Taraji P. Henson Reveals the Revival

What is rare broadway Seasons that don’t get any better August Wilson This very busy spring is no exception. Joe Turner’s Come and GoneLovingly and astutely directed by Debbie Allen; Taraji P. Henson (from a great Broadway debut); Cedric the Entertainer And Ruben Santiago-Hudson provides ample reminders of Wilson’s brilliant genius in blending naturalism with more wonders of heaven and earth.

This play, the chronological second in the author’s remarkable 10-play Century Cycle, is set in Pittsburgh but lives in the collective memory of Africa, the American South, and the still-remnant underworlds of antiquity. Ryan Coogler’s sinner It couldn’t exist without Wilson’s cartography.

With an exemplary cast including the passionate Joshua Boone and a creative team comprised of top game designers Paul Tazewell (costumes), David Gallo (sets), Stacey Derosier (lighting) and Justin Ellington (sound); Joe Turner’s Come and Gone This work provides a glimpse into the phenomenon that William Falkner described as the past never dies and never becomes the past. Ghosts (or ghosts, “shiny men” or “bone men”) are felt forever, if not always present.

of ‘today’ Joe Turner’s Come and Gone 1911 was a time when Wilson’s Pittsburgh was growing with the steady arrival of southern black immigrants. Some were former slaves, and some are young enough to have never been forced to harvest cotton (of course, no one, young or old, can abandon their cruel legacy). One character, a troubled traveling man named Harold Loomis, remains in the painful mental chains of post-slavery slavery. He was kidnapped by a man and forced into seven years of hard labor, based on the history that gives the play its title.

Loomis, who has devoted himself to speaking in tongues and experiencing horrific apocalyptic visions, arrives at the boarding house of Seth and Bertha Holly (Cedric and Henson the Entertainers) with his 12-year-old daughter Zonia (Admiral Savannah in the reviewed performance). There he joins the just-passed-through community of Jeremy Furlow (Tripp Taylor), a Callow guitar-playing young man newly arrived from the South. Mattie Campbell (Nimene Sierra Wureh), a dejected and love-struck young woman who joins Jeremy to overcome recent heartbreak; and Molly Cunningham (Maya Boyd), a flamboyantly dressed young woman who has become disillusioned with love and is now looking for her next good time (maybe the naive Jeremy).

And then there’s Bynum Walker (an excellent Santiago-Hudson), who claims to have met the supernatural “Shining Man”, who gave him the secrets of life and instilled in him the gift of bonding people to others, freeing the “bound” from the loneliness that afflicted people like Jeremy, Mattie, Molly, and, most of all, the suffering Herald and his motherless daughter.

With Bynum, a nickname that reflects the force that “binds them,” the play draws much of its aura from another world, or at least a mysterious world that Seth disdainfully dismisses as out-of-date “heebie-jeebie” material. The rituals involving the blood of dead pigeons, spells, and circles drawn in the dirt are all performed offstage and may be nothing more than remnants of deep country roots, but Bynum is the only one who can free the “possessed” Herald (note the name and spelling) from his violent and terrifying spell.

Bynum said this when he felt a kind of spiritual breakthrough that gave new purpose to his once wasted life.

Traveling salesman Rutherford Selig (Bradley Stryker), the play’s only white character who deals with Seth, who makes pots and pans, visits the house every week. More importantly, Selig is what Bynam calls “people-finding.” For a fee, Selig will monitor your sales pipeline to find missing people sought by payers along the sales pipeline. Bynam wants to reunite with his “Shiny Man,” while the brooding, black-clad Herald wants to find the wife he believes abandoned him during his forced servitude to Joe Turner.

Seth is confident he knows who and where his missing wife is, but is unwilling to share the information with the “sneaky” looking Herald for fear of what the dangerous man might do.

The fact that his missing wife, Martha (Abigail Onwunali), actually shows up doesn’t spoil the play’s surprising ending. But she is certainly not the traitor whose misconduct led the Herald to search for years. It’s possible that Bynum will get another chance to work his magic.

One of the things Wilson seems to be getting at here is an exploration of migration and its toll. The rewards are tied to the costs: a newfound identity, a burden left behind, and the hope of always being better. The playwright suggests that no one, young or old, is completely free from their past or themselves.

Director Allen has a deft sense of narrative timing and rhythm, pacing revelations and developments, whether noxious or sweet, like the first blushes of love between young Zonia and neighbor boy Reuben (Jackson Edward Davis in a review performance).

When the threat of violence erupts, as we continue to sense, it comes not only as a physical violation, but also as a spiritual violation. This is an attack on the peace and stability that Seth, Bertha, and their scattered families worked hard to maintain. It is thanks to Wilson’s monumental talent and the astuteness of this work that we are left with a sense of a past that will not disappear and a future that we cannot figure out what to make of it at the end.

title: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
location: Ethel Barrymore Theater on Broadway
Posted by: August Wilson
supervision: Debbie Allen
Gibbs: Taraji P. Henson, Cedric the Entertainer, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Joshua Boone, Maya Boyd, Savannah Commodore/Dominique Sky Turner, Abigail Onwunali, Bradley Stryker, Tripp Taylor, Christopher Woodley/Jackson Edward Davis, Nimene Sierra Ure.
running time: 2 hours 20 minutes (including intermission)