About 20 minutes into August Wilson’s mostly wonderful Seven Guitars, it becomes obvious that what Wilson is celebrating is life itself, as lived by a group of African-American characters in Pittsburgh, 1948. Yes, there’s a bit of plot to hold our interest, but Wilson lavishes so much attention — and poetry — on individual characters, you find yourself feeling privileged merely to watch and hear these men and women in ordinary, or extraordinary, conversation. Surely this is what James Joyce meant by the word “epiphany” — a sudden revelation of the miraculous nature of a thing in itself. Act One of Seven Guitars is, in this sense, a series of epiphanies, and when a real plot finally develops in the middle of Act Two, you can safely ignore its improbabilities and just enjoy the continued radiance.
Anyway, who needs a plot when there are actors like Tia Jemison, Alan Bomar Jones, Kim Sullivan, and Ron Bobb-Semple to remind us of the amazing fact of proud humanity, its resilience in the face of adversity, its beauty and pathos. Each of these actors, directed brilliantly by Bob Devin Jones, brings us mystery and majesty, joie de vivre and profound suffering, and when they’re done, the only appropriate response is gratitude. And awe.
The play begins after a funeral — of Floyd “Schoolboy” Barton, a blues musician — and then flashes back to the days leading up to his murder. We meet Floyd himself — played capably by Joshua Elijah Reese — and see him try to convince Vera (Ambe Williams), the woman he abandoned once, to let him back into her life. And we encounter the others who figure in Floyd’s story: his drummer Red (Bomar Jones) and harmonica-player Canewell (Sullivan), along with well-balanced friend Louise (Jemison) and off-balance Hedley (Bobb-Semple). We learn that Floyd has been to Chicago, where he cut a successful record, and that, after a spell in jail, he wants to go back and become a star. Vera, naturally, is reluctant to trust the man who once hurt her, and in any case there’s the question of how to get his guitar out of hock and pay for tickets to Chicago.
So much for suspenseful narrative — the real feast here is verbal. Wilson’s characters have a rhythm and a jargon of their own, whether they’re talking about love, abandonment, different types of roosters, or Joe Louis.
“Some people ain’t got nowhere to go,” says Floyd. “They don’t wanna go nowhere. If they wanted to go somewhere they would have been there.”
“Some women make their bed up so high don’t nobody know how to get to it,” says Canewell. “I know you ain’t like that. You know how to make your bed up high and turn your lamp down low.” Or here’s Red: “Once upon a time in America it used to be all right to have a rooster in your yard. Now that done changed. It used to be you could leave your door open. Now you got to bar the roof. Ain’t nothing went right since I broke that mirror. That ain’t but three years ago. That’s what scares me. I got four more years of bad luck.”
The starkest counterpoint to all this inspired chatter comes from Hedley, who’s part prophet and part madman, and whose furious speech to the audience, insisting that “The black man is not a dog!”, is a chilling reminder of the pent-up rage lurking behind a deceptively tranquil pageant. If Hedley’s importance to certain plotturns just isn’t quite credible, still, as played by Bobb-Semple, he’s a constant reminder that sometimes a dream long deferred explodes. And if the innocent are nearby… well, most of Wilson’s plays focus our attention on this dreadful prospect.
Oh yeah, the plot. Well, it sort of gets going when Louise’s mind-bogglingly sexy niece Ruby (Brandy Grant) pays a visit. And when not too much comes of that, it seems to emerge from the question of where Floyd’s getting his money. And though that remains unclear — never mind, just listen to the dialogue. Call Seven Guitars a character study in free verse and it’s already more satisfying than most conventionally structured dramas. Gratifying too are Frank Chavez’s persuasive set of a messy Hill District backyard and Saidah Ben Judah’s eloquent costumes (the dresses we first see on Ruby should worry the fire marshal). Seven Guitars is the work of a great artist, and this production — with its dazzling ensemble acting — is always up to its demands.
Kudos to American Stage for bringing us the Wilson cycle. And accolades to everyone involved in this triumph.
This article appears in Feb 9-15, 2012.