King of Pain: King Hedley II (Review)
King Hedley II is a ruthlessly honest examination of the profound –- and often untold –- costs of prejudice
Operatic in rhythm and architecture, it makes sense that August Wilson’s King Hedley II is part of a cycle, even if it is of the spoken word, versus the sung. Where Wagner’s Ring Cycle explores a world of troubled Norse Gods and the humans they engage as lovers and pawns, Wilson’s ten-play Pittsburgh Cycle is utterly human, ground out of the African-American community of the hardscrabble Hill District.
A ruthlessly honest examination of the profound –- and often untold –- costs of prejudice, Hedley delves into the deeper, far more insidious, spiritual and psychological realities of a life born of and into oppression. Wilson’s characters may be razor-sharp in their dissection of what has brought them to this place, but even as they rail at it, they are prey to it, ensnared in the denials, rationalizations and moral contortions that weaken them like destructive vines through concrete.
Of course, this could have been just one more of the many recent lessons for a largely white audience. But Wilson transcends such limits, journeying instead into the color-blind diseases of rage, despair, and spiritual exhaustion –- diseases from which none of us are immune under the right circumstances. Thus, although not everybody will relate to the culture in which he sets his tragedy, Wilson’s themes of imperfect human survival, delivered in his unsettling, provocative, poetic monologues, will resonate. And they will, inevitably, inform –- quite specifically –- on the black experience. It’s a cycle in more ways than one.
Wilson’s is a challenging structure, his characters issue their cris de coeur in the midst of an otherwise urgent and realistic telling of life in this troubled community. Not easy to deliver with continuity and cohesion, but under the crystal clear vision of director Timothy Douglas and a brilliant, airtight ensemble, this production does it with much power and grace.
It’s hard to highlight one player here, as each breathes so much life into this production and feels so indispensable to the whole. But one can start with Wilson’s focus, King Hedley, recently released from prison and trying to make sense of his damaged life and miserable prospects. Handsome and fit, Bowman Wright shows us what anger and despair does to beauty: his eyes burn with menace, his body is poised between numb inaction and violence. Working deep, Wright channels King’s growing rage with the relentlessness it requires and he writhes through the piece like a dangerous electric cable torn free of its housing. And if his voice almost grates, especially when compared to the melodic tones of those around him, it should. Wilson’s themes for King are too full of impotence and agony to be otherwise.
As his sidekick, but also Wilson’s example of a survivor, Mister provides humor with an edge. Kenyatta Rogers is superb in the role, with excellent, understated comic timing and yet still the baleful, knowing expression of a man who has seen too much, including a best friend consumed by his demons.
Integral to King’s identity and thus –- like everything in his life –- a complicated mix, is his mother, Ruby. In a memorable performance, E. Faye Butler gives this woman the glorious presence and fortitude she needs as another of Wilson’s survivors. But Butler also shows that Ruby pays a price for doing what she must, including turning her gaze from that which might pull her down. Like Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and her Children, Ruby raises a key question: what does the struggle to survive do to a mother’s love?
Grappling with one potential answer, and with immediacy, is Tonya, King’s wife. As the one person with a job, Tonya is playing by the rules, though the odds are cruelly stacked against her as she tries to navigate King’s needs and her own unsettled history. Jessica Frances Dukes hits the right notes of strength and vulnerability here and Tonya feels utterly real.
Rounding out the ensemble are Michael Anthony Williams as Elmore, a pivotal figure from Ruby’s past, and Andre De Shields as Stool Pigeon, a local evangelist who tailors his Bible thumping to the unfolding crises before him. Williams is a well-crafted Elmore, offering a charming hustler who nevertheless brings a subtle but lethal disturbance to the atmosphere. Elmore offers some of Wilson’s more complex rationales, both in past and present, and the strong veneer Williams gives this man carries them well. De Shields makes the most of his bagman/prophet, bringing beautiful phrasing and the right amount of gentle humor to his edicts.
A powerful, insightful and truth-speaking work, it may not be feel-good, but it is feel-right.
FLIP NOW TO Lisa D’Amour’s Cherokee, and meet the polar opposite. Despite an ironic feel and a few giggles, this is essentially a preachy, go-nowhere contrivance on the subject of — yawn — how white people just don’t get it. Director John Vreeke, usually so full of vision and wit, sets a flaccid pace here and does little to overcome D’Amour’s vacillation between the thin and the heavy-handed. It doesn’t seem fair to judge the ensemble on the play’s shortcomings, so better just a simple mention of Jennifer Mendenhall for her spot-on caricature of a feeble-brained schoolteacher. One expects more after D’Amour’s clever and unsettling Detroit, but perhaps everyone is entitled to an off-play. The bottom line is that the brief entertainments are not worth a message that’s been done funnier and better elsewhere.
Cherokee (
) runs to March 8. Woolly Mammoth, 641 D St. NW. Tickets are $35 to $68. Call 202-393-3939 or visit woollymammoth.net.
King Hedley () runs to March 8. Arena Stage, 1101 Sixth St. SW. Tickets are $40 to $90. Call 202-488-3300 or visit arenastage.org.
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