Four Black characters, spread across two Harlem apartments, facing racism, sexism, homophobia and a cratering economy every time they step outside.

Pearl Cleage’s “Blues for an Alabama Sky” is set at the dawn of the Great Depression, but the longer it goes, the more we realize it’s all still waiting for us outside the theatre.

Timely plays are a Shaw Festival specialty, be they classics or obscure gems. And as Cleage’s sobering play opens at the tail end of the season, the United States is deploying the National Guard in city streets. People are being snatched and placed in cages. Women face prison for having abortions.

This play premiered 30 years ago in Atlanta. The Shaw Festival’s Canadian premiere is so perfectly timed it’s uncanny — equal parts exhilarating and depressing.

During

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