Yoruba Gods on the American Stage: August Wilson'sJoe Turner's Come and Gone

Abstract

Central to Joe Turner's Come and Gone are elements of memory and desire, both in terms of characters who are seeking to reorient themselves and in terms of August Wilson's self-described project of creating a body of plays that will help African (US) Americans more fully embrace the African side of their "double consciousness" (Du Bois 38). Set in 1911 during the Great Migration when hundreds of thousands of African Americans left the rural south to settle in northern, industrial centers, the play dramatizes the various wanderings of a group of African Americans in search of a place where they can feel at home in the world, that is, in search of an economic, social, and cultural environment that will enable their agency. Taking temporary refuge in a Pittsburgh boarding house, they share fragmented memories of family members before seemingly being propelled by desires for adventure, love, or single-minded purpose to journey further. Memory takes many forms: the story of a "shiny man"—suggestive of the Yoruba gods Ogun and Esu—who encourages fellow travelers to claim their predestined "song" in life; roots working and juba dancing, or African spiritual practices adapted to the ecology of the United States; and a temporal sensibility that simultaneously looks back to the Middle Passage and forward to Africa.