KING HEDLEY II: A CROWNING PRODUCTION
The Actors’ Shakespeare Project production of King Hedley II follows ASP’s acclaimed Seven Guitars of last season, once again bringing a work by August Wilson, sometimes known as America’s Shakespeare, to Boston audiences. Wonderfully directed by Summer L. Williams, the ninth play in Wilson’s American Century Cycle demands a lot of the actors, and do they ever deliver. King Hedley II opened on Broadway in 2001 with Leslie Uggams and Viola Davis and was nominated for six Tonys and a Pulitzer Prize.
James Ricardo Milord and Patrice Jean-Baptiste
James Ricardo Milord and Brandon G. Green
James Ricardo Milord, as the title character, brings such passion and conviction to his challenging role that he wins our sympathy, despite his bad choices and the pain that his distorted sense of masculinity inflicts on others. This is a man who plants seeds in the poor soil of a vacant lot because he wants to grow flowers and who wants to become a legitimate businessman, the owner of a video store. But starting a business requires capital, and as a Black man in 1990s Pittsburgh, fresh out of seven years in prison, King has no way to raise money except by committing another crime.
James Ricardo Milord, Naheem Garcia, and Omar Robinson
Patrice Jean-Baptiste and James Ricardo Milord
The play opens with a prologue by Stool Pigeon (Brandon G. Green). “People need to know the story,” he says, a comment that justifies, in his mind, the hoarding of newspapers. But that could also be the rationale for Wilson’s chronicling of 20th-century African-American life. “The story’s been written, all that’s left now is the playing out” refers to Stool Pigeon’s obsession with God and Biblical prophecy, but that functions as a comment on the playwright’s work and the cast and crew who bring this script to life.
Patrice Jean-Baptiste and Karimah Williams
Patrice Jean-Baptiste and Naheem Garcia
Stool Pigeon leaves the stage and King Hedley II and his mother Ruby (Patrice Jeane-Baptiste) come out of one of the two row houses backed up against the dirt-strewn lot (scenic design Jon Savage). Hedley sets about planting his seeds, despite Ruby’s warning about the poor quality of the soil. He also asks Ruby whether he has a halo around his head. He has had a dream in which he’s wearing a halo, and he’ll eventually ask each of the other characters whether they see a halo around his head. Ruby tells him she’s had a letter telling her that Elmore (Naheem Garcia) is coming to visit and wants to talk to King. Mister (Omar Robinson), a friend of King’s, shows up and tells him the cousin of someone named Pernell is looking for him.
Naheem Garcia and Omar Robinson
James Ricardo Milord
Wilson does a good job of planting his own seeds: What does Elmore want to talk to King about? Why is Pernell’s cousin looking for King? In the course of the play we get the answers. As his mother Ruby, the wonderful Patrice Jeane-Baptiste brings her entire face and body into every moment of her performance, including not just her own lines but her reactions to everyone else on the stage. Naheem Garcia is handsome and slippery as the gambler and con man Elmore who awakens Ruby’s flirtatious side, and the powerful and convincing Karimah Williams as Tonya delivers an argument for why a Black woman would prefer an abortion to the pain of motherhood, which means dreading the day she will have to identify her child in a morgue.
Naheem Garcia, James Ricardo Milord, Brandon G. Green, and Omar Robinson
Karimah Williams and James Ricardo Milord
Death, in fact, hovers over the entire play, in the form of the destruction of King’s seedlings, Aunt Ester’s dead cat, Tonya’s planned abortion, talk of drive-by shootings and recollections of murders, and the ever-present weapons that change hands like hot potatoes throughout the play; we know these weapons will be used, but we are never sure who will use them or who will be their targets until the climactic ending.
This evocation of gritty desperation and spiritual power is all glorious and powerful stuff. The delivery is stellar, but ultimately the power of so many terrific speeches is undercut by the sheer length of this play, nearly three hours long. We return again and again to certain themes: King’s delusion that he has a halo because he dreamed that he did; King’s effort to grow flowers in substandard soil; and convoluted retellings of the arguments between King and Pernell and between Elmore and Leroy. Pernell and Leroy never appear in the play, but they are present as oft-mentioned rivals and combatants. Simmering in the background of all of this is the death of another character we never meet: Aunt Ester, the 366-year-old healer and spiritual leader of the community (and who appears in Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean).
James Ricardo Milord and Naheem Garcia
James Ricardo Milord, Omar Robinson, and Karimah Williams
Thus, the only issue with King Hedley II is the same one Dr. Samuel Johnson identified with Milton’s Paradise Lost — a work Johnson considered a masterpiece but in which he recognized an essential flaw: “No one ever wished it longer.” Hedley is rich in meaning and offers actors an unrivaled opportunity for powerful performances. It is no doubt taboo to edit the work of an acknowledged master, but Wilson was well-known for making alterations and revisions as he watched different companies perform his scripts. Were he alive today, would he have found ways to unburden this script of some unneeded and confusing elements to more fully release its power?
Nonetheless, this is a highly recommended production very much worth seeing, and the promise of resurrection in the final lines of this play makes me eager to see Radio Golf, the final play in Wilson’s series. (Actors’ Shakespeare Project 2024-2025 season, perhaps?)
Karimah Williams and James Ricardo Milord
photos by Maggie Hall Photography
King Hedley II
Actors Shakespeare Project
Hibernian Hall, 184 Dudley Street in Boston
ends on March 31, 2024 EXTENDED to April 7, 2024
for tickets ($25-$59.50), call 617-933-8600 or visit Actors Shakespeare Project
10% of the house is Pay-What-You-Can