Sheryl Lee Ralph waits. As Barbara Howard in Abbott Elementary she lets the younger teachers talk themselves out and then says the one thing that matters, and four decades of steady supporting work is in every pause.
Fi1m perspective
There is a corridor scene in the first season of Abbott Elementary (2021) in which Barbara Howard says nothing at all. Janine, the young teacher played by Quinta Brunson, is explaining herself, and Barbara simply lets her finish. Most sitcom actors would find a face to pull for the camera. Ralph does not, and the scene lands harder for it. We were more moved than a school sitcom had any right to make us, and it was her patience that did it: the sense of a woman who has heard this speech from a hundred Janines and knows how it ends.
That patience has been a long time coming. She made her film debut in A Piece of the Action (1977), then originated Deena Jones in the Broadway production of Dreamgirls (1981), and then spent the better part of forty years being the steadiest person in other people's shows. It's a Living. Moesha (1996), where she was Dee Mitchell, the stern stepmother who turned out to be the one you wanted in a crisis. The Mighty Quinn. Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993), as Florence Watson opposite Whoopi Goldberg and Lauryn Hill. To Sleep with Anger (1990), as Linda, in a film we have not reviewed and should. Voice work in between. The part was nearly always a version of the same part, the dignified woman who keeps everyone else in order, and she was nearly always the best thing in it and rarely the point of it. She has said as much about Abbott: "I did not think I would be seen. I thought it would be around me. And I was going to be there to give support."
What changed is that Brunson built a format that rewards exactly what Ralph does. The mockumentary cutaway is a gift to an actor trained on stage, because a glance at the documentary crew is a whole line of dialogue and Ralph can deliver one without moving anything but her eyes. Janelle James's Ava, the loud, useless principal, is the perfect counterweight: the more noise James makes, the more Ralph's stillness reads as authority rather than absence. Our review found the series softening as the seasons piled up. Barbara does not soften with it. She is still the one we would keep.
The caveat is the one her whole career suggests. Barbara Howard is a superb variation on Dee Mitchell, and a variation is what it is. We would like to see someone cast her as a woman who is wrong, or frightened, or unkind, and find out whether the pauses work when there is no wisdom behind them. Until then, watch Abbott Elementary for the corridors.
Biography
Sheryl Lee Ralph is an American actress and singer. She originated the role of Deena Jones in the Broadway musical Dreamgirls (1981) and received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Musical.
Since 2021, she has played Barbara Howard in the ABC series Abbott Elementary, for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2022. She is also known for film roles including Rita in Oliver & Company (1988) and Florence Watson in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993), and television appearances in series such as Moesha and It's a Living.
