 |
|
|
King Hedley II Completes Signature's
August Wilson Series
Signature Theatre Company's August Wilson Series closes with King Hedley II, the ninth chronological play in August Wilson's epic ten play cycle, depicting African-American life in each decade of the twentieth century. Derrick Sanders, Founding Artistic Director of Chicago's Congo Square Theatre Company, directs the play, which follows up on the events and characters of Seven Guitars, Wilson's 1940s chapter of the cycle.
August Wilson began King Hedley II as he had many of his previous plays: on hearing a character's voice in his head. He wrote of the play's genesis, "I had an idea for a play about King Hedley II, the son that Ruby was pregnant with in Seven Guitars. The first character I saw in my mind was King. The first speech was him talking to someone in prison. The guy asks King where he got that big scar. King answers by spitting out a razor blade and cutting the guy."
Wilson recalled how King's ferocity galvanized him into further investigating his character's story. "I was actually scared to ask King where he got the scar from because I didn't want one. So I sat down and said: How did you get that scar? And King said, 'Pernell called me champ.' And I just started writing, not even thinking."
King Hedley II returns to Pittsburgh's Hill District, where August Wilson grew up and set all but one of his cycle plays. In 1985 the Hill is home to high crime and violence. The community is still reeling from the "Pittsburgh Renaissance," the 1950s urban renewal project that displaced thousands of Hill residents and hundreds of businesses, destroying the once vital and thriving neighborhood. The collapse of the steel mill industry has provoked a mass exodus from Pittsburgh resulting in a staggering population drop and an economy forced to shift from manufacturing to service, education, and technology. Like their forebears in earlier Wilson plays, the characters of King Hedley II feel the frustration and anger of living in a world that subverts them at every turn.
In a conversation before rehearsals began, Derrick Sanders spoke about the play and its place within the twentieth-century cycle. "The way it fits is this male-on-male violence that happened in the eighties," he said. "It always existed but now it's come to a head. You find this man, this 'king,' trying to turn his life around and stop that cycle of violence."
In King Hedley II the decline of the Hill District in the 1980s is illustrated in the neighborhood's relationship to Aunt Ester, the spiritual adviser of Wilson's characters, who has been alive since Africans arrived in the United States in 1619. Wilson introduced her as a pivotal offstage character in Two Trains Running and later gave her a prominent onstage role in the first play of the cycle, Gem of the Ocean. In King Hedley II she is an offstage presence whose influence in the Hill District has diminished over time. Wilson explained how this lack of connection to Aunt Ester has had a negative effect on the community, particularly its youth: "People quit going up to her house. The weeds are all grown over. You can't even find the door no more... If you had a connection to your grandparents and understood their struggle to survive, you wouldn't be out there in the street killing someone over fifteen dollars' worth of narcotics. You have to know your history. Then you'll have a purposeful presence in the world."
King Hedley II opened in 1999 at the Pittsburgh Public Theater under the direction of Marion McClinton. Thereafter the play developed in productions at regional theatres across the country until 2001 when it premiered on Broadway at the Virginia Theatre (which was subsequently renamed The August Wilson Theatre in 2005). The original Broadway production starred Charles Brown, Viola Davis, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Monté Russell, and Leslie Uggams. The design team included David Gallo (sets); Toni-Leslie James (costumes); Donald Holder (lights); and Rob Milburn (sound). The play received five Tony Award nominations including Best Play, and Viola Davis received the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress. King Hedley II also received two Drama Desk Award nominations, Drama Desk Awards for Charles Brown and Viola Davis, and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Over the course of The August Wilson Series Signature has assembled many of Wilson's collaborators to bring his plays to life, among them King Hedley II director Derrick Sanders. Wilson had a profound influence on Sanders; in Wilson's landmark keynote address at the 1996 11th Biennial Theatre Communications Group conference (published in book form as The Ground on Which I Stand), he called for the creation of more African-American theatre companies. The speech inspired Sanders to found Congo Square Theatre Company, of which Wilson was a supporter. "That changed my life," recalled Sanders, who switched from acting to directing, later went on to work with Wilson on the original Gem of the Ocean as assistant director, and staged many of Wilson's plays at Congo Square. Sanders will bring his history and relationship with Wilson into the rehearsal room: "I will be sensitive to how August sees it, how he hears the rhythms, as he felt it. I take that as my sounding board. His language is like Shakespeare. If you try to play against the text it doesn't work. The stories were true, based on real people- you know what heart they come from."
Working with Sanders is Associate Artist Todd Kreidler, who began working with August Wilson in 1999 as his assistant on King Hedley II, and over the next five years embarked on a close relationship with him as a collaborator and friend, including contributing to the development of Wilson's last two plays, Gem of the Ocean (2003) and Radio Golf (2005). Kreidler also directed Wilson in Wilson's one-man show How I Learned What I Learned. Recalling the meeting with the playwright in Pittsburgh in 1999 that led to their long association, Kreidler said, "We began to laugh together, and we started a conversation that lasted six years."
Sanders and Kreidler are excited to revisit King Hedley II with Signature and are particularly interested in exploring the generational and cultural distance between the characters of Seven Guitars and their descendants in King Hedley II. "So much of the play is about generational divide," said Kreidler. "We see two generations looking at each other and saying, what happened?"
One avenue Sanders and Kreidler will use to explore this divide is music, which will help to trace the journey from the 1940s blues musicians of Seven Guitars to the hip-hop sensibility that emerged in the 1980s. "The blues were the foundation of the thirties and forties. In the eighties the music of the street is hip-hop," explained Sanders. "We're exploring, how does that play out in the music? We really have to put that into the context of the 1980s."
Signature Founding Artistic Director James Houghton added, "The combination of these two men coming together would have delighted August. Todd has been a real champion of not only August's work but The August Wilson Series. He was August's closest collaborator and most trusted steward; someone August deeply admired and loved like a son. Derrick was inspired by August to engage in theatre in a new way. He represents the next generation of Wilson directors and he already has a rich and celebrated career related to August's work in Chicago. His connection to King Hedley II is equally personal and directly linked to the journey that August was on with it."
Signature is pleased to welcome set designer David Gallo who has also had a long history with August Wilson, having designed the original productions of King Hedley II, Gem of the Ocean, and Radio Golf. Joining Gallo are costume designer Reggie Ray, lighting designer Thom Weaver, and sound designer Jill BC DuBoff (Signature's The Late Henry Moss). In the cast, Stephen McKinley Henderson returns to The August Wilson Series after performing the role of Red Carter in Seven Guitars, and Signature welcomes actors Cherise Boothe, Lynda Gravátt, Russell Hornsby, Curtis McClarin, and Lou Myers, many of whom are also veterans of August Wilson's plays.
Looking back on The August Wilson Series, Houghton reflected, "It has been a real honor to present these three plays. This season has gone beyond everything that August and I set out to create when we originally sat down to plan The August Wilson Series. Now that we have experienced it with August's collaborators, friends, and family it feels even more profound."
[back to top]
|
|
