From left, Brandii, Postell Pringle and Sharon E. Scott star in August Wilson's powerful drama “King Hedley II,” playing through Feb. 15 at American Stage Theatre Company.
ST. PETERSBURG – The set of “King Hedley II” is as striking as it is austere. The play continues through Feb. 15 at American Stage Theatre Company, 211 Third St. S.
Performances are Wednesday and Thursday, 7:30 p.m.; and Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m. Matinees are Saturday and Sunday, 3 p.m. Tickets range from $24 to $39.
Frank Chavez has methodically recreated a scene straight out of Pittsburgh’s Hill district, circa 1985. There on the main stage are the joined backyards of two ramshackle brick tenements, complete with the dusty gravel that long ago supplanted fresh earth.
“King Hedley II” is the 1980s installment of August Wilson’s renowned cycle of plays and the second in the series to be produced by American Stage Theatre. Wilson’s cycle includes 10 plays, nine of which take place in Pittsburgh’s Hill district, each set in a different decade of the 20th century.
Last season’s production of Wilson’s “Gem of the Ocean” (set in 1904) marked the beginning of a commitment by the theater to produce the entire series. According to Todd Olson, producing artistic director at the company, American Stage is the only theater of its size embarking on Wilson’s Century Cycle.
Directed by Bob Devin Jones, “King Hedley II” stars Sharon E. Scott, Postell Pringle, Kim Sullivan, Brandii Edwards, Bechir Sylvain and Alan Bomar Jones. The tale revolves around the death of Aunt Ester, stolen refrigerators and a makeshift garden. King Hedley II, not long out of jail, is hustling the refrigerators with his friend Mister, trying to save enough money to fund a video store and provide for his family. In this Reagan-era drama, though, the past is omnipresent, ready to foil the best intentions.
Frequently considered one of the darkest plays in the series, “King Hedley II” makes room both for humor and despair, laughter and sorrow as Wilson tackles what he views as the primary obstacles facing African Americans during the 1980s. Underlying themes of hopelessness and lost dreams frequently trump short-term gains. Hardships abound, and play illustrates that hopes are sparse when survival tantamount.
That accounts for the grit and the grime. The glory is found in the presentation and the ensemble cast.
Pringle presents Hedley as stubborn and volatile, his deepest heartfelt aspirations at the forefront one moment, his rage and frustration bubbling over the next. The actor is as comfortable recoiling into the scenery as he is commanding the stage with an eruption of emotion.
Sullivan’s Stool Pigeon is priceless. Sounding more than a little like a Tiresias of the ’hood, Sullivan’s depiction is wonderfully harried and hyperactive. He skillfully delivers the character’s frantic impromptu sermons complete with Biblical citations and a frequently repeated blasphemous-sounding epithet for God. Sullivan personifies the eccentric oracle whose delivery may be fanatical but whose words are no less profound.
Elmore is played by Jones with just the right mix of debonair charisma and devious corruption. His duplicity leaves the audience wondering who he’ll end up hurting the most by the end of the play.
If “King Hedley II” was an opera, Brandii – who plays Tonya, King’s wife – would have the most difficult aria to deliver. Yet the actress doesn’t falter or even flinch as she lays out her reasons for not wanting to have a child – a component of this particular work that Wilson clearly meant to emphasize. It’s hardly utilitarian expediency, though, and Brandii ably punctuates the speech with sincerity and sentiment.
Hedley’s best friend Mister, played by Sylvain, doubles as the devil on his right shoulder tempting him to meander further from the path of morality. Still, Sylvain succeeds in keeping the character from seeming particularly malevolent, underscoring instead his loyalty to his friend and his own struggle to get ahead.
Scott, portraying Ruby, is the epitome of regret and abandoned hopes throughout much of the play. There is chemistry between her and Jones that helps solidify that love-hate relationship. Her best work, however, happens in a moment when she offers motherly advice to Tonya.
The play runs around three hours with one intermission, but at no point does it seem to languish. A Shakespearean tragedy populated by a relatively small, creative cast, American Stage Theatre’s production of “King Hedley II” illustrates Wilson’s gift for transforming the trials and tribulations of 20th century African Americans into poetry.
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