"Seven Guitars" - August Wilson - Actors' Shakespeare Project (Boston, MA.) - REVIEW

(Cover Photo: Anthony T. Goss, Dereks Thomas, and Omar Robinson in a scene from "SEVEN GUITARS" by August Wilson presented by the Actors' Shakespeare Project in Boston, MA. through March 5, 2023. Photo credit Ken Yotsukura Photography)

By Kevin T. Baldwin

METRMAG Reviewer

# 774-242-6724

“I cried a river of tears but he was too heavy to float on them. So I dragged him with me these years across an ocean.”

- August Wilson

Actors' Shakespeare Project

In Partnership with Hibernian Hall

Presents August Wilson's

"SEVEN GUITARS"

Written By August Wilson

Directed by Maurice Emmanuel Parent

Cast Includes: Maya Carter* – Vera Dotson; Anthony T. Goss* – Floyd “Schoolboy” Barton; Johnnie Mack* - Hedley; Omar Robinson* - Canewell; Dereks Thomas* - Red Carter; Valyn Lyric Truner – Ruby; Regine Vital - Louise

Additional Creative Team: Ashley Pitchford - Production Stage Manager; Kelsey Whipple - Assistant Stage Manager; Nia Safarr Banks - Costume Design; Dewey Dellay - Music Composition; Amanda E. Fallon - Lighting Design; Abe Joyner-Meyers - Sound Design; Jon Savage - Scenic Design; Saskia Martinez - Props Design; Ben Lieberson - Technical Direction; Regine Vital - Dramaturgy; Margaret Clark - Fight/Intimacy Direction.

* Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States

Performances:

February 8, 2023 through March 5, 2023

(Contact Box Office for Exact Times)

Hibernian Hall, 184 Dudley Street, # 200, Boston, MA. 02119

COVID-19 PROTOCOLS

Please consult directly with venue for latest COVID-19 and any other health

and safety protocols.

Phone # 617-241-2200

Tickets:

All advance single tickets are $52.50. Additionally, at the start of each show week, 10% of the house will be made available for "Pay-What-You-Can" ticketing, ranging from $0-$45. May not be available for the final week of the run.

For "Pay-What-You-Can" - select any seat in blue from the map, and then select your desired price from the drop-down list.

BUY TICKETS

The Actor’s Shakespeare Project presents an impeccable staging of August Wilson’s “SEVEN GUITARS” - a long, bitter single set drama.

Winner of a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for “Best Play” and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, “SEVEN GUITARS” was originally produced in 1995 and is part of Wilson's ten-part “Pittsburgh Cycle,” a decade-by-decade anthology of African-American life in Pittsburgh, PA. during the twentieth century.

The play was also nominated for a Drama Desk Award and Tony Award for “Best Play.”

The two-act drama begins where it also ends - at the gathering after the funeral of one of the seven main African-American characters. The play shows the events leading up to the funeral in flashbacks.

Set in 1948 in the backyard of a two-story residential red brick house in Pittsburgh, we encounter a collective of people who live together, love together, work together and “play” together much like the strings plucked on a guitar.

The play serves as a murder mystery and, in a flashback, showcases a collective that seem unsurprised by the death of another black man they know, someone not “allowed” to be more than he was…not allowed to prosper, not allowed to prevail, not allowed to succeed, not allowed to breathe.

(Photo: The CAST of "SEVEN GUITARS" by August Wilson presented by the Actors' Shakespeare Project in Boston, MA. through March 5, 2023. Photo credit Ken Yotsukura Photography)

Recently released from a brief incarceration, Blues singer Floyd "Schoolboy" Barton (Anthony T. Goss) finds himself, unexpectedly, on the cusp of success.

Barton is slated to sign a huge record deal after a song he recorded months before has now become an unanticipated hit.

A noted womanizer, Barton returns to his one true love, Vera (Maya Carter) who is reluctant to let Barton back into her life after he had previously abandoned her to be with another.

Yet, she cannot resist the pull of his charm, his aspirations and his determination to succeed.

Carter is exemplary as the persevering Vera, showing a woman of elegant strength - a woman wanting to be there for the man she loves, but also seemingly distrusting of Barton or, perhaps, knowing all too well, in her heart, that Barton’s good intentions are doomed to failure.

In order to prosper, Barton must first get a guitar he pawned out of hock. Then he must have enough money to get him to Chicago to sign the record deal. In these efforts, he is aided by friends, drummer Red (Dereks Thomas) and harmonica player Canewell (Omar Robinson).

Robinson is impressive as Canewell as his choice of instrument symbolizes how Canewell himself “harmonizes” with the other characters. He is the “Libra” or scales, helping to maintaining a calm or balance.

There is a mystical element to Canewell who claims to have seen several “angels” at Floyd’s funeral, a recurring theme used in “SEVEN GUITARS” and in other Wilson stories.

