August Wilson's Century Cycle -- Joe Turner's Come and Gone

 

Joe Turner's Come and Gone is as dense in character storytelling as Gem of the Ocean but it feels a little less mystical, despite Bynum's "shining man" visions. I love the characters and because there are more female characters than Gem, the play has a different feel or texture to me, more romantic, perhaps.

“August had an incredible ear and he wrote the dialogue the way he heard it, adding his own magic touch as well. His characters are people who paint with language. They speak, in a sense, almost poetically by nature. One must honor and pay attention to the ways and style of our grandparents who migrated from the south where they were “southern colored people” and when they came north the only thing that changed was the location. In August Wilson’s writing there is no time to comment on what you say just respect the cadence, the couplets and triplets. These people have incredible wit, honesty and integrity. To survive in this country chasing the American dream it was imperative. Sometimes it takes three sentences to express one passionate, urgent, thought. It’s mellifluous, poetic and never pondered. It is part of the beauty of who we are descendants of the African griots; the keepers of our history, our culture, who never let us forget the glory of who we descended from. That’s August Wilson.” - Ruben Santiago-Hudson

Bynum's first monologue about finding his song is vital to understanding the world that Wilson is creating in Joe Turner. Bynum might very well be mad but the notion of an individual's song is a part of many native people's folklore. The monologue's power and artistry is reflected in the number of people who have recorded it on YouTube. This is one of the best presentations I have seen.

Mattie: Make him come back to me. Make his feet say my name on the road. I don't care what happens. M ake him come back.

Bynum: What's your man's name?

Mattie: He go by Jack Carper. He was born in Alabama then he come to West Texas and find me and we come here. Been here three years before he left. Say I had a curse prayed on me and he started walking down the road and ain't never come back. Somebody told me, say you can fix things like that. (Act One, Scene One)

Seth and Bertha Holly's boarding house seems to be a port for the disconnected, lost or those searching for others. That Great Migration from the South was not always direct and certain. As Mattie suggests, here route was much or circuitous and now that her mate has moved on she's not sure of her fate. Wilson's play overflows with the anxiety that accompanies rootlessness.

The characters Herald Loomis and his daughter Zonia are fascinating inventions who invoke much contemplation on the nature of the fatherhood -- at least, Wilson's perspective of it. Loomis and daughter arrive at the boarding house looking for his wife and his daughter's mother from whom they were separated on their trek north. Loomis seems to grow more desperate as the play progresses, convinced his Martha is nearby and eager to find her because their daughter is rapidly becoming a woman.

Loomis: Look at you. You growing too fast. Your bones getting bigger everyday. I don't want you getting grown on me. Don't you get grown on me too soon. We gonna find your mamma. She around here somewhere. I can smell her. You stay on around the house now. Don't you go nowhere.