The struggles, spiritual and otherwise, of August Wilson’s ‘King Hedley II’
Opportunity knocked for James Ricardo Milord when he was offered the title role in August Wilson’s “King Hedley II.” And Milord answered. Did he ever. In an outstanding production by Actors’ Shakespeare Project at Hibernian Hall, Milord portrays King as a man on fire, within and without. The effect is riveting.
Directed with a sure hand by the endlessly versatile Summer L. Williams, “King Hedley II” follows on the heels of ASP’s 2023 staging of Wilson’s “Seven Guitars.” Also presented at Hibernian Hall, “Seven Guitars” brought in more ticket revenue than any other show in the company’s 20-year history.
For good and ill, Wilson favored a maximal approach to the craft of playwriting. So there are times in “King Hedley II” when you wish the digressions were fewer, the aria-length monologues were shorter, the plot clearer.
But there are so many riches to be found in that plenitude, and it’s so clear that swinging for the fences was what unleashed Wilson’s creative energies, that you’re willing to pay the price.
“Seven Guitars” was set in 1948. In “King Hedley II,” which features a couple of characters from “Seven Guitars,” it’s 1985, midway through the Reagan presidency. And desperation is in the air in the Hill District of Pittsburgh.
King has recently been released from prison, where he served seven years for killing a man who slashed him with a razor. Now he and his friend Mister (Omar Robinson) are selling refrigerators as they try to raise enough money to open a video store. (King claims not to know whether the refrigerators are stolen or not, but it’s pretty clear they are.) Meanwhile, a cousin of the guy King killed is reportedly seeking revenge.
But what’s tormenting King seems to be spiritual in nature. He keeps blurting out an odd question to others: “Is there a halo around me?” Is he hoping for redemption or transcendence in some form?
Milord makes King’s struggles compelling to watch, portraying him as a man in a state of perpetual unease. The workings of Milord’s facial features suggest that King is engaged in an interior monologue at all times, even when conversing with others.
He’s not the only strong-willed character in “King Hedley II.” When King’s wife, Tonya (Karimah Williams), informs him that she is pregnant, and that she wants to get an abortion, he is opposed. But Tonya spells out her reasons in a statement that Williams endows with passion and non-negotiable power.
“I ain’t raising no kid to have somebody shoot him,” she declares. “To have his friends shoot him. To have the police shoot him. Why I want to bring another life into this world that don’t respect life? I don’t want to raise no more babies when you got to fight to keep them alive.”
Patrice Jean-Baptiste, so indelible as an actress finding her big career break comes with strings attached in Lyric Stage Company of Boston’s recent production of Alice Childress’s “Trouble in Mind,” delivers another finely etched portrayal as Ruby, King’s mother and a blues singer.
Naheem Garcia is suitably dapper as Elmore, a roguish and slick-talking gambler who had been Ruby’s boyfriend years before and is intent on romancing her again. In a role that doesn’t really tap into his prodigious gifts, Brandon G. Green exudes a serene wisdom as Stool Pigeon, a collector of newspapers and keeper of history.
Speaking of history: August Wilson’s best-known plays — “Fences,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” “The Piano Lesson” — will never lack for stage productions. (Or, in the case of the first two, movie adaptations.)
But Wilson’s legacy will also be shaped, and even to a certain extent defined, by the frequency with which regional theaters stage the other six dramas in his still-astonishing 10-play Century Cycle. By writing a play for each decade of the 20th century, he sought to capture the Black experience.
Wilson, who died in 2005 at age 60, viewed the plays as interlocking pieces of a whole, as chapters in a hugely complex story. But when done well, they deliver gripping theatrical experiences in and of themselves.
The proof of that can be found at Hibernian Hall.