Herald Loomis is in limbo. With his young daughter in tow, he’s been searching for his wife whom he hasn’t seen in ten years. He comes to a boardinghouse owned by Seth Holly and his wife Bertha (Keith David and Lilas White). One of the residents there, the shaman, “binder,” and storyteller Bynum Walker (Glynn Turman), sizes up Loomis (John Douglas Thompson) and – more eloquently than any reviewer could ever phrase it – tells him that he’s lost his song and needs to find it again.
A person’s song is their sense of purpose, their direction, their compass – moral and otherwise.
August Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” (through June 9 at the Mark Taper Forum) premiered in 1986 and is the second chapter (set in 1911) of the playwright’s monumental Century Cycle, a theatrical grouping of ten plays, each one sliced from a different decade of the 20th century. Shortly after completing “Radio Days” in 2005 Wilson passed away at age 60.
Of these works, “Joe Turner” is among the best. The latter plays – “Seven Guitars,” “King Hedley II,” “Gem of the Ocean” – are just as textually rich but longer and less concise. This production, directed by Phylicia Rashad, has a mostly stellar cast and unleashes the genius of Wilson’s lyricism and his deft handling of character, but it will be a diffused experience if one isn’t sitting close or is unable to follow the dialect and the rhythm of the spoken word.
Wilson’s writing was influenced by the blues and “Joe Turner” is something of a gospel choir for eleven voices, many of them taking solo turns, others reconfiguring as duets, trios, quartets, and so on. Each character has their story or backstory, and it must be remembered that we are in the post-Reconstruction era when black people as a whole remain unsettled, perhaps migrating north, unsure of who they are or where they belong.
In that sense, everyone needs to sort out their own paperwork. Herald Loomis, an ex-deacon, was grabbed by the bounty hunter Joe Turner (a real-life figure, brother to a Tennessee governor) and chain-ganged for seven years. Unmoored, this African-American “Flying Dutchman” needs to reach solid ground. He speaks often of finding the strength in his legs so he can stand up – literally, as we see in the conclusion of the first act.
In the broader context, there are few people who do not have a “Joe Turner” to impede or derail their lives, and among the boarders we have the would-be ladies’ man Jeremy Furlow (Gabriel Brown), the woman of easy virtue, Molly Cunningham (Violet Nixon), and the dolorous Mattie Campbell (January LaVoy). The latter may or may not be the person Herald Loomis is really looking for, but there is that unstated connection, a shared sensibility, which the eventual appearance of the long sought-after wife, Martha Pentecost (Erica Tazel), ironically sets into motion.
There are more layers here than I’ve implied, but at the heart and soul of the story is a man who embodies anguish, one who can only move forward by letting go of or coming to a resolution with what is or what has been. His daughter, Zonia (a commendable Skye Barrett), stoically puts up with her anxiety-fueled father, and yet she, too, must move forward and become a whole person, which is why the reunification with her own mother is so important. It’s a minor chord, muffled in the shuffle of the finale, but nonetheless one more sign of hope (and progress) at the end of a very long journey.
Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is onstage at the Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown Los Angeles in the Music Center, through June 9. Performances, Tuesday through Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2:30 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 1 and 6:30 p.m. Student matinees only on May 23 and 24. Tickets, $20 to $70. Call (213) 628-2772 or go to CenterTheatreGroup.org.
