Highly Recommended
August Wilson’s King Hedley II at City Lit
City Lit Theater Company is offering a most powerful presentation of King Hedley II directed by Manny Buckley. The play represents the 1980s chapter of August Wilson’s Century Cycle of works aimed at providing a portrait of African American life across the 20th Century.
Wilson brings us into the center of the tumultuous life of King Hedley II (James Lewis), his family, and friends at a crossroads that is the backyard of the house of the unseen matriarch Mama Louise.
The set design of Jeremiah Barr is perfectly evocative of an old house in a poor part of the city. It is here that the characters explore their life history and share their most intimate feelings, thoughts, and plans for the future.
King, recently returned from prison after serving seven years for murder, struggles to find his place in the world. Anxious to make up for lost time and unprepared for gainful employment he reverts to side hustles and criminal activity to fuel his oversized dreams. His wife Tonya (Isis Elizabeth) maintains their economic survival through an office job, doing her best to keep him on the straight and narrow.
It is impossible not to make a comparison to Shakespeare in Wilson’s work. The title King Hedley II itself echoes several of the Bard’s famous works. The tragic consequences of a protagonist haunted by the past, trying to understand his damaged family history while operating with a pervasive sense that society itself is broken and morally corrupt smacks of Hamlet.
Wilson has a command of the African American vernacular that like Shakespeare’s language is poetically colorful, nuanced and oddly familiar to the untrained ear. But it would be unfair to suggest that Wilson is simply mimicking Shakespeare. Wilson has a voice of his own but the work’s structure is classical with roots in Greek Tragedy as well. The important comparison between them is in the employment of themes that are universal and timeless, that speak to the very essence of humanity.
Brandon Boler as Stool Pigeon is both mystic and chronicler hoarding a copious collection of newspapers for the purpose of preserving history while acting as a kind of one-man chorus regaling us with a profusion of biblical verses that punctuates each of the play’s turning points, including the oft repeated refrain “God is a bad mutha f*cker” (translation: God is a supremely powerful entity).
It is clear that King feels trapped in a milieu where the odds seem perpetually stacked against him. Unable to envision a viable path forward, he possesses little social or economic capital beyond a deeply ingrained sense of honor and dignity, which he perceives as values that he is compelled to defend at any cost. Stories of violence and death permeate both his past and present, reinforcing a worldview shaped by hardship, desperation, and struggle.
The violence in King’s world has roots in pre-twentieth century mostly European aristocratic culture as well as the American South where a person’s reputation was often considered as important as property, wealth, or even life itself. If someone publicly insulted you, accused you of lying, questioned your courage, or impugned your family’s honor a duel was seen as the remedy. This tradition continued to be especially true when individuals felt they did not have access to the legal system for redress.
Over time, dueling and other forms of ritualized honor combat fell out of favor as governments strengthened legal systems and social attitudes shifted away from private violence as a means of resolving disputes. Yet the underlying impulse persists. We continue to hear news stories in which perceived disrespect escalates into deadly violence. In this sense, the world of King Hedley II reflects a much older tradition in which wounded pride and the demand for respect can prove fatal. Even today such acts often cut short the lives of promising young people and perpetuate a cycle of retaliation and needless loss.
King’s attempt to grow a flower garden from a packet of seeds in a patch of dirt speaks to his hunger for beauty and yearning to be a nurturer rather than destroyer of life but this too seems to be undermined and attacked at every turn.
Raised by Mama Louise, King’s birthmother Ruby (Andrea Conway-Diaz) is back in his life. When her former lover Elmore (Jelani Julyus) arrives, he brings with him a reputation for gambling along with additional information about family history.
Gambling and especially cheating becomes a metaphor for the way society has the system rigged in general and specifically in the eyes of King and his best pal Mister (Ernest Henton). The system cheats so they must cheat too.
King, Mister and Elmore make it clear that doing the right thing is honorable but it must be what is right for you. You decide what is right or wrong and act accordingly. It is often fuzzy logic and ambiguity of rules that leads to much of the violence in their world.
Wilson does not offer solutions but simply gives us a glimpse into a particular segment of African American life providing a slice of life that gives audiences some insight into a cultural experience that may not be familiar to everyone. It’s important to note that Wilson writes from an African American viewpoint but King’s way of thinking can be found in many disenfranchised young people from various ethnic traditions.
Aside from the outstanding talented writing of August Wilson, his words come alive through the efforts of this terrific cast who leave it all on the stage. There is nothing stilted or contrived. It’s as though you are sitting on your own back porch across the courtyard watching this drama unfold.
Details: King Hedley II is at City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr Ave, Chicago, IL through November 29, 2026. Running time is 3 hours with one intermission. For tickets and information visit www.citylit.org or call (773)293-3682.
Reviewer: Reno Lovison