) Perhaps, The Amen Corner was a break in between, a personal pleasure to Baldwin to showboat his immense skills as a writer: here as a playwright.
Or perhaps The Amen Corner was the real deal! Perhaps this was to be the work that would summon people from all over to worship at the feet of Baldwin, for The Amen Corner is very, very good indeed. (Personally, The Amen Corner is my favorite work by Baldwin so far.) Baldwin's incandescent prose and provoking thoughts run amok, of course as dialogues this time.
"The only thing my mother should have told me is that being a woman is ain't nothing but one long fight with men. And even the Lord, look like, ain't nothing but the most impossible kind of man there is."
Sexist? Blasphemous? Not to James Baldwin, a writer who could turn the most provoking thoughts into shiny written diamonds.
In the hypnotic introduction in The Amen Corner, Baldwin mentions that "thought was also action" and that he was afraid of "thinking my way out of existence." So, perhaps, when writing these miserable Black characters in The Amen Corner, Baldwin was living inside of them and breathing life into them. Perhaps, in writing The Amen Corner, Baldwin redeemed himself - not only as a writer but also as a human being.
November 27, 2017
I have never been much of a theatre goer, but I have always read plays...which is perhaps odd. I hadn’t planned to include plays in these notes, but I read this because I had recently read James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain, so it seems sensible to comment on it. Although not staged or published until the mid-1960s, Baldwin wrote The Amen Corner after completing Go Tell It on the Mountain in the 1950s: both are studies of African-American families that are immersed in the Church, Baldwin obviously drawing upon his childhood experiences, but The Amen Corner is not just a continuation of Go Tell It on the Mountain, it is very much its own work with its own thematic interests. The play has two dramatic centres. One, like Go Tell It on the Mountain, is centred on a child, although here he is an older teenager. He is situated between two symbolic spheres, one around his mother, the other around his father. His mother is a pastor in the Church: she has brought him up and cared for him, but also controls him...and the Church is a place of security, a space of safety and self-organization within a racist world, but one that is narrow and stifling. (This is a continuation of Go Tell It on the Mountain.) Against this is the life of his father, a jazz musician who has had a life of personal expression through his music, but now returns ill and broken. The boy faces a choice for his future...but he has already largely made the choice at the beginning of the play, his father only acting as a catalyst. The second dramatic centre of the play is around the mother’s position within the Church: she dominates the Church and gains her sense of self and purpose through her position: the play follows a coup against her by the elders. Many of the motivations for the coup are petty and mean spirited, but the mother, in her arrogance, has left herself open to attack. The weakness of the play, when compared to Go Tell It on the Mountain, is that it lacks the formal methods to deal with its themes in any particularly complex way. Written in colloquial American English, Go Tell It on the Mountain in its language and overall structure was able to move from close character study to broad explorations of the Black community, but the play, following the dominant naturalistic conventions of the time (c.f. Arthur Miller), seems rigid in comparison, lacking the agility of the novel. In comparison the play seems a bit obvious. It will be of enormous interest for anyone interested in Baldwin’s work, but perhaps a minor work.
September 13, 2020
"Children. I'm just now finding out what it means to love the Lord. It ain't all in the singing and the shouting. It ain't all in the reading of the Bible. It ain't even - it ain't even - in running all over everybody trying to get to heaven. To love the Lord is to love all His children - all of them, everyone! - and suffer with them and rejoice with them and never count the cost!"
A deeply personal play that touches on universal human needs, and the dangers of blind faith - in this case religious faith, but the same could be said of any sort of tribe or cause. It'll keep me thinking for some time.
A deeply personal play that touches on universal human needs, and the dangers of blind faith - in this case religious faith, but the same could be said of any sort of tribe or cause. It'll keep me thinking for some time.
December 11, 2023
Thematically, Amen explores some of the same ideas that are present in Baldwin’s early work, especially his first novel Go Tell It on the Mountain, the short story “The Rockpile”, and some of the essays in Notes of a Native Son. It’s a powerful and moving meditation on Black masculinity, relationships between fathers and sons, the role of the church and religious life in Harlem, and the difficult balance between fragility and strength.
January 20, 2015
Echoes many of the passages of Go Tell It on the Mountain, which makes sense as preachers play a significant role in both. But the tragic reality of what it means to be human and what it means to be with God is teased out, slowly but surely. Nothing too mindblowing, but the sense of time and place - which appears to weld conversations and times fluidly - is standout.
April 2, 2025
(4.5 stars)
A stunning theatrical companion piece to Baldwin’s debut novel. Shares some thematic threads and mixes music and dialogue to bring a thoughtful and compassionate look at another Pentecostal church in New York.
Baldwin’s playwright note at the start is a must read and the play that follows continues his poignant exploration into the human condition. Read in one sitting on my kindle.
A stunning theatrical companion piece to Baldwin’s debut novel. Shares some thematic threads and mixes music and dialogue to bring a thoughtful and compassionate look at another Pentecostal church in New York.
Baldwin’s playwright note at the start is a must read and the play that follows continues his poignant exploration into the human condition. Read in one sitting on my kindle.
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