‘Joe Turner’s Come and Gone’ review: August Wilson’s masterpiece

“Joe Turner Came and Gone” may be the best work in August Wilson The 10-play series chronicling the African American experience in the 20th century is set in a boarding house in Pittsburgh in 1911. The Great Migration is underway as millions of black Americans move from the rural South to the industrial North and Midwest in search of opportunity and freedom.

Gregg T. Daniel, who has worked his way through Wilson's cycle in A Noise Within decade after decade, imbues his revival of The Coming and Going of Joe Turner with a sense of momentous transition. Characters who stay for a time at the boarding house owned and operated by Seth (Alex Morris) and his wife Bertha (Veralyn Jones) discover that it is a way station, a place to gather strength before continuing on a dangerous journey into an unknown future.

Slavery did not end with the Civil War, as Herald Loomis (Kai A. Ealy) knows all too well. He arrives at the boarding house with his young daughter Zonia (Jessica Williams). For seven years, Loomis was held captive by Joe Turner's gang, kidnapped for being black, sent to hard labor, and separated from his wife, whom he had been searching for since his release.

Loomis has a restless presence that casts an unsettling shadow over the boarding house, set designer Tessie Nakagawa's recreation of the Pittsburgh bridges as a backdrop. Bynum (Gerald Rivers), a sorcerer who serves as a spiritual guide to the rest of the inhabitants, immediately realizes that Loomis is a man who has lost his song, the imprint of his soul. But Seth sees nothing but trouble from his new guest and tells Loomis he has to leave before Saturday.

The timing is opportune because Rutherford Selig (Burt Emmett), a merchant and renowned manhunter, is expected to return on Saturday with news of the whereabouts of Loomis' missing wife, Martha (Tori Danner). Before he can continue to exist as a free man, Loomis needs to find out what happened to his wife.

Life continues to rush forward whether the characters are ready or not. Jeremy (Brandon Gill), a new resident who is part of the construction crew for the new bridge but would rather exercise his considerable guitar skills, is harassed by the police when he is off duty and exploited by a white man when he is on the job. He first becomes romantically involved with Mattie Campbell (Briana James), who comes to Bynum to see if he can mystically bring back the man who abandoned her. But after Molly Cunningham (Nija Okoro) flirtatiously moves in and Jeremy loses his job, his amorous attention turns to her, leaving Mattie in the lurch again, even though Loomis has already noticed what a lovely “plump” woman she is.

Gerald K. Rivers and Brandon Gill in “Joe Turner Has Come and Gone” at A Noise Within.

(Craig Schwartz)

Daniel's production, enhanced by Kate Berg's costumes and Caryn Lawrence's lighting, is at its best in capturing the rhythms and rituals of everyday life. The ensemble (full of members of The Noise Inside Wilson) comes together wonderfully as the characters share food, stories, musical ecstasy and fits of laughter. Wilson was brilliant at depicting how people get along and don't get along when they don't have much choice about the company they keep. Jones, who was so great in the production by Daniel “King Hedley II” The “inner noise” here is as vivid as the calming force in the boarding house. Her Bertha is a kind, caring counterbalance to the annoying and boisterous Sett, a quality that Morris imbues with ample good affection.

The more time we spend with Jeremy (Jill), Molly (Okoro) and Mattie (James), the more we can appreciate the subtlety of their portraits. The revival has some acoustic static and moments of mumbling, but The Coming and Going of Joe Turner becomes more realistic and gripping with each scene.

The play's spiritual confrontation is between Ealy's Loomis and Rivers' Bynum, and both actors bring a powerful reality to the reckoning that can no longer be put off. Daniel's production loses its appeal during the more hallucinatory scenes between the characters. The natural in this production is much more theatrically convincing than the supernatural. But Ealy vividly conveys the menace of Loomis's wickedly dark musings, and Rivers allows us to see that the source of Bynum's otherworldly power is his humane vision.

Bynum is a seeker as well as a visionary, inseparable from the struggle of his people. He shares Wilson's vibrant sense of heritage. who died in 2005made it the main subject of his art. This production of Joe Turner Came and Gone feels like a gift from the other side, that mysterious, creative realm where history becomes spiritual.