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The Century Cycle #9
King Hedley II
A petty thief named King returns after seven years in prison to the devastation of Reaganomics.
120 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2005
10 people are currently reading
944 people want to read
About the author
August Wilson
66 books570 followersAmerican playwright August Wilson won a Pulitzer Prize for
Fences
in 1985 and for
The Piano Lesson
in 1987.
His literary legacy embraces the ten series and received twice for drama for The Pittsburgh Cycle . Each depicted the comic and tragic aspects of the African-American experience, set in different decade of the 20th century.
Daisy Wilson, an African American cleaning woman from North Carolina, in the hill district of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, bore Frederick August Kittel, Junior, the fourth of six children, to Frederick August Kittel, Senior, a German immigrant baker. From North Carolina, maternal grandmother of Wilson earlier sought a better life and walked to Pennsylvania. After his fifth year, his mother raised the children alone in a two-room apartment above a grocery store at 1727 Bedford Avenue.
After death of Frederick August Kittel, Senior, in 1965, his son changed his name to August Wilson to honor his mother.
In 1968, Wilson co-founded the black horizon theater in the hill district of Pittsburgh alongside Rob Penny, his friend. People first performed his Recycling for audiences in small theaters and public housing community centers. Among these early efforts, he revised Jitney more than two decades later as part of his ten-cycle on 20th-century Pittsburgh.
Wilson married three times. His first marriage to Brenda Burton lasted from 1969 to 1972. She bore him Sakina Ansari, a daughter, in 1970.
Vernell Lillie founded of the Kuntu repertory theatre at the University of Pittsburgh in 1974 and, two years later, directed The Homecoming of Wilson in 1976.
Wilson also co-founded the workshop of Kuntu to bring African-Americans together and to assist them in publication and production. Both organizations still act.
Claude Purdy, friend and director, suggested to Wilson to move to Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1978 and helped him secure a job with educational scripts for the science museum. In 1980, he received a fellowship for the center in Minneapolis. Wilson long associated with the penumbra theatre company, which gave the premieres, of Saint Paul.
In 1981, he married to Judy Oliver, a social worker, and they divorced in 1990.
Wilson received many honorary degrees, including an honorary doctor of humanities from the University of Pittsburgh, where he served as a member of the board of trustees from 1992 until 1995.
Wilson got a best known Tony award and the New York circle of drama critics; he authored Ma Rainey's Black Bottom , and Joe Turner's Come and Gone .
In 1994, Wilson left Saint Paul and developed a relationship with Seattle repertory theatre. Ultimately, only Seattle repertory theater in the country produced all works in his ten-cycle and his one-man show How I Learned What I Learned .
Constanza Romero, his costume designer and third wife from 1994, bore Azula Carmen, his second daughter.
In 2005, August Wilson received the Anisfield-Wolf lifetime achievement award.
Wilson reported diagnosis with liver cancer in June 2005 with three to five months to live. He passed away at Swedish medical center in Seattle, and people interred his body at Greenwood cemetery, Pittsburgh on 8 October 2005.
His literary legacy embraces the ten series and received twice for drama for The Pittsburgh Cycle . Each depicted the comic and tragic aspects of the African-American experience, set in different decade of the 20th century.
Daisy Wilson, an African American cleaning woman from North Carolina, in the hill district of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, bore Frederick August Kittel, Junior, the fourth of six children, to Frederick August Kittel, Senior, a German immigrant baker. From North Carolina, maternal grandmother of Wilson earlier sought a better life and walked to Pennsylvania. After his fifth year, his mother raised the children alone in a two-room apartment above a grocery store at 1727 Bedford Avenue.
After death of Frederick August Kittel, Senior, in 1965, his son changed his name to August Wilson to honor his mother.
In 1968, Wilson co-founded the black horizon theater in the hill district of Pittsburgh alongside Rob Penny, his friend. People first performed his Recycling for audiences in small theaters and public housing community centers. Among these early efforts, he revised Jitney more than two decades later as part of his ten-cycle on 20th-century Pittsburgh.
Wilson married three times. His first marriage to Brenda Burton lasted from 1969 to 1972. She bore him Sakina Ansari, a daughter, in 1970.
Vernell Lillie founded of the Kuntu repertory theatre at the University of Pittsburgh in 1974 and, two years later, directed The Homecoming of Wilson in 1976.
Wilson also co-founded the workshop of Kuntu to bring African-Americans together and to assist them in publication and production. Both organizations still act.
