Joe Turner's Come and Gone

Infobox Play
name = Joe Turner's Come and Gone


image_size = 150px
caption =
writer = August Wilson
series = The Pittsburgh Cycle
genre = Drama
setting = 1911
subject = the lives of spirited boarders in a lodging house
premiere = 1984
place = Eugene O'Neill Theater Center
Waterford, Connecticut
orig_lang = English
ibdb_id = 4903
iobdb_id =

"Joe Turner's Come and Gone" is a play by American playwright, August Wilson, the second installment of his decade-by-decade chronicle of the African-American experience,"The Pittsburgh Cycle". The play was first staged 1984 at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut and opened on Broadway on 27 March 1988 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and ran for 105 performances. Directed by Lloyd Richards, the cast included Delroy Lindo as Herald Loomis and television and movie star Angela Bassett as Loomis's wife, Martha.

Title

The original working title of the play was "Mill Hand's Lunch Bucket", the title of a painting by Romare Bearden. [cite news | author=Michael Feingold | title=August Wilson (1945-2005) | url=http://www.villagevoice.com/theater/0540,webfeingold,68479,11.html | work=The Village Voice | date=27 September 2005| accessdate=2008-09-28] The title "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" is a line from the refrain of "Joe Turner," an early blues song. [Big Bill Broonzy, "Alan Lomax: Blues Songbook", disc 2.]

Plot synopsis

; Characters
* Mattie Campbell
* Martha Pentecost
* Bertha Holly
* Reuben Mercer
* Bynum Walker
* Herald Loomis
* Zonia Loomis
* Jeremy Furlow
* Rutherford Selig
* Molly Cunningham
* Seth HollySet in the year 1911 in a boarding house in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, it deals with a time in American history when the sons and daughters of recently freed slaves journeyed to the booming industrial cities of the North in search of prosperity, a new way of life, and, essentially, their own identities.

In the opening stage direction, Wilson says, "They arrive carrying Bibles and guitars, their pockets lined with dust and fresh hope, marked men and women seeking to scrape from the narrow, crooked cobbles and the fiery blasts of the coke furnace a way of bludgeoning and shaping the malleable parts of themselves into a new identity as free men of definite and sincere worth."Quotes from: Wilson, August. "Joe Turner's Come and Gone". New York: Plume, 1988.]

Enter Herald Loomis, the play's protagonist. Herald is a tall man of thirty-two, wearing a full-length wool coat and a hat, who occasionally becomes possessed by unseen forces. Recently released from seven years of forced labor on Joe Turner's chain gang, he is searching for his wife, Martha, but more importantly, his place in the world. Loomis struggles to function normally and draws the suspicion of the owner of the boardinghouse, Seth Holly. Searching for "a world that speaks to something about himself," Loomis is determined to deliver to Martha his eleven year-old daughter, Zonia.

The play deals with a number of issues, including the unseen scars of slavery, the differences between religion and spirituality, and the struggles of beginning a new life, and all of these themes connect to the importance for African Americans of finding and understanding their African roots.

Awards and nominations

;Awards
* 1988 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play;Nominations
* 1988 Drama Desk Award for Best Play
* 1988 Tony Award for Best Play

References

Further reading

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External links

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