Joe turner's come and gone pdf

CONCEPT FOR A PLAY

Part Two . The Nature of performance

Au,gust ,trfil,s o nr,s ,D ram ati c CVc I e

Play {first,pioduetibn date) : ,i

'6-er,nr,of'theroaean(2003)' : : Joe'I,urnCriS, Come and 6ohe:r(j 996)

rr1!& Rainoyis Black Bottam{1984) ,'r,,Rrti.,rPr'anoi'Lgsson(19S7) ",,

Seven Guitars (1995)

Fences (1 985)

'. ,T,wo Traiins Rinnrng (I99O) '

Jitney (1982)

King Hedley lt (2001)

Radio Golf (2005)

Deead€'r,r'. '...r

Represented

1900i ' '" il91os-.., . -- L

1920s , ' 1',93Os,', ':, rr,, 1,940s'" 'r' ,: {950s: ,, :- i.i:ii

1:960si ,, r. ir....r .

1970s'' , ,,, 1980i.' : r.:r.','r",

199os"l ''' tt"

PLOT AND CHARACTERS: A MEETING OF TWO WORLDS The play begins in Seth and Bertha Holly's boardinghouse, where two dollars a week pays for a room, two meals a day, and a fried chicken dinner on Sunday. The boardinghouse is a haven for struggling young black men and women, charged with energy and full of longing, tryrng to make a start in a northern city. Ber- tha provides the roomers with biscuits and sensible counsel. Bynum, a "rootworker," offers his own special wisdom accom- panied by herbs and powders. The transient characters look to Seth and Bertha for the practical necessities of life. Bynum offers them a mystical vision to help them find themselves. Everyone... EXPLORING THE TEXT OF JOE

TURNER'S COME AND GONE Joe Turner's Come and Gone is about the after- math of slavery, about the damage done to the spirit, which must be healed before peo- ple can take their rightful place in the world. Following the end of slavery, white planta- tion owners resorted to new forms of forced labor. The worst of these continuing injus- tices was the chain gang. The play,s central character, Herald Loomis, has just served seven years on Joe Turner's chain gang in Tennessee. Now he has come North to search for his wife, from whom he was separated when he was kidnapped and imprisoned by Joe Turner. He joins a group of characters he m-eets at a boardinghouse in Pittsburgh, most of whom are part of the migration of Afri.un Americans leaving the South in search of a better life.

at the boardinghouse has a story to tell, and the characters share their tales around the big dining table.

The contentious but cheerful atlosphere of the boardinghouse is interrupted by the arrival of a threatening stranger. He is as withdrawn and abrupt as the other characters are open and at ease. In his long dark coat and hat, the stranger, Herald Loomis, keeps himself hidden. For Her- ald Loomis the chain gang has been an exten- sion of slavery, and he hides the torment and shame of that legacy. Joe Turner and the chain gang represent all 300 years of slavery, with its endless sorrow and dislocation. The ghost of Joe Turner haunts Herald Loomis. The play's tide says thatJoe Turner has "come and gone.' But for Herald Loomis, Joe Turner is not yet gone. Loomis must rid himself of the ghost of Joe Turner before he can find himself and begin life as a free man.

fommmdG elhEerhh

lllflitiprcre*ure rffimrSh,riffirDo Xffi Crq arE&

rhiq rcmr fll] &mm,tnt a

mr.............mgpJ,e. -{ry qprc sdurd,

&rmmicsi soci m, ,gegrc I

mwemme fu s fi.td. -l6i

fur,rt'.xLtr ryt rfBF ilm :irc cq

:AI oF'