Thomas as Red also serves well as a steadying, lively and energetic presence, helping to maintain a sense of joviality in much of the drama as the varied plots and subplots of the others all begin to tangle or unravel.

The house’s landlady, Louise (Regine Vital), is both an ally to her tenants and a ruthless adversary if they are late on rent.

Vital is a dominating presence who rules the stage anytime her character emerges.

Louise is visited by her sexy, promiscuous and pregnant niece, Ruby (Valyn Lyric Turner), who appears at her doorstep unannounced…and “unattached”…seeking a place to stay while she figures out her next move (which seems to be finding a man to volunteer to be the baby’s father).

(Photo: Anthony T. Goss and Johnnie Mack in a scene from "SEVEN GUITARS" by August Wilson presented by the Actors' Shakespeare Project in Boston, MA. through March 5, 2023. Photo credit Ken Yotsukura Photography)

Rounding out the “Seven” is Hedley (Johnnie Mack), a man riddled by ill health, superstitious beliefs and disintegrating delusional behavior.

In a stellar performance by Mack, Hedley serves as a prophet to “SEVEN GUITARS” as he foreshadows tragic events by a symbolic violent gesture of his own.

Hedley’s own saga continues, referenced in a later Wilson story, “King Hedley II,” the ninth of ten entries in the “Pittsburgh Cycle.”

These seven characters - these seven people - are much like guitars themselves, abounding with a history, a sense of isolation but also interdependency…and of survival.

Under the stellar and detailed direction of Maurice Emmanuel Parent, the central theme of “SEVEN GUITARS” is of the ongoing obstacles and oppression of African-Americans as they seek to survive in a world apparently rallied against them.

The immersive set is not overwhelming - it is simplistic, with astonishingly beautiful murals positioned on either side. Precise blues selections play before the show and in between scenes, giving us a perfect sense of where and when we are and of the world in which these people exist (if not thrive). An affirmative nod to both Parent and the entire creative team.

(Photo: Anthony T. Goss, Dereks Thomas, and Omar Robinson in a scene from "SEVEN GUITARS" by August Wilson presented by the Actors' Shakespeare Project in Boston, MA. through March 5, 2023. Photo credit Ken Yotsukura Photography)

There is a thoroughly defined and intense dynamic between all of these characters. Much of that is thanks to the full, rich history which Wilson provided and in which Parent and his talented ensemble have assiduously, if not lovingly, explored.

Similar to other entries in Wilson’s “Pittsburg Cycle” anthology, the characters are not there merely to drive the plot.

They have been given actual lifetimes which play out before us so that, by the end of the play, we KNOW these people - their struggles, their highs, their lows, their successes, their failures...their beliefs.

We see what drives a person to sacrifice morality for their chance at prosperity or for the sake of their dream.

For certain, do not let this opportunity to see this resplendent production of "SEVEN GUITARS" pass you by. It plays in Boston now until March 5th.

Approximately two hours, 45 minutes with one intermission.

Kevin T. Baldwin is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA)

@MetrmagReviews

@Theatre_Critics

ABOUT THE SHOW

Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, "SEVEN GUITARS" is fifth in Wilson’s theatrical saga.

Part elegy, part mystery, and infused with bluesy lyricism, this bawdy comedy takes an intimate look at seven African-American characters and the events leading up to the untimely death of an up-and-coming blues musician.

Who or what killed Floyd “Schoolboy” Barton?

Dear friends gather after the funeral to mourn and question the death of Floyd “Schoolboy” Barton.

Set in the backyard of a rooming house in Pittsburgh’s Hill District in 1948, this tale, told in flashback, chronicles the last days of Floyd.

He had returned home after a stint in prison to reconnect with the love of his life, Vera, with the hopes of setting off for Chicago to pursue stardom. What went awry?

ABOUT THE ACTORS' SHAKESPEARE PROJECT

Actors’ Shakespeare Project, founded in 2004, is an award-winning professional theater company with a Resident Acting Company and extensive education, youth, and community programs. ASP performs and works in found spaces, schools, theaters and neighborhoods to present and explore the robust language, resonant stories, and deeply human characters in Shakespeare’s plays and in works by other great playwrights. Our work is ensemble-based and focused on intimacy, storytelling, language, relationships, voice, risk and artistry within and throughout the Boston area.

MISSON

Actors’ Shakespeare Project believes Shakespeare’s words are urgently relevant to our times. Working as an ensemble of resident company members, we bring these words into the voices, bodies, and imaginations of our actors, audiences, and neighborhoods. We do this through creative projects, including intimate productions and outreach programs that are informed by the spaces in which they happen. These projects inspire civic dialogue, build relationships between people, strengthen communities, and reveal something about what it means to be human here and now.

ACTORS' SHAKESPEARE PROJECT

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Charlestown, MA 02129