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Joe Turner's Come and GonePart of The August Wilson Century CycleDateline: 15th April, 2008According to Romulus Linney, who wrote the introduction to this book, Joe Turner's Come and Gone was August Wilson's favourite play from the whole of his Century Cycle. While this is a quieter piece than some of the others, it is easy to see the attractions of a play that looks into men's souls and attempts to prove that everybody is searching for their "song" of freedom to give a meaning to their existence and will find it. This play is also a perceptive investigation into human relationships and a terrifying indictment of the post-slavery experiences suffered by many African-Americans. The action takes place in the kitchen of a boarding house run by Seth and Bertha Holly in Pittsburgh. They make ends meet, thanks to hard work in running the property but also to two other jobs that Seth works at. As so often in literature, the itinerant inhabitants of the boarding house are a rum bunch. Byner kills chickens for quasi-religious ceremonies and has the ability to read people's "songs" and understand their inner problems. Jeremy is a confused young runaway from the South whose head is turned by every young woman who passes, while the young female residents have their own man problems. The play takes on greater depth with the arrival of Herald Loomis and his daughter Zonia. The poor man seems unhinged by unhappiness at the loss of his wife Martha ten years before this story takes place in 1911. His history is revealed when Byner begins to sing the song "Joe Turner's Come and Gone". This is a veritable horror story in verse about a white man who would kidnap honest Southern citizens, inevitably Black, and keep them slaving away for him for exactly seven years. That is what had happened to Herald Loomis, a preacher who was innocently walking along a Memphis street one day. The next thing he knew seven years had passed and while Loomis had found his daughter, his wife had disappeared. In addition to the residents of the Holly household, one of the bit part players in Gem of the Ocean, the White peripatetic salesman Rutherford Selig, takes on a deeper significance than his worthwhile role in providing business opportunities and the marketplace to people such as Seth. As one reads this cycle, it becomes apparent that generational inheritance is a regular August Wilson theme. It is therefore wholly in keeping that Selig also has a sideline in finding the missing, which he has developed using skills passed on from generation to generation starting in the days of slavery. He has at least one success, finding Martha Pentecost, a young woman played by Angela Bassett in the original production in 1986 and then through to Broadway two years later. It would be unfair to reveal whether any of these characters finds the love and laughter that Bertha concludes is all that is needed for a happy life. Either way, this is a beautiful play that reaches a joyous and inspirational conclusion and richly deserves a London revival at the earliest opportunity. Philip Fisher
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