Claude Purdy, friend and director, suggested to Wilson to move to Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1978 and helped him secure a job with educational scripts for the science museum. In 1980, he received a fellowship for the center in Minneapolis. Wilson long associated with the penumbra theatre company, which gave the premieres, of Saint Paul.
In 1981, he married to Judy Oliver, a social worker, and they divorced in 1990.
Wilson received many honorary degrees, including an honorary doctor of humanities from the University of Pittsburgh, where he served as a member of the board of trustees from 1992 until 1995.
Wilson got a best known Tony award and the New York circle of drama critics; he authored Ma Rainey's Black Bottom , and Joe Turner's Come and Gone .
In 1994, Wilson left Saint Paul and developed a relationship with Seattle repertory theatre. Ultimately, only Seattle repertory theater in the country produced all works in his ten-cycle and his one-man show How I Learned What I Learned .
Constanza Romero, his costume designer and third wife from 1994, bore Azula Carmen, his second daughter.
In 2005, August Wilson received the Anisfield-Wolf lifetime achievement award.
Wilson reported diagnosis with liver cancer in June 2005 with three to five months to live. He passed away at Swedish medical center in Seattle, and people interred his body at Greenwood cemetery, Pittsburgh on 8 October 2005.
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July 25, 2023
A few years ago as part of my lifetime Pulitzer challenge, I read a few plays by August Wilson. I am not one who enjoys plays all that much, but I found the writing well enough to continue with his complete century cycle, which could have been written as a family saga book. Wilson never set out to write about an entire century of the African American experience as he took things one play at a time. After completing eight plays, he saw that he had written about his people’s history and knew that he only had the beginning and the end to complete. I decided to read these plays in chronological order. King Hedley II takes place in the 1980s, the century cycle nearly finished. As much as things change, they stay the same, which is why knowing one’s history is important, a message Wilson sought to parlay to his viewers and readers with these award winning plays.
The century cycle could be written as a family saga because most of the ten plays take place in Pittsburgh. The majority of the families live in a small home with a yard, occasionally taking in renters, many times multiple generations living together. During the 1980s we find Ruby living with her grown son King and his wife Tonya. King served seven years in prison after killing a man who dishonored his name. Although King told the judge that the killing was in self defense, the all white jury convicted him; however, he had his sentence reduced by three years. Upon earning back his freedom, King attempts to change his ways, yet along with his friend Mister, the two plot, scam, and steal their way toward fast cash. Despite it being a modern setting, the best they could find for steady income was $3.35 an hour. That isn’t going to pay the bills whereas scams could net the scheming duo thousands. Their goal was to become self sufficient and buy a video store so that they would never have to rely on others again. The issue is that their pot came from stolen goods- refrigerators, pawned off jewelry, stolen cash. King and Mister desired their own slice of the American dream; the issue at hand is that neither earned enough to make the dream a reality, forcing them to take matters into their own hands.
Most of the plays contain references to religious themes and magical realism. In previous decades, various characters sought counsel from Aunt Ester, an ancient woman thought to have arrived from Africa. In the first scene we find out that she has died at the age of 366 years old and many believed that it was not her time yet. The entire community shut down their businesses in mourning. Stool Pigeon, a neighbor, believed that he could bring Aunt Ester back to life by performing a ritual in the backyard. It was Aunt Ester who dispensed advice and held the neighborhood together for centuries. Without her presence although he aura was still present, the neighborhood would crumble unless others would take up the mantle of leadership, and no one had what it takes. There was hope; Top fought a contract at city hall, Tonya demanded King that she did not want her life to be based off of stolen goods. She did not want a husband who was destined to spend half his life in jail. Guns and stealing could only get people so far or history would be doomed to repeat itself. All the characters, Wilson maintains, are Aunt Ester’s descendants. If they were to honor her and break out of the cycle of poverty and violence, they would have to do so on their own.
Even though it is the 1980s, there is thankfully no mention of drugs. There are too many mentions of guns although no gangs, which I am surprised do not become a main theme as time marches forward. The older generation still turned to cards and dice and the numbers game to make a quick buck. The younger generation would employ any means necessary even if they risked a jail sentence. A few modern themes rear their head here- teenage pregnancy, discrimination at the workplace, jail sentences. Whites are only mentioned in passing but it is clear from the text that for the most part they are enjoying a better life. I hope that Wilson draws more on this in the last play as he did in the previous one: the best route out of poverty and the cycle of stealing and killing is by getting an education as an avenue to a better life. In this installment, it is not mentioned if any of the characters ever received more than an eighth grade education. Perhaps that is why they turn to craps games, stealing and reselling refrigerators, and robbing cash drawers, any means to get rich quick. As time marches toward the 21st century and America becomes more diverse, I would hope that education and better job opportunities become a theme in the cycle’s last decade.
