Customer Reviews

Joe Turner's Come and Gone (August Wilson Century Cycle)

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4 star:		(7)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Joe Turner's Come and Gone" is a play about African Americans migrating north in the 1911. The play takes place in Pittsburgh in a boarding house owned by a husband, Seth, and his wife, Bertha. It is the perfect location for Wilson's theme of separation. This boarding house has several guests and each one has their own philosophy, story, and search. I tried to determine which of those three were most important, but I have come to the conclusion that they are all equally important. Their stories are what link the characters' past to their present. Their respective philosophies explain their outlooks on life and their personalities. The search itself, in my opinion, is for identity - an identity that has been raped by the horrors of slavery. These horrors either directly or indirectly tore the main characters from their loved ones and I think Wilson is arguing that they lost their identities in the process. It is hard to review a play without giving away any plot. I believe the problem Wilson is trying to overcome is how to recover one's identity. Where does it come from? The characters in this play are unforgettable - especially the interaction between Bynum and Loomis. The ending is worth reading the play alone - it is so surprising, yet after the initial shock, it makes perfect sense without Wilson elaborating on it. Highly recommended.

The title "Joe turner's Come & Gone symbolizes the American socialized system of oppression. Joe Turner is "the Man", Joe Turner is jail, and oppression. In this play, Herald Loomis has been detained by Joe Tuerner for seven years. Upon his release he searches to find his daughter and his wife while all along he has been searching for his inner self.
Bynum Walker is a "Rootworker", one who practices unconventional spiritual worship. He lives in the boarding house an tells a story of a shiny man who has the secrete of life. This secret that he refers to, the secret of life, symbliizes the meaning of all in existance and most impoprtantly the knowledge of self. Joe Turner, "the Man", "the system", and American society have stripped, robbed,and raped the African American of self. It is this quest for idenity that Herald Loomis searches for within himself. This same quest is also found in all of the other characters in the play as well. Those that come to the boarding house are unstable and have not found their true selves. Even Seth and Bertha, the owners of the house also quest for their idenity. They have a better financial system than the others, but they are stil timid when they encounter white America. Seth constantly states the rules of the boarding house. He proclaims to operate a clean, safe, and respectful house. He feels that any other behavior would call too much attention to him and his home. Resulting in white American society to take oppresive actions against his achievements.
Joe Turner's Come & Gone is an excellent concept that spiritually looks at the concept of knowing ones-self. August Willson's use of quest for idenity among all his characters allows the reader to unmistakenly find a connection with their own secret song to sing.

August Wilson, a Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright captures the essence of the African-American experience of slavery, migration, and the quest for an identity. These themes are part of the written slave narrative, from which the African-American literary tradition was born. In "Joe Turner's Come and Gone", Wilson brings the struggle of migration from the agricultural South to the Industrial North to light; set in the early 1900's when this great migration had just begun. The quest for self/an identity is one of the many scarring ramifications of slavery, and the result of namelessness. Wilson, is able to capture this central theme through religion, allegory, and music-Jazz/Blues. The quest for ones identity is rooted in the metaphorical use of the quest for a song. Songs mean different things for different people; they touch people in different ways. Why? Because each individual is unique, each individual has a song, an identity. With the historical culture of the African-American, and its connection to Music, this collaboration of rhythms and imagery proliferate the importance of this quest to life. Wilson, like Toni Morrison, offers his work as an illustration of the Blues Theory of Art-the idea that music has the ability to reach deep into the soul, and pull from it the raw feelings that may otherwise be unreachable. Music goes to the core of ones being, and helps the healing process. With Loomis, this was evident in the search for his song, his identity, it was all part of the restorative process, yet a consequence of America's greatest shame-Slavery. I must say that "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" in a wonderful way, using symbolism, folklore, and like Jazz, a non-written form of art, serves as an anchor and captures the heart of the African-American experience.

Wilson's play is set in the early 1920's in Pittsburgh. The play is about blacks migrating North and away from slave states towards better, or different opportunity. The action takes place in two acts at boarding house owned by Seth and his wife Bertha. The husband and wife duo have several guest who come and go each with a different story, or "song." The play has a jazz influence that makes the story line flow like a musical. Music and dance are the major form of communication for blacks and Wilson uses this mode of communication effectively throughout the play to bring his characters to life. Each person who encounters the boarding house of Seth and his wife are in search of their song, which is a synonym for their identity. The characters search for their song by trying to locate others through Selig, the people finder. The song symbolizes an identity that has been lost within years of slavery and continuing discrimination. The play shows us that a person's song is within and can never be found in the hands of someone else. Our song is inside of us. We are not to search for others or look for others to define ourselves. The search needs to begin within. This play was very magical in that it transformed music into a body. Two thumbs up!

