Gem of a Play

Syracuse -- Friends and I saw “Gem of the Ocean” on Saturday night at Syracuse Stage. The first act was a bit sleepy, but the second act was strange and powerful and made sitting for nearly three hours (run time) well worth it.
This play marks the start of a 10-play epic about African-American life in the 20th century by August Wilson, a Pulitzer-prize winning playwright who died in 2005.
This particular story is about a group of Blacks living in Pittsburgh in 1904. It focuses on their personal struggles and the lingering effects of slavery, abolished 40 years earlier.
A troubled young man named Citizen shows up at the house of Aunt Esther, an elderly sage who cleanses people of their sins. He seeks forgiveness for a crime; we don’t learn what that crime is until the play's second half, when Esther takes him on an imaginary journey to the “City of Bones,” a metaphor for a slave ship and the sea.
Meanwhile, tension is high in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, where Esther lives. A black man accused of stealing has jumped off a bridge and killed himself; there’s unrest at the local mill; and a fierce black sheriff who has forgotten his roots is terrorizing residents.
This play, directed by Timothy Douglas, is very layered yet tightly woven; you’re never lost. And the characters are richly developed and well cast.
This was my first time seeing a show at Syracuse Stage, and I was quite impressed.
“Gem of the Ocean” runs through March 11.
For information, visit http://www.syracusestage.org/. -- JM