Joe Turner's Come and Gone

Joe Turner's Come and Gone
Name	Joe Turner's Come and Gone
Writer	August Wilson
Setting	1911, a boardinghouse in Pittsburgh
Premiere	1984
Place	Yale Repertory Theatre
Original language	English
Genre	Drama

Joe Turner's Come and Gone is a 1984 play by August Wilson that forms part of Wilson's ten-play Pittsburgh Cycle, dramatizing African American life across the twentieth century. Set in 1911, the work centers on a boardinghouse run by Moseley (portrayed originally by Paul Benjamin) where itinerant Black characters intersect as they seek identity after the Great Migration and the aftermath of Emancipation Proclamation and Reconstruction-era dislocations. The play examines psychological and cultural legacies through interactions touching on labor, migration, spiritual search, and artistic expression in the era of W. E. B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, and the nascent currents that would later inform the Harlem Renaissance.

Background and Development

August Wilson conceived the Pittsburgh Cycle while researching African American history in the archives of the University of Pittsburgh, influenced by figures such as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and James Baldwin. August Wilson drew on oral history methods similar to the Federal Writers' Project and the archival work of Alain Locke to shape characters who embody wider social forces like the Great Migration and the aftermath of the American Civil War. The play’s title references forced labor practices linked to convict leasing and the extralegal coercion epitomized by figures like Joe Turner—a real-life Tennessee sheriff whose actions are contextualized in histories alongside the Ku Klux Klan and the era of Black Codes in southern states such as Tennessee and Georgia. Wilson wrote the play after his earlier works Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Fences began to gain national attention from theaters including Yale Repertory Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and later the Public Theater, with dramaturgs and directors such as Lynn Nottage (as a contemporary playwright influenced by Wilson) acknowledging the play’s archival rigor and intertextual engagement with writers like Toni Morrison and Ralph Ellison.

Plot

Set in a Pittsburgh boardinghouse in 1911, the narrative follows Bates and Mattie as they host lodgers including Seth Holly, Jeremy Furlow, and Bynum Walker, a self-styled “conjure man” who practices spiritual geography linked to diasporic traditions documented by Zora Neale Hurston and folk ethnographers like Melville Herskovits. The plot tracks the arrival of Jeremy Furlow’s estranged wife Burna, the haunting legacy of forced labor epitomized by the rumor of Joe Turner’s chain-gang raids, and the quest of Seth Holly to reclaim a lost name and identity—a spiritual journey analogous to themes in Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and historical narratives by Carter G. Woodson. Tensions rise as love, betrayal, and memory collide, culminating in scenes where characters confront past traumas and enact rituals that echo African American Vernacular English oral traditions and the communal drama of works staged at institutions like Theatre Communications Group venues.

Characters

The central figures include Bynum Walker, a healer whose practice invokes diasporic connections referenced in studies by Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Stuart Hall; Mattie Campbell, whose role as boardinghouse proprietor recalls matriarchal characters in Toni Morrison novels; Seth Holly, a man haunted by displacement reminiscent of protagonists in Richard Wright’s fiction; and Jeremy Furlow, whose personal conflicts mirror class and labor tensions articulated by historians like Eric Foner and Ira Berlin. Secondary characters such as Aunt Ester-like archetypes in Wilson’s cycle connect to figures studied by Cornel West and performers associated with the Negro Ensemble Company. The interplay among characters stages debates similar to those in essays by W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington about black identity, urbanization, and cultural memory.

Themes and Analysis

Major themes include the search for identity after enslavement, the spiritual and psychological impact of the Great Migration, and the collision of diasporic memory with Northern industrial modernity as discussed by scholars like Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall. Wilson explores naming, memory, and the reclamation of self via ritual practices that recall studies by Zora Neale Hurston and Melville Herskovits on African retentions. The play engages with labor histories related to convict leasing and chain gangs, subjects covered in works by Douglas A. Blackmon and W. E. B. Du Bois, and depicts how music, language, and storytelling—practices studied by Amiri Baraka and Langston Hughes—function as tools of resistance and communal healing. Critically, the drama dialogues with contemporaneous modernist and realist traditions in American theater associated with Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and innovations in performance fostered at venues like Steppenwolf Theatre Company and the Royal Court Theatre.

Production History and Reception

The play premiered at the Yale Repertory Theatre in 1984 and received high-profile productions at the Public Theater and the Mark Taper Forum, with notable directors including Lloyd Richards and casts featuring actors linked to the American Conservatory Theater and the Negro Ensemble Company. Reviews in outlets associated with critics influenced by institutions such as the New York Times and the Guardian emphasized Wilson’s poetic dialogue and historical depth, while scholarly appraisals in journals alongside work by Harold Bloom and Henry Louis Gates Jr. situated the play within African American literary canons. Recognition culminated in multiple awards for the Pittsburgh Cycle plays, connecting Wilson to laureates like Pulitzer Prize winners and prompting retrospectives at the Kennedy Center and university departments such as those at Harvard University and Yale University.

Adaptations and Influence

Though not adapted into a major mainstream film, the play influenced theatrical practitioners at institutions including the Public Theater, Roundabout Theatre Company, and Arena Stage, and inspired adaptations in academic stagings within Howard University and Northwestern University theater programs. Its motifs appear in contemporary works by playwrights like Suzan-Lori Parks, Tarell Alvin McCraney, and Lynn Nottage, and its themes inform scholarship in departments spanning African American Studies at Columbia University and University of Chicago curricula. The play’s cultural legacy continues in exhibitions at museums such as the Smithsonian Institution and in theatrical programming by companies like Penumbra Theatre Company and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater collaborations that explore African diasporic narratives.

Category:Plays by August Wilson Category:1984 plays