"Joe Turner's Come & Gone" is the first play of Wilson's that I've read. I finished the play the week before his death. As a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, many have obviously already recognized the quality of Wilson's work. "Joe Turner's Come & Gone" won the Tony Award for Best Play in 1988 with L. Scott Campbell winning the Tony as Best Featured Actress in a Play for her portrayal of Bertha Holly. Set in a Pittsburgh boardinghouse in 1911, the play is part of Wilson's cycle of plays. Seth Holly is a no-nonsense man who does not allow any shenanigans. His wife Bertha cooks and tries to soften Seth's hard edges. Seth makes dustpans and coffeepots out of metal for travelling salesman Rutherford Selig, who is the lone Caucasian in the show. The show is populated by a series of characters including Jeremy Farlow who is a young guitar player who longs for a girl. Molly Cunningham and Mattie Campbell fill the bill. Herald Loomis is an ex-convict who was incarcerated because of Joe Turner. He got out of prison and found his daughter Zonia. (I think I remember the character was named after Wilson's mother.) Herald, as his name might imply, has a spiritual mission to locate his wife. Loomis employs the peddler Selig who makes extra money by finding people whose names he records as he makes his rounds selling his wares. Angela Bassett played Martha Pentecost who has changed her name from Martha Loomis and is eventually reunited with Zonia. Bynum Walker is also a mystical character who has stories of the shiny man. The play's action flows together organically with great tension and humor. The otherworldly mystical elements imply both spirituality and superstition. The play is an interesting reading experience that makes you wish you'd been able to attend one of the 105 Broadway performances! Enjoy!

We lost a great playwright when August Wilson died a few years ago. And the greatest contribution to theatre was the chronology of 10 socially critical plays. August Wilson's plays contained a lot of dialogue, with great monologues, that drove the plight of African Americans.

As Joe Turner is from the second decade of storytelling, you can begin with "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" which takes you to the world of black musicians in the 20s. Explore the chronology of August Wilson.

Joe Turner's Come and Gone is about the disconnect from slavery and the search for their identity and place in America.

The setting for "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" takes place in a boarding house where owners Seth and his wife operate with strict rules for the many transients. Joe Turner is NOT a character in the play, but a man who enslaved Harold Loomis, the main character, for years. Now Loomis tries to find his wife. This is a wonderful story with folklore, blues, spirituality, search and identity, which is metaphorically referred to as a "song".

Other recommendations from the chronology Fences (The August Wilson Century Cycle) Two Trains Running (August Wilson Century Cycle) Jitney (August Wilson Century Cycle)......Rizzo

"Know thyself" Socrates is alleged to have said. August Wilson's _Joe Turner's Come and Gone_ makes a similar supplication. Set in 1911 Pittsburgh, Bertha and Seth Holly operate a boarding house, wanting to maintain a sense of "respectability" and not draw attention to themselves - symbolic of middle-class African-Americans, I think: enjoying their place in society, but wanting to remain below the radar of white America, lest what they have earned and have be taken from them. Bynum Walker is a neighbor of the Holly's boarding house, and is a "rootworker" - a modern day shaman, a connection to the African past ripped away from African-Americans. Between the two poles of Bynum and Seth enters Herald Loomis, a vagrant in seach of his wife who left him while he was in prison, put there by "Joe Turner."

"Joe Turner" is the Man: the system of institutional racism, of social, political and economic injustice, of American society promising opportunity with one hand while taking away any gains the underclass makes. It is Joe Turner who has imprisoned Herald Loomis, it is Joe Turner that frightens Seth Holly, it is Joe Turner that intimidates African-Americans from knowing - and celebrating - who they are, where they are from, and from realizing what they can become. It is no accident, then, that Loomis walks away from Joe Turner only with the help of Bynum: Wilson's message that only by facing the past and knowing what it has done to African-Americans can they truly know themselves and thereby become self-actualized.

I am a huge fan of Wilson's work - his century cycle is a brilliant and moving narrative of the African-American experience in the 20th century. It seems with each play of his I find a new favorite; _Joe Turner's Come and Gone_ was Wilson's favorite, and I find it difficult to disagree with him here. Highly recommended

"Joe Turner's Come and Gone" (1988) covers the decade of the 1910's in August Wilson's "Century Cycle" of plays about the Afro-American experience in the twentieth century. This is the fifth of Wilson's plays that I've reviewed for Amazon, and, for the record, I have never seen a stage performance of a Wilson play.

