I HEATER.,, brant time between World War I and the Depres- sion when Harlem was in full bloom.</p><p> Its bold. unconventional structure. as well as its title, is inspired in part by Jean Toomer's 1923 novel. "Cane." "My mother is an English lit teacher and my father [apastor] is also aprofessor," says Guy. "I ran it by her and she said, 'Oh, "Cane" - your father's favorite novel.'I said, 'It is?'and then, for years, he passed as white." That sad fact is the sort of humanizing detail that can bring these historical figures to life, says the actress. "It's very hard to just memorize facts," says Guy, who, in October, brings a film festival to the Caribbean that focuses on music-orient- ed features. "But when we see somebody as a mother, when we see somebody as a lover orwe realize that secrets were kept, theybe- come real to us.</p><p> I want to picture the artists of the Harlem Renaissance all hanging out.</p><p> I love that.</p><p> These people were all friends." t"It almost changed the way we wrote, the way Marlon Brando changed the way we acted.</p><p> Jean ir;,, Toomer has a weird history because he wrote ft tfrir novel and then wentinto obscurity -,.,ffi. ,:lnJasmine Guy brings Rgnaissance to thg Apollo By MT'HAEL GrLrzGREAT DAY IN Hil aezI zo € or actress Jasmine Guy, her new play "Raisin' Cane" - coming to the Apollo Theater for one day only, Sunday, Feb. 18 at 4 p.m. - fills in the blanks. "Our history is so spotty," says the 42-year-old actress who danced withAlvin Ailey and then shot to fame on the "Cosby Show" spinoff sitcom "A Different World" in the late'80s and early'90s. "It seems like we go from slavery to the l'Rbisin' Cane," which tours through mid- Ilarch, captures the spirit of the Harlem Re- npiss4nce by drawing on the words and po- eqrs and songs and speeches ofpeople like Cpuntee Cullen and Zora Neale Hurston, Fa- ther Divine and Claude McKav.</p><p> Combined w,rth photos and paintings of and by the aliti6tp, with a jazz score byAvery Sharpe (fho performs live with his trio), the play bf'tlarry Clarke strives to capture that vi- ; i! EITERING A DIFFERENT WORLD Jasmine Guy stars in a play set in the 1920s.</p><p> Photo by WENN
