|
5/23/2014 CVNC:An Online Arts Journal in North Carolina I Gem of the Ocean Rides High at the Carrboro ArtsCenter
<br /> Gem of the Ocean Rides High at the Carrboro ArtsCenter
<br /> By Kate Dobbs Ariail
<br /> May 10,2014-Carrboro, NC:
<br /> Carrboro--(Fri., May. 9, 2014-
<br /> Sun., May. 18, 2014)
<br /> It's a daunting task to review a production as nearly perfect as the current ArtsCenter Stage presentation of August ArtsCenter Stage: Gem of the
<br /> Wilson's Gem of the Ocean. The play, although not the first written(it premiered in 2003)in Wilson's magnificent 10-play Ocean
<br /> Pittsburgh Cycle, begins the stories that cover African-American life in Pittsburgh's Hill District through the 10 decades of Ticket prices detailed below in
<br /> the 20th century. Several of its characters, including the ancient Aunt Ester,were born in slavery, and the main concern of "Notes"--ArtsCenter,(919)929-
<br /> the play is freedom—what it is and is not; how to get it, how to keep it; and how to"live and die in truth."As a piece of 2787,ext.201,
<br /> writing, it is beautiful almost beyond describing: robust, musical, rich in color and shading. Its cadences and repetitions http://artscenterlive.orp/
<br /> build like those of the best jazz, spiraling around a motif with the hard glitter of change and the lush continuity of
<br /> remembrance.
<br /> It's a big play in every sense.Two full acts barely contain its life.Wilson(who received many awards for various parts of the full cycle, including two Pulitzers)is
<br /> so successful at working with big ideas and concerns because they are the natural concerns of his large-scaled and magnificently detailed characters,who live in
<br /> a world where metaphor and reality are not strangers, and where now includes all of the past.Their landscape is strewn with boulders;they are set about with
<br /> ambushes, and rivers of blood. It's a world in which a conjure woman can wash souls and cast out scoundrels from her house of peace and sanctuary at 1839
<br /> Wylie Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA. It's 1904—110 years ago by the calendar, but not too distant from 2014.
<br /> The ArtsCenter production is directed by John Rogers Harris. His timing of the dialogue and action is faultless, but more importantly, he lets love and tragedy fill
<br /> the room at their own pace. Harris has cast a powerful ensemble of actors as the seven characters, and Wilson's words pour forth as if from their own minds. No
<br /> one spouts speeches, or declaims, or breaks the fourth wall. We observe and empathize looking into a world of which we are not part. It is complete in itself.
<br /> Among the actors, first mention must go to Malcolm Green, called in very late in the process to play Eli (replacing Gil Faison,who had to withdraw due to a death
<br /> in his family),who is essentially Aunt Ester's gatekeeper. He is also building a wall,a stone wall(not a fence), around the house. Green is still an undergraduate
<br /> theatre major at NCCU,but here he's an old man, annealed in the fires of war and reconstruction. He was particularly moving as he told of his days conducting on
<br /> the Underground Railroad, along with Solly Two Kings.
<br /> Thomasi McDonald may have been born to play Solly Two Kings. He was fantastic as the former slave who escaped to freedom in Canada,only to turn right
<br /> around and bring out others. His slave name was Uncle Alfred, but he named himself after two kings, David and Solomon, but someone promptly called him Solly,
<br /> so Solly Two Kings he became.Two Kings can't read,and he collects dogshit to sell as manure for a living, but his soul is large, and knows not compromise.
<br /> McDonald was in danger of running away with the show every time he opened his mouth—but the others were right there with him, raising the acting to rising
<br /> plateaus of greatness.
<br /> Gem of the Ocean begins with young Citizen Barlow, recently escaped from Alabama, beating on Aunt Ester's door, desperate to get his soul washed. Jade
<br /> Arnold,fresh from his triumphant portrayal of Mozart in Leviathan's production of Amadeus, nearly tore my heart out as Citizen. He's suffering because he killed a
<br /> man. He didn't mean to, didn't begin to foresee the effects of an action he took to even a personal score,an action that ultimately sets off riot,fire and more killing.
<br /> Aunt Ester takes him on a healing spiritual journey to the City of Bones and almost can't bring him back, because he has let go of the boat—a folded paper boat
<br /> she's given him—that links him to his ancestors and his history. He retrieves the boat just in time, and returns to the present with a context for all his troubles.
<br /> The struggles and emotions in this scene are very powerful.
<br /> Sherida McMullan beautifully portrayed Black Mary,who turned up at Aunt Ester's one day a few years back and is now a conjure woman in training,as well as
<br /> cook, laundress, and hostess in the house of peace. Her performance was nuanced, much being conveyed by expression and gesture,and her speaking was so
<br /> natural one often felt like an eavesdropper rather than an audience member. Black Mary's half-brother, Caesar W ilks, is played here by the powerful Phillip Bernard
<br /> Smith. Caesar is a Tragic figure who doesn't know he's tragic, or that lie's erased his moral center—he thinks he's a success, powerful and righteous. Smith was
<br /> more than equal to the task, and particularly eloquent and vicious in Caesar's longest speech.
<br /> Juanda LaJoyce Holley gave a majestic performance as Aunt Ester,the wise woman at the center of it all. She's a magnificently tail woman,with a lovely voice
<br /> and the sweetest smile. Her Ester connected to all the fundamental powers of the universe; she conjured her character so that the character could conjure up the
<br /> truth of the past and apply to it the balm of love. But she—actor and character—also exemplified the particular magic of the drama,whose skilled practitioners
<br /> http://wm.cvnc.org/articleprint.cfm?articleid=6840 1/2
<br />
|