Joe Turner's Come and Gone Broadway Reviews

The show makes its own journey of return in Debbie Allen’s revival, which opened on Saturday at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, nearly four decades after its Broadway premiere at the same theater, in 1988. This production doesn’t always travel smoot...

The show makes its own journey of return in Debbie Allen’s revival, which opened on Saturday at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, nearly four decades after its Broadway premiere at the same theater, in 1988. This production doesn’t always travel smoothly — some of Allen’s staging elements war with one another. A few younger members of the ensemble, crucial to the play’s novelistic ebb and flow, are also still finding their footing. But Wilson’s language rushes past and over every barrier.

There are many wonderful exchanges as these seekers clash and sometimes connect. Even the small talk feels epic, and it all leads up to a searing climax that I recalled vividly from the last Broadway revival in 2009. It's just as powerful in this pro...

There are many wonderful exchanges as these seekers clash and sometimes connect. Even the small talk feels epic, and it all leads up to a searing climax that I recalled vividly from the last Broadway revival in 2009. It's just as powerful in this production: a stunning depiction of reconciliation, reckoning and release that makes Joe Turner impossible to shake.

Director Debbie Allen’s starry new revival, headlined by Cedric the Entertainer and Taraji P. Henson as the proprietors of the boarding house where the action takes place, is an admirable production that hits the major dramatic notes and occasional...

Director Debbie Allen’s starry new revival, headlined by Cedric the Entertainer and Taraji P. Henson as the proprietors of the boarding house where the action takes place, is an admirable production that hits the major dramatic notes and occasionally hints at the sublime transcendence of the material. The chief draw here is Ruben Santiago-Hudson, who brings grounded authority to the role of “conjure man” Bynum Walker — a practitioner of folk magic whose particular gift is binding people together.

Allen’s staging doesn’t match the fine work she’s drawn from her actors, who are mostly confined to the kitchen table far stage left. This leaves the rest of the house – a cozy living room and a stairway that seems to climb toward heaven – ...

Allen’s staging doesn’t match the fine work she’s drawn from her actors, who are mostly confined to the kitchen table far stage left. This leaves the rest of the house – a cozy living room and a stairway that seems to climb toward heaven – frustratingly unexplored. (The set design, by longtime Wilson collaborator David Gallo, does handsomely capture the play’s twilight zone; its well-appointed rooms against a black backdrop that reveals a terrifying and exciting industrial world.)

Just as it did when it first debuted on Broadway in 1989, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” remains timeless. Though she doesn’t have much to do, Henson and the rest of the cast, including the younger actors, are exceptional. Bursting with heart a...

Just as it did when it first debuted on Broadway in 1989, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” remains timeless. Though she doesn’t have much to do, Henson and the rest of the cast, including the younger actors, are exceptional. Bursting with heart and humor, the production showcases all of the intricacies and beauty of Black American life, the never-ending costs of slavery, racism and discrimination and how Black people flourish and move forward despite it all.

Inhabited by this talented ensemble, it feels like each one of these characters could step off the stage into real life with the snap of a finger. But none more so than Ruben Santiago-Hudson as Bynum Walker, the anchor of the narrative. The play open...

Inhabited by this talented ensemble, it feels like each one of these characters could step off the stage into real life with the snap of a finger. But none more so than Ruben Santiago-Hudson as Bynum Walker, the anchor of the narrative. The play opens with Seth and Holly discussing his odd ways behind his back, and at first he appears to be a loony old man. But as the audience gets to know him, the more it seems that Bynum is the only character who has it all figured out. Santiago-Hudson’s performance is real, grounded, and a true joy to experience. And it all contributes to the tapestry of this production of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone: rich, complex, deliberately unhurried (though perhaps a tad too long), and full of deeply layered performances.

It’s only fitting that Ruben Santiago-Hudson is playing a conjurer in the current revival of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. What he’s doing on stage at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre (also home to original 1988 Broadway production) ...

It’s only fitting that Ruben Santiago-Hudson is playing a conjurer in the current revival of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. What he’s doing on stage at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre (also home to original 1988 Broadway production) is nothing short of magical.

