A Little Stage Magic

Performers talk about the magic of the stage, but Madge Sinclair is taking it seriously for her role tonight in Los Angeles Theatre Center’s world premiere of Anna Deavere Smith’s “Piano.”

Though her character, a maid named Suzanna, may seem to have a humble position in the Cuban family household at the center of Smith’s play, she is a woman of great power. Sinclair says: “She is a priestess in santeria , the earth-based religion that is very extensive throughout Latin American and the Caribbean. The story is set in 1898, when Cubans were fighting their Spanish occupiers, and the family is torn apart by the arrival of a brother, who is in the Spanish army. She uses santeria to help the family.”

What some perjoratively label as voodoo , the Jamaican-born Sinclair knows from some personal experience. “In Jamaica, it’s called Pocomania --little madness. It’s a cross between the holy roller church and African santeria beliefs. My grandfather was a practioner, an obeah man, who used herbal healing methods.”

Sinclair was drawn to acting in school, but in the ‘60s Jamaica had no professional theater so she headed for New York.

It’s been uphill since: acting at Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre in the early ‘70s (“the Public was just starting then, and we would do fundraising shows on an outdoor flatbed truck”); landing the role of Bell in the first edition of “Roots”; garnering three Emmy nominations as nurse Ernestine Shoop in “Trapper John, M.D.,” and winning a 1987 Los Angeles Emmy for PBS’ “Look Away.” She played Eddie Murphy’s mother in “Coming to America.”

“Some people get snooty about it,” she says, “but I like working for TV. I can finish something and see it the next week.” But Sinclair remains with the theater and the chance to “speak wonderful language. And I’ve been with LATC for four years because it reminds me of the Public Theatre. You may either hate or love the shows, but there’s always something interesting going on.”