Review: August Wilson's GEM OF THE OCEAN at Actors' Shakespeare Project Has Glint of Greatness

For the fourth consecutive season, Actors’ Shakespeare Project is presenting an August Wilson (1945–2005) play from the late writer’s Pittsburgh Cycle (also referred to as his Century Cycle) – this time an estimable production of 2003’s “Gem of the Ocean,” at Hibernian Hall in Roxbury through May 17.

Following first-rate productions of “The Piano Lesson,” “Seven Guitars,” and “King Hedley II,” ASP again turns to Wilson’s decade-by-decade exploration of black America to present “Gem of the Ocean,” the first in the cycle chronologically but the ninth produced. In the fall of 2004, the play made a pre-Broadway stop at Boston’s Huntington Theatre in a production, directed by Kenny Leon and starring Phylicia Rashad, that subsequently was Tony-nominated when it moved to the Walter Kerr Theatre in New York. More recently, the drama – which takes place in Pittsburgh’s Hill District in 1904, when slavery was still a memory alive in many – was produced by Trinity Rep in Providence in 2022.

The play is set at 1839 Wylie Avenue, the home of Aunt Ester, who says she is 285 years old. The most-mentioned character in the cycle, Aunt Ester will be 349 by the time of Wilson’s “Two Trains Running.” While she passes away in 1985, during “King Hedley II,” much of the doings in 2005’s “Radio Golf,” Wilson’s final play and the last in the Pittsburgh Cycle, concern plans to tear down her house and redevelop the land it is on. Ester is a symbolic figure – a “washer of souls,” a character based on a succession of mystical women – brought to life at ASP with warmth and determination by the wondrously dimensional Regine Vital.

Before she even appears on stage, we feel Aunt Ester’s spiritual grounding when a secretly guilt-ridden Citizen Barlow, hauntingly portrayed by Joshua Lee Robinson, arrives at her home desperately seeking emotional asylum and absolution for his role in the death of an Alabama man. Highly regarded for her soul cleansing abilities, Ester sends the tormented young man, whose name signifies his birth as a free citizen, to the otherworldly City of Bones – occupied by the souls of enslaved Africans who died aboard slave ships.

Also pivoting off the grounding heft of Aunt Ester are the stalwart Eli (a charming Dereks Thomas), who guards her and keeps the peace at her home; his combative friend Two Kings (an impressive Jonathan Kitt), also born during slavery and a onetime Underground Railroad conductor; Black Mary (a dignified MarHadoo Effeh), Ester’s hard-working, under-appreciated housekeeper; Rutherford Selig, portrayed as eminently decent and likeable by Michael Broadhurst, a white traveling salesman who feels at home at Ester’s; and Caesar Wilks (an intense Kadahj Bennett), Black Mary’s rigid older brother whose dedication to the enforcement of every and all laws borders on the maniacal.

Monica White Ndounou’s naturalistic direction couples well with Wilson’s overlapping dialogue to move the story forward. One problem, however, concerns Wilson’s writing, which has Caesar telling Black Mary the story of his life, which, as his sister, she likely already knows. Another comes from Ndounou’s decision to have Ester move about, sometimes briskly. If the character was more often seated at center stage, as she has been in other productions, her presence might have even greater impact.

With Wilson’s plays, however, the real impact is in the writing. And “Gem of the Ocean,” like many of his other works, finds humor in the interweaving characters even when there is little to laugh about in their lives. Wilson’s points are serious, though, and, as this production proves, should be taken as such.

As it has with earlier Wilson productions, ASP is presenting “Gem of the Ocean” at Roxbury’s Hibernian Hall, with the house configured as a three-sided theater space. Peyton Tavares’s comfortably appointed set is weakened by interior walls that appear to have been built from weathered wood pallets while Danielle Domingue Sumi’s interestingly designed costumes are shown off to good advantage by Isaak Olson’s lighting design.

Leavening the serious subject matters with sweetness are Aunt Ester’s lullaby, “Go to Sleep, My Baby,” and other tender musical moments well executed by music director Akili Jamal Haynes, with support from sound designer Audrey Dube.