August Wilson's 'Gem of the Ocean' holds vestiges of the past, but lacks tension

Life is an uphill battle for Citizen Barlow.

The young man fled Alabama and landed in Pittsburgh in search of opportunity, but he isn’t making enough money, and he has nowhere to live. He’s got a terrible secret and the only person who can help him, town folks say, is a woman called Aunt Ester. So, he makes it his mission to convince her to cleanse his soul.

This is the premise for the late August Wilson’s “Gem of the Ocean.” The solid show is directed by Monica White Ndounou and presented by Actors’ Shakespeare Project at Hibernian Hall in Roxbury April 16-May 17. Set in 1904, the play is the first — sequentially — in Wilson's famed century cycle, though it was the ninth play produced.

Though the action takes place after emancipation, slavery’s effects still echo in their lives. Formerly enslaved Black people are trying to carve out new identities, and in the South, sharecropping is prevalent. In the city of Pittsburgh, many work at the mill and get paid a pittance, while renting rooms and trying to survive. Their existence is fraught with violence and murder at the slightest (or no real) provocation.

In addition to Joshua Lee Robinson’s Citizen and Regine Vital as Aunt Ester, the talented cast includes the dynamic Jonathan Kitt as Solly Two Kings, who remembers being enslaved and fights fiercely to protect his freedom. Kadahj Bennett is convincing as Caesar, a lawman with a negative disposition and questionable morals. Caesar mistakenly believes that asserting dominance over other Black people makes him powerful. MarHadoo Effeh portrays Black Mary, Caesar’s sister and a washerwoman, who has heard it all from male suitors who have nothing to offer. Black Mary is learning to carry Aunt Ester’s mantle. Even if she doesn’t know it at first. And Dereks Thomas plays Eli, a protector of Aunt Ester.

The close-knit group gathers at Aunt Ester’s house daily for community, a warm meal and refuge as they share the news of the town (a man drowned himself in the river after being accused of stealing) and toil toward what they hope is a better future. Actor Michael Broadhurst, who wonderfully portrays Rutherford Selig, also pops up. Selig, as they call him, is a white man whom Ester trusts. He comes by to sell wares, tell the news he gleans from his travels and, when needed, helps people get out of town in his wagon.

The world that Wilson created feels eerily familiar. These characters have vestiges of the stories my eldest relatives told. Tales of sharecropping parents, enslaved grandparents and the importance of knowing how to heal yourself.

Aunt Ester is the personification of such lore. She is over 200 years old, she says, and has an altar in the living room. Folks come to her in search of peace and redemption, among other things. And Citizen, who reminds her of her son June Bug, needs a clean soul. Only God can do that, Black Mary and Aunt Ester admit. But to help, they tell him he must journey to the City of Bones.

There’s a lot at stake for Citizen, but the production lacks the palpable tension, fright and intrigue that I was hoping for, qualities that were clear and sharp in ASP’s excellent production of Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson.” The mysticism is a little less convincing here than the ancestral ghosts in the aforementioned play, though there is a lovely blue African-inspired lighting element courtesy of lighting designer Isaak Olson, and the sound by designer Aubrey Dube, particularly the drumming, was spot on.

Wilson’s City of Bones appears in this show and “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” and acts as a connective tissue for the two sojourning characters: Citizen and Herald Loomis. Both men are searching for different things. Citizen is looking for redemption and Loomis is searching for his wife and for healing from trauma. The journey to the city is what helps them attain it. The place isn’t physical per se, but a trip inward that tugs on personal and collective memory to help one find the strength to move forward.

Eventually, Citizen makes peace with his life, and other characters learn lessons of their own. But the best part of Wilson’s work is that it centers on how his characters traverse the rocky territory of life. And how some of the lucky ones find their way.

Actors’ Shakespeare Projects “Gem of the Ocean” runs through May 17 at Hibernian Hall.