Hello All!

Here's a review of King Hedley 2 that is no longer on the web...Enjoy!!!  :)

Angela aka ALWheaties
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USA TODAY
'Hedley' reclaims Pittsburgh streets
By David Patrick Stearns
12/16/99- Updated 11:15 AM ET

PITTSBURGH - The much-honored August Wilson doesn't write plays so much as
he creates self-contained worlds. In his latest, King Hedley II, you take
up residence for 3½ hours packed with events, ideas and philosophies in
which Wilson confronts the African-American community with some of the most
unsavory issues found in any of his plays ( out of four).

Set in the crime-ridden 1980s, the play is dominated by ex- and future
convicts who tote a variety of guns, rage at the tiniest slights, sell hot
merchandise, hold up a jewelry store (letting someone else take the rap for
it) and beat their loved ones. But thanks to some of the wisest, most
passionate writing of his career, Wilson draws you in by presenting a deeply
human context with sociological underpinnings that neither excuse nor
apologize, but explain a great deal.

It's also more watchable, since we can view this time from a safe distance.
Urban streets are safer now, specifically (and ironically) the one where the
Pittsburgh Public Theater is giving King Hedley its world premiere. It's a
14-block cultural district reclaimed from drug dealers and porno stores by
the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, which has opened or renovated four theaters,
the latest being the stylish O'Reilly Theater, where Hedley is the inaugural
production.

The show's set - a bombed-out urban area scorched by decades of mercantile
depression - is the sad native environment of the title character (Tony
Todd), a facially scarred ex-convict who is light-years away from the social
status implied by his name. If he has a birthright, it's centuries of
accumulated rage. We've seen that before, but Wilson deftly shows how it
turns on itself and poisons a community whose foundation is built on Old
Testament ideas of revenge and a punitive God.

There are glimmers of hope with other characters, including Hedley's
unhappily pregnant wife (Ella Joyce), hesitating to bring a child into a
drive-by world; his partner in crime (Russell Andrews), who dreams he has
a New Testament halo; and a con man (Charles Brown) whose dapper clothes
contrast with his roachlike survival skills.

Though the play is in far more finished form than many of Wilson's works
have been in their first productions, it still needs some focusing and
pruning. But it's well on the way to becoming a major work. Typically, the
cast (directed by Marion Isaac McClinton) is a fine ensemble, especially
Todd. His towering stature and handsome profile contrast pathetically with
his obsession over the petty rules of a world that seems to reject him no
matter what he does. He creates a character that becomes the Old Testament
figure of Isaac, whose sacrifice by a father figure isn't interrupted by
a benevolent God.