On May 30, 2009, the Obamas saw the revival of this play on Broadway. "Joe Turner" was an old blues song sung by W.C. Handy (1873-1958). It was sung by female blues singers, and was about "estranged black women" and concerned "a plantation owner who enslaved Afro-Americans" and exploited black women.

The action of the play is in 1911 in the Pittsburg boarding house run by Seth Holly and his wife Bertha. Seth has a night job and also makes pots and pans out of sheet metal in a backyard workshop. Various characters are boarders at Seth's establishment.

Herald Loomis, at times possessed, and his daughter show up at the boarding house. For two years he's been traveling the South seeking his wife Martha. Loomis sees visions and seems more unbalanced than prophetic. At the end Loomis becomes self-reliant and his own person.

It's a spiritual and religious play, not political or centered on race relations in the way that some other of Wilson play's have been.

At the end of the play Wilson in his stage directions provides insights into the play's meaning that the theatergoer may not get. The long, detailed stage directions make the text novelistic at times. I think the play sends out mixed messages, and audience members will leave with different interpretations. A reader of the play may have a clearer idea of what the author's intent was. For a work of art to generate different interpretations is not to disparage it.

It's a play about loss, broken families, missing partners, and people searching for lost ones or lost hopes.

One tenant Bynum is a conjuring man who sacrifices pigeons and divines things from roots.

Seth says of Loomis: "This fellow here look like he owe the devil a day's work and he's trying to figure out how he gonna pay him."

Bynum says, "A woman is everything a man need. To a smart man she water and berries. And that's all a man need. That's all he need to live on."

I did not find the play to be an altogether satisfying experience; it was diffuse and seemed to go off in several directions without a deep core of meaning.

Herald Loomis says this to his estranged wife in the final scene of this play, set in a 1911 Pittsburgh boarding house. It's a stunning rejection of religion from Herald, who is exhausted from hearing about how God will reward blacks in the afterlife as long as they stay meek in this one.

The play was first performed in 1986, and it is part of August Wilson's ten-play tetracycle about African-Americans in Pittsburgh during each decade of the 20th century.

Charles S. Dutton and Delroy Lindo played the role of Herald Loomis in the early productions of this play. Loomis is a 32 year old man who is looking for his wife, whom he lost touch with after he was put on Joe Turner's chain gain in Memphis for seven years.

Seth Holly is the 50 year old owner of the boarding house in which Loomis and his daughter stay (along with Holly's wife and a number of other residents). Seth is both practical and skeptical (of people, banks and society): "Anybody liable to do anything far as I'm concerned." (2.1)

It's a story about identity and relationships. Bynum, the 60 year old mystic who lives in the house, sums it up well: "Seem like everybody looking for something."

Herald Loomis is looking for himself.

moonstruck

I enjoyed reading this play so much. So far it's my favorite play by August Wilson. JOE TURNER'S COME AND GONE happens in Pittsburgh during 1911 in a boarding house owned by Seth and Bertha. Seth and Bertha are very strong, good people. Seth is always worried about the respectability of his boardinghouse. Bertha is more worried about the comfort of the boarders and whether her biscuits will shape up to make a good breakfast.

There are so many lines in this play where you want to just stop and ponder the words. August Wilson knows the beauty of words and how they line up to make a sentence and paragraph. For example, there is Loomis. Loomis is a roomer. With Loomis is his daughter, Zonia. He is searching for his wife and the mother to his little girl. It seems everyone is in search of someone. The people pouring out from slavery to freedom have not completely settled yet. As a matter of fact, Selig is a people finder. "Rutherford Selig. He go around selling pots and pans and every house he come to he write down the name and address of whoever livers there. So if you looking for somebody, quite naturally you go and see him...'cause he's the only one who know where everybody live at."

I was very surprised to learn about Joe Turner. After learning his mission in life, I will never forget him. Might know him if I meet him in my modern day world with a different agenda. Bynum who deals in some type of sorcery thinks you're safe from the Joe Turners in the world if you have a song in your heart. Your song is the ability to know your true identity. Really, the whole play is bound up in the thread of Martha's words. "You got to be something, Herald. You just can't be alive . Life don't mean nothing unless it got a meaning."