Joe Turner’s Come and Gone has landed on Broadway for the third time since its 1989 New York City premiere. A critical success but commercial failure upon its original Broadway production, August Wilson’s rich and complex play has received a gene...

Joe Turner’s Come and Gone has landed on Broadway for the third time since its 1989 New York City premiere. A critical success but commercial failure upon its original Broadway production, August Wilson’s rich and complex play has received a generally laudable revival, directed by Debbie Allen and featuring a superb cast, that captures the play’s emotional and stylistic nuances even while suffering from occasional missteps.

Allen’s production starts gently, as does the play, and it honors the other side of Wilson, which is to write about how Black people found spaces, even in 1911, for humor and community with each other. That’s manifest fabulously well here by Cedr...

Allen’s production starts gently, as does the play, and it honors the other side of Wilson, which is to write about how Black people found spaces, even in 1911, for humor and community with each other. That’s manifest fabulously well here by Cedric and Santiago-Hudson, with Boyd and Wureh exploring the fate of young women adrift in this landscape and relying on men for an anchor, a rooting that too often proved elusive.

Rare is the Broadway season that hasn’t been bettered by an August Wilson revival, and this very busy spring is no exception. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, lovingly and astutely directed by Debbie Allen with a no-weak-link cast headed by Taraji P. ...

Rare is the Broadway season that hasn’t been bettered by an August Wilson revival, and this very busy spring is no exception. Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, lovingly and astutely directed by Debbie Allen with a no-weak-link cast headed by Taraji P. Henson (in a superb Broadway debut), Cedric The Entertainer and Ruben Santiago-Hudson, is nothing less than a full-on reminder of Wilson’s singular genius for blending naturalism with more-things-in-heaven-and-earth marvels.

Allen and her designers only engage visually with these apparitions when the text absolutely forces it. The lighting, by Stacey Derosier, is resolutely naturalistic except at each act’s conclusion, when it goes haywire a bit too abruptly. David Gal...

Allen and her designers only engage visually with these apparitions when the text absolutely forces it. The lighting, by Stacey Derosier, is resolutely naturalistic except at each act’s conclusion, when it goes haywire a bit too abruptly. David Gallo’s set has nothing non-literal to offer, attractive as it is. Allen instead leans heavily on musical underscoring by Steve Bargonetti—but this mostly creeps in to heavy-handily underline or highlight dramatic moments.

That is the unshakable feeling at the revival of his “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” that opened Saturday night at the Barrymore Theatre. You’re never less than pleased you’ve come, and yet you’re constantly aware that something’s gone. Wh...

That is the unshakable feeling at the revival of his “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” that opened Saturday night at the Barrymore Theatre. You’re never less than pleased you’ve come, and yet you’re constantly aware that something’s gone. What thrives in director Debbie Allen’s production of one of the writer’s best works is the drama’s musical conversationality and boisterous spirit. How could it not when the 1911 Pittsburgh boarding house it’s set in is run by Cedric the Entertainer?

Now, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone returns to Broadway, beginning previews March 30 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Directed by Debbie Allen (Broadway’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), the production arrives with a sense of quiet anticipation that feels dif...

Now, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone returns to Broadway, beginning previews March 30 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Directed by Debbie Allen (Broadway’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), the production arrives with a sense of quiet anticipation that feels different from the usual Broadway build. This is not a show that announces itself loudly. It settles in and waits for you to come closer.

The play gets its title from a century-old blues song by WC Handy, which is inspired by the true story of a man named Joe Turney. At the turn of the twentieth century, he would snatch Black men to work on a plantation, in effect turning them back int...

The play gets its title from a century-old blues song by WC Handy, which is inspired by the true story of a man named Joe Turney. At the turn of the twentieth century, he would snatch Black men to work on a plantation, in effect turning them back into slaves. Joe Turney was the brother of the governor of Tennessee, a state that currently allows local officers to assist ICE in arresting people during routine traffic patrols. This second Broadway production of August Wilson’s 1988 play, in other words, is well-timed. It’s also well-cast.