King Hedley II was an honorable man caught in a cycle of man for a man, self policing rather than gang violence. By creating this memorable character, August Wilson has brought out a man who has one eye on the past and the other attempting to better himself in the future. This theme has been prevalent in all the plays in the cycle, which is why it would have made a superb family saga with a few tweaks here and there. A lot of the hot button issues that Wilson brings up in these plays are still part of society today. I hope he has the future and a way of getting out of the cycles of poverty and violence on his mind as he brings the cycle to a dramatic finish.
4 stars
The century cycle could be written as a family saga because most of the ten plays take place in Pittsburgh. The majority of the families live in a small home with a yard, occasionally taking in renters, many times multiple generations living together. During the 1980s we find Ruby living with her grown son King and his wife Tonya. King served seven years in prison after killing a man who dishonored his name. Although King told the judge that the killing was in self defense, the all white jury convicted him; however, he had his sentence reduced by three years. Upon earning back his freedom, King attempts to change his ways, yet along with his friend Mister, the two plot, scam, and steal their way toward fast cash. Despite it being a modern setting, the best they could find for steady income was $3.35 an hour. That isn’t going to pay the bills whereas scams could net the scheming duo thousands. Their goal was to become self sufficient and buy a video store so that they would never have to rely on others again. The issue is that their pot came from stolen goods- refrigerators, pawned off jewelry, stolen cash. King and Mister desired their own slice of the American dream; the issue at hand is that neither earned enough to make the dream a reality, forcing them to take matters into their own hands.
Most of the plays contain references to religious themes and magical realism. In previous decades, various characters sought counsel from Aunt Ester, an ancient woman thought to have arrived from Africa. In the first scene we find out that she has died at the age of 366 years old and many believed that it was not her time yet. The entire community shut down their businesses in mourning. Stool Pigeon, a neighbor, believed that he could bring Aunt Ester back to life by performing a ritual in the backyard. It was Aunt Ester who dispensed advice and held the neighborhood together for centuries. Without her presence although he aura was still present, the neighborhood would crumble unless others would take up the mantle of leadership, and no one had what it takes. There was hope; Top fought a contract at city hall, Tonya demanded King that she did not want her life to be based off of stolen goods. She did not want a husband who was destined to spend half his life in jail. Guns and stealing could only get people so far or history would be doomed to repeat itself. All the characters, Wilson maintains, are Aunt Ester’s descendants. If they were to honor her and break out of the cycle of poverty and violence, they would have to do so on their own.
Even though it is the 1980s, there is thankfully no mention of drugs. There are too many mentions of guns although no gangs, which I am surprised do not become a main theme as time marches forward. The older generation still turned to cards and dice and the numbers game to make a quick buck. The younger generation would employ any means necessary even if they risked a jail sentence. A few modern themes rear their head here- teenage pregnancy, discrimination at the workplace, jail sentences. Whites are only mentioned in passing but it is clear from the text that for the most part they are enjoying a better life. I hope that Wilson draws more on this in the last play as he did in the previous one: the best route out of poverty and the cycle of stealing and killing is by getting an education as an avenue to a better life. In this installment, it is not mentioned if any of the characters ever received more than an eighth grade education. Perhaps that is why they turn to craps games, stealing and reselling refrigerators, and robbing cash drawers, any means to get rich quick. As time marches toward the 21st century and America becomes more diverse, I would hope that education and better job opportunities become a theme in the cycle’s last decade.
King Hedley II was an honorable man caught in a cycle of man for a man, self policing rather than gang violence. By creating this memorable character, August Wilson has brought out a man who has one eye on the past and the other attempting to better himself in the future. This theme has been prevalent in all the plays in the cycle, which is why it would have made a superb family saga with a few tweaks here and there. A lot of the hot button issues that Wilson brings up in these plays are still part of society today. I hope he has the future and a way of getting out of the cycles of poverty and violence on his mind as he brings the cycle to a dramatic finish.
