‘Seven Guitars’ plays dramatic blues

Tom Titus

Playwright August Wilson’s theatrical backyard is Pittsburgh’s

predominantly black Hill District, where his Pulitzer Prize-winning

dramas “Fences” and “The Piano Lesson” unfolded. It’s a rundown

section of town where, inevitably, dreams go to die.

In “Seven Guitars,” now on stage at UC Irvine’s Claire Trevor

Theater, Wilson’s indelible characters laugh, love, fight, sing and,

yes, kill.

We know shortly after the play begins that the central character’s

dreams of musical stardom will be cruelly snuffed out -- we just

don’t know how, when or why.

Director Eli Simon and his splendid cast bring Wilson’s slice of

life among the less fortunate to a resonating pitch, recalling a time

-- 1948 -- when African Americans were just beginning to rebel

against second-class citizenship.

And some even dared to dream of fame and fortune as they listened

to Joe Louis triumph in the ring on the radio.

Floyd “Schoolboy” Barton is one of these dreamers. As superbly

enacted by Daren Herbert, he is an ex-convict who hasn’t let prison

dull his artistic ambition.

He’s already had a hit record, and he’ll make it to Chicago and

stardom -- once he can get his guitar out of hock. Herbert enriches

his dream-propelled character with the drive and self-confidence

demanded for success in a memorable performance.

As his once-betrayed and now-cautious romantic interest, Angel

Laketa Moore beautifully constructs the layers of her character,

reticent yet entranced with the smooth-talking singer.

Michelle Cowin is a pleasant diversion as her knowing landlady who

takes no guff from the neighborhood trash talkers.

Omar Ricks delivers the evening’s most stunning performance as a

consumptive, deranged tenant farmer raising chickens in the backyard

and pining for the fortune he is convinced in his booze-fueled

delirium that he is due.

His lengthy, drunken screed late in the play is powerfully

delivered.

Windell D. Middlebrooks provides corpulent comic relief as a

harmonica-playing neighborhood character whose jollity masks an inner

torment that he punctuates with a switchblade knife. Charles Maceo

Thornhill IV agreeably enacts the third member of the musical combo,

an easygoing drummer with an eye for the ladies.

Into this menage arrives Ruby, a slinky temptress who delights in

turning the fellows’ heads. Talia Thiesfield fine-tunes this minor

role into a memorable one.

There is an eighth character in the UCI production -- the

magnificent setting designed by Sarah Palmrose, representing a seedy,

two-story building and the backyard of the boarding house, with its

chicken coop, garden and patio.

Live chickens accompany the musical portions of the play in an

atmospheric coup.

UCI has gone the distance on this visceral exercise in comedy,

music and tragedy with a blues background. “Seven Guitars” is an

experience to cherish.

*

BACKSTAGE -- A big congratulations to Vanguard University, whose

production of “The Lion in Winter” from last season was chosen as one

of six entries by the Kennedy Center American College Theater

Festival. The show will vie for top honors Feb. 9 at Phoenix College

in Arizona.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Daily Pilot. His reviews

appear Fridays.