Joe Turner’s Come and Gone review – August Wilson play makes uneven return to Broadway

Ethel Barrymore theatre, New York

Debbie Allen’s revival of the 1984 drama boasts a compelling cast, led by Taraji P Henson and Cedric the Entertainer, but too many notes are off

Earlier this year, Viola Davis excitedly quoted August Wilson’s play, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, while announcing Michael B Jordan’s Oscar win. “You are shining, Herald Loomis,” she beamed, “shining like new money!” It was a touching acknowledgment of the actor’s long-awaited recognition, and the glory that awaits him. For most of Wilson’s 1911-set piece, Loomis is a man weary from an endless walk through the shadow of the valley of death, his spirit all but broken by systemic racism. Salvation is hardly guaranteed, but flickers in the distance.

So it goes in Debbie Allen’s uneven Broadway staging, the play’s third since its 1984 premiere. Part of his monumental Century Cycle of 10 plays representing each decade of the 20th-century Black American experience, Wilson’s play has undeniable lyricism but needs pitch-perfect direction to make its magical realism sing. Its Pittsburgh boardinghouse setting is suitably liminal – halfway between north and south, stability and transience – and none who pass through are more than a generation removed from the horrors of slavery. Wilson reflects on this dizzying flashpoint by refracting his characters’ mysticism, religion and worldliness, honoring each even as they collide.