Gem of the Ocean
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
A Noise Within
Extended through November 23
RECOMMENDED:
Gem of the Ocean, August Wilson’s play about sin, salvation and the power of the supernatural, takes place in 1904, a mere four decades following the end of the Civil War. Written near the close of his career (it was his next-to-the-last play, preceding his final work, Radio Golf), it serves as both framework and foundation for The Pittsburg Cycle, the playwright’s nine-part master chronicle of the African-American experience, in all its profound grief and joy. Plays written earlier (but set in subsequent decades) hinted at the preternatural as it affected people’s lives; in Gem, by contrast, Wilson makes otherworldly forces central to the narrative, furnishing a canvas for the characters’ struggle for self-realization and redemption. That makes staging it an especial challenge — one splendidly met at A Noise Within, where director Gregg T. Daniel and a sterling ensemble have forged an illuminating production.
The story transpires in the parlor of Aunt Ester Tyler (Veralyn Jones), a 285-year-old visionary old enough to recollect a fateful trip across water and a sale into bondage. The reclusive Ester is cared for by her protective gatekeeper Eli (Alex Morris) and her housekeeper Black Mary (Carolyn Ratteray), a nurturing woman who is also Ester’s protégé in the “cleansing of souls.” The play’s events start to unfold when the household is visited by the one person who might challenge Ester in spiritual stature and wisdom — Solly Two Kings (Kevin Jackson, in a towering performance), a 67-year-old veteran conductor of the Underground Railroad. An itinerant who collects and peddles dog waste, Solly is otherwise a speechifier of considerable presence — an iconoclast who fearlessly challenges authority and who lives in the service of “the people.” Though tired and feeling his age, he plans one last excursion to Alabama to rescue his sister, who is unable to leave due to blockades set up by white people wanting to stem a black exodus from the South.
The arrival of fearful and guilt-ridden Citizen Barlow (Evan Lewis Smith) on Ester’s doorstep (actually, he climbs in through the window) sets the plot in motion. Citizen is desperate; a different man accused of a petty theft which Citizen has committed, has killed himself rather than fall into the hands of the police. A humble worker cheated by his employers of the meager wages Citizen needs to survive, meet and tormented, he begs Ester for help, and it’s around the journey that he travels from ignorance and despair to dignity, and the embrace of his heritage and his people, that the drama, in all its power, coalesces.
The other significant personage is Black Mary’s baleful brother, Caesar (Chuma Gault). Having bootstrapped his way out of poverty, he’s now an exacting landlord and law enforcement officer. Caesar loves power and relishes intimidating others; he’s that distasteful man of color who, inexplicably, has internalized the racism of the White Establishment (rather like Clarence Thomas or Ben Carson, except that Caesar carries a gun that he uses with impunity, infamously shooting a youth for stealing a loaf of bread).
All told there are seven characters, including white peddler Rutherford (Bert Emmett), an empathetic friend whose help proves crucial when Solly must flee to escape Caesar’s wrath. Each one is beautifully honed. Gently hobbled with age, Jones’s Ester is a venerable figure of wise humility and extraordinary vision who can also be tetchy and demanding. Ratteray’s Black Mary, a salt-of-the-earth woman of great compassion, and Morris’s trustworthy loyal Eli are the likable, endearing pillars of her household. Gault’s measured villain is perfect, a portrait in cruel restraint — believable enough to thoroughly despise, yet complex enough for us to perceive, in rare moments, his vulnerable self. As Solly, a veritable geyser of language and strong emotion, Jackson’s powerful performance propels the production to incandescent heights.
Set designer Stephanie Kerley Schwartz’s subdued and stately interior exudes an air of the faded past, rather like Ester herself. Jean-Yves Tessier’s lighting and Martin Carrillo’s sound and original music add vivid nuance and shadow, in particular those sequences when the past overwhelms the present.
A Noise Within, 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena; in rep, call for schedule; extended through Nov. 23; (626) 356-3100 or www.anoisewithin.org. Running time: two hours and 50 minutes with an intermission.
