‘409 Edgecombe Avenue’: The director’s experience

Akiba Abaka

Akiba Abaka is the producing artistic director of Up You Mighty Race Performing Arts Company, which debuts its new production, “409 Edgecombe Avenue: The House on Sugar Hill,” tonight at the BCA Plaza Theatre at Boston Center for the Arts. Written by Boston playwright Katherine Butler Jones and directed by Abaka, the play revolves around Madame Stephanie St. Clair, the enigmatic and controversial “Numbers Queen of Harlem,” a compassionate gangster living alongside black leaders and celebrities in the 1930s at the address that gives the play its title.

Here, Abaka gives Banner readers a rare “behind the scenes” look at casting the play’s lead role and shares reflections from star Fulani Haynes as the two prepare for Opening Night.

In 2004, I was introduced to a writer named Katherine Butler Jones who had written a play centered on the building in Harlem where she lived from birth until she married her husband and moved to Boston at the age of 21. The vibrancy of the building and the people who lived there had shaped and inspired her so much that she felt compelled to immortalize it in a play. The resulting production, “409 Edgecombe Avenue: The House on Sugar Hill,” felt meaningful from the first line I read, and I was eager to tell her story.

This play was simply about people who took pride in their work, their community and their accomplishments in spite of an oppressive culture that viewed them as second rate. During one of our play development sessions, Mrs. Jones introduced me to Madame Stephanie St. Clair, Harlem’s “Queen of Policy.”

Born on the French-speaking island of Martinique, St. Clair came to America in 1912. A bright and assertive woman, she transformed a simple betting game into a viable industry — now known as the lottery, back then it was called “the numbers.” St. Clair quickly gained the reputation of a fierce, no-nonsense businesswoman, ruling an organized crime unit known as the Forty Thieves.

Though the game St. Clair helped develop today funds many organizations and projects, history has not been very good to her. Unlike the more prominent and socially accepted residents of 409 Edgecombe, including Thurgood Marshall and W.E.B. Du Bois, St. Clair has been reduced to a historical footnote. Cicely Tyson’s character in the 1997 film “Hoodlum” was based on St. Clair, but she was not a focal point.

Few know that St. Clair was a caring, sensitive woman who saw herself as a leader in her community. She made demands on the mayor of New York City to improve the quality of life for people living in Harlem. She wrote columns in New York City’s weekly African American publication, the Amsterdam News, offering encouragement and calling for unity amongst Harlem’s blacks.

In casting this play, my first challenge was to find the actress who would play the “Queen,” which proved tougher than I imagined.

In fact, I thought about it for two years.

Who could exhibit the sensitivity and still have the guile of such a powerful woman? There were many names, many faces, many brilliant actresses that I tossed around in my mind and with Mrs. Jones.

Finally, we met Fulani Haynes, a veteran Boston actress and noted jazz vocalist. During our first conversation, Fulani smiled and said, “This woman was a gangster?”

I tried to soften her image: “But she did a lot of great things for the people in Harlem.”

“No, Akiba, I’m interested,” Fulani responded with an eager smile. “But do you think I could play a numbers woman?”

Every director dreams of finding an actor like Fulani: not possessed by ego, adept at collaboration, willing to open doors long since closed in her personal life to find and do justice to her character. She truly loves Madame St. Clair, and earned the nickname “Madame Queen” in rehearsals. In the third week of rehearsals, Fulani took some time for an informal conversation about the play, her character and her approach.

Why did you take the part of Madame St. Clair?

Well, I like the fact that she existed, [that] she lived in the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s in Harlem. I sing jazz, so I’m interested in the female vocalists that sang in that era. Madame St. Clair, to me, is a classic woman. I love the fact that she believes in her people. I love the fact that she is from one of the islands [Martinique]. She came here and she saved her money, and she used her money to get what she wanted.

