Remembering Mary Alice’s TV Film Debut In ‘Sty of the Blind Pig’

The recently departed Mary Alice starred in Sty of the Blind Pig directed by the late Ivan Dixon. 

Last month, we tragically lost the brilliant Mary Alice Smith— professionally known as Mary Alice. 

Ever since the UCLA Film & Television Archive allowed a special virtual presentation of Ivan Dixon’s Sty of The Blind Pig back in February, Mary Alice’s mesmerizing performance has stayed on my mind. Maybe perhaps she has primarily been seen as a supporting character— the worrisome mother figure in Maya Angelou’s Down in the Delta and Charles Burnett’s To Sleep With Anger, the kindhearted Lettie in A Different World, and the oracle in the two Matrix films (taken over after Gloria Foster’s passing). Although Mary Alice retired in 2005 with 59 film/TV credits, her last being a guest appearance on an episode of the short lived Kojak, Sty of the Blind Pig deserves a much needed reflection and revisit. 

Alberta relays an eulogy for Emmanuel Fisher.

Based on Phillip Hayes Dean’s play centering a South Side Chicago family in the 1950’s, Sty of the Blind Pig centers Alberta Warren. She happens to be an excellent obituary writer. Her ability as eulogist appears unmatched. The emotion Alberta expresses into her grieving compositions impresses the townspeople and her mother, the conventional Weedy— a proud church lady living in gender roles of the past. Together, Alberta and Weedy clash heads at 3847 State Street. 

Once Weedy brings up Alberta’s eulogy for Emmanuel Fisher, Alberta becomes cold and distant, claiming that she threw it away and barely remembers. 

Alberta (Mary Alice) and Weedy (Maidie Norman) often clash— the modern single woman versus the god-fearing church woman of the past.

Except, Alberta does indeed remember it, explicitly conveyed through a powerfully urgent testimony. In her candid words and intense expression, she states her tender woes for this deceased stranger, a stranger who fills her with utmost yearning, a yearning that must forever be unfulfilled. This mesmerizing performance carried through by the sheer weight of Mary Alice’s passionate and delicate nuances delivered so bravely in this soliloquy. You almost forget that an audience is present, Blind Jordan, who cannot see Alberta, but can certainly feel Alberta’s burning despair. He is a mere stranger passing through looking for another woman. yet Alberta continues luring him into the apartment, luring him into her otherwise dull, unexciting life. Thus, he cannot deny her request for an improper clench right on the detestable couch. This is how Weedy finds Alberta, having come early from her church travel. 

Most similar to Lorraine Hansberry’s humble Chicago family moving to a new horizon in Raisin in the Sun (which ironically stars Ivan Dixon), Dean’s Sty of the Bling Pig relays a powerful message about generational mindsets. Both plays turned films share themes of housing crises, economic frustration, and the working poor. Whereas the Younger family are migrating from their perilous situation to a better (white) neighborhood, the Warrens have the option to leave their situation due to rising rent costs, but eventually decide to stay— with Alberta essentially becoming a reflection of her mother. Lena Younger has character developments similar to Weedy too— proud, devout, religious. Yet Younger’s children lean on her, Alberta tries very hard to separate herself from Weedy mainly due to societal influence. The morally engaging Weedy— who often preaches to Alberta near a framed portrait of white Jesus and not a framed portrait of a family member— symbolizes the old patriarchal systems that institute a woman’s place in society— a pious, rule-following body with nothing more than religion on her mind. Meanwhile, Alberta represents the freethinking, unconventional modernism (with her secret stash of prescribed pills that may be birth control) that confuses Weedy. Alberta serves for a white family and the white male head has tried taking liberties with her— and she retaliates by stealing their alcohol. 

Despite her best intentions, Alberta turns into her mother by the end— even down to sitting in the rocking chair and screaming nonsense to her neighbors.

After the great Maidie Norman (1912-1998), Scatman Crothers (1910-1986), and Richard Ward (1915-1979), Indianola, Mississippi native Mary Alice was the last survivor of Sty of the Blind Pig cast. Among Mary Alice’s honors include Tony Award and Drama Desk Award winner for playing Rose in Fences (much like the later Viola Davis), an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in I’ll Fly Away as well as a Black Reel nomination for The Matrix Revolutions and an Independent Spirit Award nomination for To Sleep With Anger. She was rightfully inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2000. 

In 2002, Mary Alice answers a question on blackfilm.com on the typical motherly roles she’s been given:

As you get older you’re going to play [a] mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and so forth and so on or some character who is wise and nurturing. It just comes with the territory. It’s a little different in Sunshine State because he gives her a little edge. He gives her a little attitude where she’s not just completely supporting her daughter. But most of the time that happens. It happened to me and it happened to most of my friends as we get older. Even people as glamorous as Diahann Carroll gets typed into the role of someone who is [not] completely one-dimensional but close to being the best friend, the nurturing mother, the supportive grandmother or even if it’s not a relative, she is someone who is strong and wise. And it happens to a lesser degree on stage because there are more interesting roles for older Black actresses in the theater. Sometimes you might get a role on TV that is in a series that might be interesting. Have you seen any older Black actress in a movie?

Mary Alice shall forever be missed.  

Watch Sty of the Blind Pig on YouTube.