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TROUBLED WATERS.
"What one begs the American people to do, for all of us, is simply to accept our history," James Baldwin wrote in "The American Dream and the American Negro." But that imaginative challenge, as August Wilson demonstrates in "Gem of the Ocean" (well directed by Kenny Leon, at the Walter Kerr), is as hard for blacks to achieve as for whites. "Gem," which is set in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, in 1904, is the latest, and the introductory, installment to Wilson's magnificent ten-play cycle, in which each play dramatizes a decade of the roiling African-American experience of the twentieth century. At one point, Solly Two Kings (Anthony Chisholm), an old runaway slave and ...
- Salvation in the City of Bones: Ma Rainey and Aunt Ester sing their own songs...
- American Theatre Gener, Randy May 1, 2003 700+ words
...20th-century America, Aunt Ester embraces into her fold Citizen Barlow, a restless soul who breaks...crime, he has come to see Aunt Ester ostensibly to get his soul...1904. It is the day before Aunt Ester turns 287 years old. The...
- "She make you right with yourself": Aunt Ester, masculine loss and cultural...
- Magazine article from: College Literature Caywood, Cynthia L. Floy, Carlton March 22, 2009 700+ words
...She Make You Right with Yourself": Aunt Ester, Masculine Loss and Cultural Redemption...proclaimed the centuries old matriarch, Aunt Ester, his most significant character. Her...sensibilities as they have been preserved by Aunt Ester. Ultimately, Aunt Ester must die ...
- Aunt ester's children: a century on stage; This essay, which serves as the...
- Magazine article from: American Theatre Wilson, August November 1, 2005 700+ words
In 1975 I wrote a short story titled "The Greatest Blues Singer in the World." As it turned out, the text of the story was very short. I began, "The streets that Balboa walked were his own private ocean, and Balboa was drowning." That seemed to communicate the idea with more clarity than I could
- NEW AUGUST WILSON PREMIERE.(Life and Arts)
- Newspaper article from: Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Seattle, WA) April 19, 2003 700+ words
...native Pittsburgh on the day before Aunt Ester's birthday. A neighbor named Citizen Barlow comes to Aunt Ester to escape local law enforcement. After...meal, a job and a place to sleep, Aunt Ester sends him on a spiritual journey toward...
- MULTIFACETED MATRIARCH PHYLICIA RASHAD IS POISED TO SHINE IN AUGUST WILSON'S...
- Newspaper article from: Daily News (Los Angeles, CA) July 30, 2003 700+ words
...very real ways.'' We first meet the Aunt Ester character in ``Two Trains Running...which takes place in 1904, is set in Aunt Ester's house. A young man named Citizen Barlow arrives to see Aunt Ester and receive a kind of absolution...
- Gem of the Ocean.(Theater Review)
- Magazine article from: Daily Variety Rooney, David December 7, 2004 700+ words
...Eli Eugene Lee Citizen Barlow John Earl Jelks Aunt Ester Phylicia Rashad...Central figure is Aunt Ester (Phylicia Rashad...District, comes Citizen Barlow (John Earl Jelks...Africa. Assisting Aunt Ester in this journey...
- August Wilson speaks softly (for a revolutionary); His 'Gem of the Ocean'...
- Newspaper article from: The Christian Science Monitor October 8, 2004 700+ words
...come home. Wilson has made Aunt Ester's house into both a sanctuary...circle. It's the 1990s, and Aunt Ester's old house on Wylie Avenue...of the Ocean" begins when Citizen Barlow bangs on the door of Aunt Ester's home. He demands entrance...
- 'Gem': a turbulent start to Wilson's tales of black life.
- Newspaper article from: Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, MD) February 5, 2007 700+ words
...other plays, Aunt Ester, as played by...of a man named Citizen Barlow (Jimonn Cole...determined to see Aunt Ester. He says he...play a role in Citizen Barlow's fate...the peace at Aunt Ester's, with a...
