Review: The Sweet Sounds of August Wilson: SEVEN GUITARS at A Noise Within

Music and musicality run through the works of August Wilson like a sweet and impenetrable blues lick. The playwright was not, to this critic's knowledge, a musical man himself, but the men and women who populate his 20th century cycle damned sure are. In addition to the players and singers, many of Wilson's men and women are talkers who - armed with Wilson's dialogue - are part of a kind of symphony.

There figures to be notes aplenty in any opus titled SEVEN GUITARS, the fifth play of Wilson's cycle which is enjoying a muscular revival directed by Gregg T. Daniel at Pasadena's A Noise Within. With all those guitars (the play actually only features three) and an axman boasting a hit record and dreams of stardom, SEVEN GUITARS is one of Wilson's most musical plays. Yes, we hear bits of "That's All Right," the song on which Floyd "Schoolboy" Barton has built what little localized fame he enjoys and there are snatches of song to which characters sing along or enjoy a dance. Fittingly, the play's catharsis occurs over a disputed song lyric.

Plot-wise, not a lot actually happens in SEVEN GUITARS (1994), and any company tackling this, one of Wilson's lesser-staged plays, and deliver a compelling evening in the allotted three hours is going to face some challenges. Daniel, who directed ANW's GEM OF THE OCEAN in 2019, is on solid ground here and he's brought several of his GEM cast members and technical team. The ensemble is excellent, and a towering performance by Kevin Jackson as a man who dreams even bigger than Floyd Barton should fill the auditorium and then some.

But back to the guitarist. SEVEN GUITARS starts at Floyd Barton's wake (with music, naturally) in the back yard of the multi-unit house in Pittsburgh's Hill District where Floyd's off-again, on-again girlfriend Vera (played by Cherish Monique Duke) lives. Also in attendance are Louise (Veralyn Jones), the house's owner, Canewell (DeJuan Christopher) and Red Carter (Amir Abdullah), Floyd's friends and sometimes bandmates. Then there's Hedley (Jackson), a Caribbean immigrant who dispenses cigarettes and beer, and might ordinarily use the occasion of a funeral to sell chicken sandwiches. Not this time. Scenic designer Stephanie Kerley Schwartz renders the house as a functional edifice with a transparent curtain allowing us to peek inside and see characters in reverie.

At Floyd's wake, there is talk of angels, of food and beer. Someone throws "That's all Right" onto the turntable, and we retreat to the past to meet the singer himself, and ultimately learn how he met his end.

Floyd (Desean K. Terry) is many things: restless, charming, womanizing, a man who revered his mother. In 1948, he is light years from any appreciation he might have earned as a military serviceman. We encounter him fresh off a 90-day sentence in the workhouse for vagrancy. But even with not much money to his name and his guitars in hawk, Floyd still has a letter from Savoy Records inviting him back to Chicago to record more hits. Canewell might join him, but Floyd is hellbent that he will not go without Vera, who he has been burned before.

Nobody is actually going anywhere and Daniel's leisurely production taps into the theme of anticipation, of time moving too slowly as characters being forced to wait too long to get what they need or what they deserve. Vera is waiting for a better version of Floyd to sweep her away to a better life. Canewell, devoted as he may be to Floyd, is also in love with Vera and he's waiting for her to recognize him as the better man. Louise's niece Ruby (Sydney A. Mason) arrives from Alabama facing a ticking clock; she's pregnant by one of two possible men and needs to find a new father for her baby.

Hedley? He's waiting on no less than a visit from the ghost of jazz trumpeter Buddy Bolden who he prophecies will arrive with funds that will allow Hedley to buy a plantation and prevent any future enslavement of the Black people. Jackson gives Hedley the vocal cadence of a preacher whose pronouncements frequently end in a chilling wheeze. This man may in fact be very sick, but as brought to life by Jackson with equal parts danger, edginess and fire, you can't take your eyes off him.

Although there are ultimately a couple of precipitating incidents that drives the plot to its conclusion, SEVEN GUITARS is not - as previously noted - a play with a lot of action. Instead Wilson treats us to interludes, tete-a-tetes between Floyd and Vera, Ruby and Hedley or several characters together. The group assembles in the yard to listen (and celebrate) to the radio as the "Brown Bomber" Joe Louis dispatches Billy Conn. And anytime Jackson's Hedley starts becoming impassioned, there's the potential for fireworks. "I gonna be a big man." he promises. Returns Louise: "You ain't gonna be nothing."

As much as SEVEN GUITARS pivots along the rise, fall and rise of Floyd Barton, Terry's low-key magnetism makes the character less compelling than he might be. Both in person and in song, Terry is charismatic certainly, but not quite the lightbulb that attracts moths of all ages and genders. Terry and Duke's Vera establish a charged chemistry that is credible and heartfelt. The push-pull sentiments of admiration/jealousy expressed by Abdullah's Red Carter and Christopher's Canewell are evident as well.

Placed as it is in the middle of Wilson's vaunted century cycle, SEVEN GUITARS benefits from a viewer knowing which of Wilson's stories came before and which are still to come. We are, for example, nearly 20 years since MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM, a play in which an artist more celebrated than Floyd Barton had not so easy a time of things in a Chicago music studio. And if we look ahead another nearly four decades to 1985, we will ultimately see how Hedley's dreams are realized in Wilson's KING HEDLEY II.

SEVEN GUITARS is its own sweet and sorrowful rift, a symphony of a drama well worth experiencing.

Photo of (L-R) Amir Abdullah, Veralyn Jones, DeJuan Christopher, Cherish Monique Duke, and Desean K. Terry by Craig Schwartz

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