Most theatre-goers know what is meant by a reference to August Wilson’s Century Cycle. The great African-American playwright composed one play for each decade in the twentieth century. The ten plays make up the Century Cycle.

The Black Rep is currently producing one of them as it embarks on its second journey through the cycle, the play for the decade of the 1980s, King Hedley II. King Hedley II is unusual among Wilson’s plays in that it relies heavily on references to an earlier play, the play for the ’40s, Seven Guitars. Among others, that play does have a character called King Hedley. Obviously, the play named King Hedley II  has a character named King Hedley II. As is the way of naming kings, Hedley II would seem to be the son of King Hedley. 

King has not had the easy life of today’s royalty. Raised in Pittsburgh’s Black community called the Hill District by an aunt while his mother pursued a career as a singer with big bands, he now in his mid-thirties has just done seven years in prison for killing a man who also had a gun, so I assume a lighter sentence because he could claim self-defense. King now pursues his ambition to have a family and support them by running a video store with his friend Mister. But they need $10,000 for a down payment on the store. They make a little money selling refrigerators for some dubious business that may not have any refrigerators. They do better robbing a jewelry store; Mister seems to have done most of the planning, and he has to stop King from trying to break into the store’s safe, for which they have neither tools nor time. And they are still a couple thousand short.

King’s wife Tonya is pregnant, beginning the family that he wants. But she is considering an abortion. She doesn’t want to bring another Black child into this world where they shoot each other.  

King’s mother Ruby lives with them. She was a vivacious young woman in Seven Guitars. Now she is 60, slowing down, but still being pursued by Elmore, who for forty years has come to see her wherever her singing career and his career as a successful gambler take them.

Also continuing from Seven Guitars is Ruby’s neighbor Stool Pigeon, now the neighborhood’s resident evangelist, ending his sermons with the repeated words, “The Mighty God You a bad m**********r.”

As usual in his plays, Wilson in King Hedley II has crafted long speeches for each of the characters to vent and justify their existence. These are carefully but unobtrusively wrought. Some call them arias, as in opera. Actors say that Wilson’s rhythms carry them along much like Shakespeare’s do.

Director Ron Himes has assembled a cast of master players who can ride Wilson’s rhythms and use the melodies in his lines. Ka’ramuu Kush carefully and convincingly modulates the extremes in King Hedley II’s troubled life. I was very happy to see Denise Thimes on the stage again. She still has it, with grace and conviction. She even gets to sing a little, a lovely, sentimental old song. Who better than A.C. Smith to play Stool Pigeon? He may appear foolish, but Smith can immediately endow him with power and a touch of the mystic. Alex Jay, playing Tonya, King’s wife, struck me at first as a teenager, but she was clearly serious when explaining why she did not want a child. Geovonday Jones hit exactly the right tone as King’s friend Mister, always attentive and involved. J. Samuel Davis was super-smooth as Elmore, the master gambler and conman, always convincing you that he is a really nice guy.

Richard Agnew is, as usual, the Stage Manager. Timothy Jones’ scenic design lined up the brick row houses with the needed open space and a view down to the steel mills. Travis Richardson designed the lighting; Alan Phillips, the sound; and Timothy Jones and Mikhail Lynn, the props. For most of the cast, Costume Designer Kristie Chiyere Osi provided everyday working clothes, but she gave Denise Thimes several highly attractive dresses, and several wonderfully flashy jackets for J. Samuel Davis’s flashy gamblin’ man. 

I so enjoy watching a production as satisfying as this one. But who knew that Aunt Ester could die. Why? At least her birthdate is still the same.

—Bob Wilcox

Photo by Keshon Campbell
From the left, Geovonday Jones as Mister, Ka’ramuu Kush carefully as King Hedley II, A.C. Smith as Stool Pigeon, and J. Samuel Davis Elmore in King Hedley II.