[In the play], her grandmother tells her that she must do certain things, that she is a leader, that she must always be strong, and that she would be protected. She came here with the knowledge knowing that she could do anything that she wanted to do. She started centers for the people who migrated from the islands, Martinique in particular, French Caribbean-speaking people, to come to the United States, to empower them, to teach them English so that they could become citizens so that they could vote, so that they could have power and better their lives. She believed in the people. She believed in the people in Harlem.

You are originally a jazz vocalist. What pulled you into acting?

Actually, I did a favor for a friend, Harold Steele. He and his wife lived in Boston years ago. He was doing a play called “The River Niger,” and he asked me to read the part of the mother. I didn’t have any experience with theater at all, hadn’t even done anything in high school or elementary school. I read for the part, and he liked the way I read, so they decided to cast me with no acting experience. I was working with [director] Paul Nichols at that time, and they worked with me to shape me into this role, and we had a wonderful time. That was back in 1976 and I was carrying my second child.

Madame St. Clair carries an amulet around her neck, a lion cub paw. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

From my readings, I understand that she was given this [amulet] by her grandmother when she was maybe nine or 10 years old. Her grandmother wanted for her to travel and go and live with her parents in France, to go and better her education, and to see more of the world. But before she sent her, she prayed over her granddaughter and she gave her a special necklace to wear, and told her that she must always keep it around her neck because it would give her some power and strength. It was from the ancestors in the family, and her grandmother was passing it down to Stephanie St. Clair.

Tell us a little about Sufi Hamid (played by Keith Mascoll).

Sufi Hamid is and was Stephanie St. Clair’s husband. They had like a contract marriage — they lived together in this building at 409 Edgecombe. She found that Sufi was an inspiration for her and she loved the way that he would speak. When she saw him, he was speaking on 125th Street. He was fighting for the rights of the people. In the play, she says that he stood there and he spoke so eloquently.

She’s a woman who doesn’t always give up her feelings; she’s a gangster woman. But [with] this particular man, she had some special connection, so they worked together. She was supportive of him and the work he was trying to do. He was trying to help the women, dark-skinned women, get employment at many of the shops on 125th Street. They called him “Black Hitler.”

Now, they called him that because all the stores were owned by Jewish people and he was upsetting business, causing trouble for them?

Yes, he was causing trouble. His point was that if you are buying … he really believed that if all of us as a community can come to these many shops on 125th Street and buy 24 hours a day, then why couldn’t we work there? Why couldn’t we handle the money? Why are they only accepting light-skinned black females? Why couldn’t the dark-skinned black females work? Why can’t the black people work in the stores if we are buying up all the goods?

He sounds like he predates the boycotting and resistant spirit of Dr. King and Malcolm X.

Exactly, and those brothers and sisters had it going on back then to fight for their rights. … One of the lines that I really love in the play is, “Madame St. Clair holds the dreams of many people in Harlem.” I like that she was noted for holding the dreams for the people. By running this legal/illegal numbers racket, she was “Queen of Policy,” she knew was queen, she was a millionaire. But she took that money and circulated it back into the community. The bankers would give her what she earned, but she would take that money and invest it in the community, and open centers, help people to pay their rent, all these wonderful things.

What is the most challenging aspect of this role?

I imagined, before I did the research, that this woman was a raging ball of fire. I believed that she was scornful and mean and probably had a gun on her hip, and that she went around cursing everybody out. But I am finding out different things.

We interviewed different people that live in 409 Edgecombe, and we did the research, and we talked to the playwright about her particular personality. So I don’t want to give it away, but the way her personality is shaped is so different from what I imagined.

“409 Edgecombe Avenue: The House on Sugar Hill” opens tonight at the BCA Plaza Theatre at Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont Street, Boston, and runs through April 21. Tickets range from $10-$30.

For tickets, call 617-933-8600, visit www.bostontheatrescene.org, or purchase them in person at A Nubian Notion, 41 Warren Street, Roxbury.

For more information, visit www.upyoumightyrace.org.