By Bob Fischbach
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Published Thursday
May 18, 2006
Patience sometimes is rewarded.
That's doubly true of the John Beasley Theater's wistful production of "Seven Guitars," which opened last weekend after several postponements.
August Wilson's play about Floyd Barton, a jazz-blues guitarist on the verge of recording stardom, is set in 1948 Pittsburgh. The white-owned record company failed to pay Barton and his musician pals Red and Canewell what it owed them on a first record.
Floyd urges patience and a second trip to Chicago to record again, this time with bargaining power because the first record is a hit. He also hopes for patience from girlfriend Vera, after he took another woman on that first recording trip and left brokenhearted Vera behind.
But Red and Canewell want money upfront, and Vera has lost faith in Floyd's promises.
Then the county drags its feet on paying Floyd the pittance he's due for hard labor done at a prison work farm. He needs the money to get his guitar out of hock. Floyd's patience is tested on all fronts at once.
"Seven Guitars" earned eight Tony nominations, including best play, in 1996, and it won the Drama Critics Circle award for best play. Watching the play, you can't help but be moved by the finely drawn characters Wilson created and the flashes of poetic beauty found in his words.
Co-directors John Beasley and Amy Laaker have accented the drama while perhaps not fully mining the comedy in the script, but there's plenty of acting talent in their cast of seven.
Tyrone Beasley, John's son, shows great dramatic range as Floyd, whether charming a sullen Vera (Angela McGraw), bantering with his bandmates or exploding in angry frustration at the denial of his pay - and his dreams.
Ray Gene McIntosh, as the genial and womanizing drummer Red, and Leander Phelps III, as practical and hardheaded harmonica player Canewell, give excellent supporting performances, adding warmth and depth to several key scenes. McIntosh displays a fine singing voice as well.
Linda Brown creates some fine moments as self-reliant Louise, who has lost her faith in men but not quite her need to flirt once in a while.
Rochelle Gordon, who joined the cast late as visiting cousin Ruby, steams things up as the kind of woman who causes trouble by just walking past. Her impact on mentally troubled Hedley (Jerry Davis) provides a pivotal plot turn.
Friday's opener ran well past three hours, continuing a pattern of uneven pacing seen in past Beasley shows. Patience is rewarded in the fine performances and script, but sharper cues and speaking tempos could shave 20 minutes from the running time, while heightening dramatic impact.
Carrie Brooks' costumes and Shane Staiger's set - a worn back porch, cellar door, garden plot and yard with high wooden fence - do much to capture time, place and mode of life for these characters, all of whom have disillusionment in their pasts.
In an era short on attention span and long on visual dazzle, not all will sit still for the payoff in "Seven Guitars." For fans of socially relevant, slice-of-life drama, these rich characters and Wilson's words are worth the wait.
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