Isherwood on 'Joe Turner'
Latanya Richardson Jackson and Marsha Stephanie Blake star in August Wilson's play "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," which opened this week in New York City. Photo by Sarah Krulwich / New York Times.
Nobody gushes like Charles Isherwood, the second-string (and first-rate) theater critic at the New York Times. His review today of August Wilson's "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," in a Lincoln Center Theatre production at the Belasco Theatre in New York City, contains the sort of fawning adulation most critics are loath to employ even for superlative productions, lest they be thought unprofessionally partisan. But Isherwood, to his great credit, busts out gushing praise whensoever he's moved to do so (for "Rock of Ages," for "August: Osage County," and so on) without a speck of regret. His enthusiasm for the show is stunning to behold, and this review is highly recommended, even for folks with no interest whatsoever in the theater.
An excerpt:
After sitting in thrall for three hours at “Joe Turner,” in that theater packed with teenagers — kids who clearly were having as much fun as they would have at the latest “X-Men” sequel — I found it hard to fathom why people are not falling over one another to get tickets. It has been a busy spring for play revivals of course. But I suspect Wilson’s interest in history, and specifically in African-American history, makes some imagine that his plays are homework, assignments to be dutifully undertaken once a year or so, like book reports for Black History Month.
That is hardly the case, as Mr. Sher’s production amply illustrates. Wilson’s plays are powerfully, consistently, almost ravishingly pleasurable theatrical experiences. Rich in poetry and humor, in potent but true conflict and wisdom, they dig so deeply into human experience that you emerge as from a hair-raising ride on an old wooden roller coaster, knuckles white not with fear and adrenaline but with that similar rush you get only rarely from aesthetic encounters, the sense of having journeyed through a lifetime of feeling in a matter of hours.
Yowza! Isherwood also wrote, amusingly, that he would be "almost willing to wander Times Square wearing a sandwich board to spread the gospel of its glory." For some, that sort of unqualified praise is a bit too much. But I, for one, am glad Isherwood wears his heart on his typing fingertips.
--Colin Dabkowski
