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Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Cast Carries August Wilson Play

C. STANLEY PHOTOGRAPHY
C. STANLEY PHOTOGRAPHY

Arena Stage’s iconic Fichandler Stage was filled almost to its 683-seat capacity last Thursday for the opening night of “King Hedley II.” With a stunning cast capitalizing on a script of powerful social and political implications, the production lived up to the legacy of its playwright August Wilson.

Set in 1985 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, “King Hedley II” chronicles the life of six African-Americans within the framework of a white-dominated society. Each one is torn between his or her past and future identities, and this shared struggle weaves their community together throughout the play.

King Hedley, the main protagonist, is trying to make a life for himself to support his wife and the idea of a possible family in the future. But when a notorious man named Elmore reappears in his life and starts to stir up trouble, the careless urges of Hedley’s own past as an ex-convict and the secrets of his immediate family are brought to the surface and thrown into immediate relief.  Over the course of the play, King Hedley struggles to come to terms with himself, and he is burdened with decisions about Elmore and others that carry life and death consequences.

The unique space of Fichandler Stage gave Arena Stage’s production an interesting new dynamic. The stage is a central square surrounded on all sides by ascending rows of seats, meaning that the movement of the cast had to be coordinated properly to allow audiences to view them at certain different angles. While at times this meant that the characters’ backs were turned towards one particular side of theater, it in no way detracted from the inclusive feeling created by the centrality of the stage.

Instead, director Timothy Douglas actually used the peculiar setup to her advantage. Characters not participating in the present scene situated themselves just outside the edge of the four corners of the square. Each corner represented its own location in the play, and the actors never dropped their emotional personas even when they sat silently waiting to reenter.

Stage props were also kept to a minimum, as any elaborate objects would have only worked to obstruct the view for the audience. The elements themselves were bare; there was a concrete floor, a small dirt-filled patch, some cinder blocks, chairs and a stack of newspapers. Yet from these simple items, the six characters of “King Hedley II” were able to fill the room with their equally authoritative personalities.

Not a newcomer to Arena Stage, Bowman Wright breathlessly captured the passionate and multifaceted personality of King Hedley. He last performed at the theater as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in “The Mountaintop,” and so Wright seemed to be used to emulating the characteristics of such idiosyncratic, dynamic figures.

Over the course of the play, Wright ran through the gamut of emotions. From the zealous and overprotective potential father to the crafty, risk-taking robber, Wright flawlessly carried out the gripping electricity of the moment. When at last his character became disillusioned with the injustices of his environment and was consequently overtaken by rage, Wright’s performance of this sudden transformation left audiences enraptured and waiting for more.

To accompany this impressive performance was an equally talented cast that evoked the hodgepodge of memorable personalities embodying life in 1980s black America. E. Faye Butler’s representation of Ruby, the no-nonsense mother of King Hedley and Elmore’s long-time lover, was at once familiar and humorous in its tough love maternal nature and shocking in its character depth. Ruby was once a young, attractive singer before time and circumstances wisened her; when Butler’s melodic voice broke through for a happy instant during the play, audiences audibly voiced their surprise at hearing such whimsical softness from a character with such a rough exterior.

Michael Anthony Williams as Elmore rivaled these two personalities, bringing to the stage the slick, deliberate moves expected of such a conman. Elmore’s confident saunter, calculated smooth talk and ostentatious acts of devotion to Ruby treaded a tight line between genuine appreciation and his old ulterior motives, and Williams fulfilled this two-faced role with gusto. His sleazy tones and cool demeanor fascinated the audience, and together with Wright and Butler’s performances, the stage was filled by his commanding presence.

Arena Stage’s “King Hedley II” is carried by its cast, and this is probably how playwright August Wilson intended it. The play is the ninth installment of Wilson’s famous “Pittsburgh Cycle,” a collection of 10 plays depicting African-American life in each decade throughout the entire 20th century. By setting each play in roughly the same area but separating the characters in time, Wilson hoped to create fictional plays that struck at the real history and emotion underlying black communities. This idea won Wilson two Pulitzer Prizes in Drama, and although each play can run as a standalone piece, they all connect back to this overall vision.

“King Hedley II” is as heartbreaking as any Shakespeare play; it is full of inevitable prejudice, deceit, miscommunication and good motives gone wrong. Audiences are lured beneath the skin of each stereotyped character through the power of the cast and dialogue, and what they find beneath are complex people living in a not-so-black and white world of right and wrong. When at last tragedy strikes at the very end of the play, this abrupt ending brings with it a level of unsolvable moral ambiguity that makes the story all the more difficult to absorb.

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