4 stars
May 4, 2020
I'll answer the obvious question first: no, King Hedley II is not as good as Fences. I have read all ten plays of August Wilson’s “Century Cycle” except Radio Golf, and not one of them is as good as Fences, that masterpiece of modern drama. Then again, not many plays—by anyone, from anywhere, at anytime—are that good. Wilson, however, has written other very good plays: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, and The Piano Lesson, come immediately to mind. But King Hedley II,though it has fine qualities, is not one of the very good plays.
The plot has possibilities. Set in the 1980’s, the play features a cast of characters enmeshed in a societal decline, caught in the inescapable web of history. Its hero, King Hedley II bears the name of the prophet Hedley featured in Wilson’s earlier Seven Guitars, and part of his destiny is to discover his proper relation to this long vanished father. But he has more immediate problems too. Recently released from prison for murdering a man who cut him in the face, he literally bears the scars of his painful past. Can he move forward, become a success (he wants to open a video store), and make a life for his woman Tonya and the baby she carries? Or will the forces of the past be too much for King?
Wilson makes us feel the urgency of King’s challenges and the enormity of the past, but somehow there is no progress or struggle in Hedley's life—nothing but a unrelated series of hustles and stumbles. The play is loose in construction and disorganized in its effects. True, Wilson has always favored expressionistic techniques and an organic approach to structure, but, in his best work, the rhythms of speech, the power of music, and the hint of a pervasive mystical unity lend to even the most arbitrary misfortunes a sense of purpose and meaning.
Still, I have the nagging sense that I may be wrong about King Hedley II
As always with August Wilson, though, the language of the characters is filled with a convincing music. Here four characters—King, King’s best friend Mister, King’s mother Ruby’s old hustler boyfriend Elmore, and Stool Pigeon, the neighorhood eccentric—discuss how even violence itself doesn’t make the sense it used to anymore:
ELMORE: “Teen Killed in Drive-By.” I’m tired of hearing that. See . . . a man has got to have honor. A man ain’t got no honor can’t be a man . . . Now what is honor? You evedr see that movie where this man goes to kill this other man and he got his back to him and he tell him to turn around so he can see his eyes? That’s honor. A man got to have that else he ain’t a man. You can’t be a man stealing somebody’s life from the backseat of a Toyota. That’s why the black man’s gonna catch hell for the next hundred years. These kids gonna grow up and get old and ain’t a man among them.
KING: It used to be you get killed over something. Now you get killed over nothing.
MISTER: You might look at somebody wrong and get in a fight and get killed over that.
STOOL PIGEON: I see a man get killed over a fish sandwich. Right down there at Cephus’s. Had two fish sandwiches . . . one with hot saucs and one without. Somebody got them mixed up and rthese two fellows got to arguin over them. The next thing you know it was a surprise to God to find out that one of them had six bullets in him.
ELMORE: That’s why I carry my pistol. They got too many fools out there.
August 7, 2017
King Hedley II is the ninth play in August Wilson's Century Cycle. This one was good but like the rest of his plays not as good as Fences. One interesting fact that I noticed in this play was that the character of Aunt Ester, who is the main character in Gem of the Ocean, is mentioned as being 366 years old in King Hedley II (she is not in this play but is mentioned). So I asked myself, "when was Aunt Ester born?". So I subtracted 366 from the year that King Hedley II was set which was 1985 and I got 1619. 1619 is an important year in American history. It's like 1492 but there is no clever rhyme to remember the year's significance. 1619 is the year that the first African slaves were brought to America, specifically Jamestown, VA. She is a symbol of African American history going back to 1619.
I have one play left in order to finish the Century Cycle.
I have one play left in order to finish the Century Cycle.
May 25, 2024
Lock your doors! Close your windows! Turn your lamp down low! We in trouble now. Aunt Ester died! She died! She died! She died!
Aunt Ester, the 366 year old wise woman, heart of the community, dies in King Hedley II. It sets the tone for what is rather a grim and directionless play — the heart has gone out of things. It is my least favorite of Wilson’s Century Cycle of plays, and has been the hardest one for me to reread as I go back through to review them all. It’s August Wilson’s work, so it’s not a bad play, it just doesn’t resonate with me the way most of his others have, and, beyond the dark symbolism of the death of the Aunt Ester (which almost feels like the destruction of the community these plays have been chronicling) I can’t find anything l want to say about it.
Aunt Ester, the 366 year old wise woman, heart of the community, dies in King Hedley II. It sets the tone for what is rather a grim and directionless play — the heart has gone out of things. It is my least favorite of Wilson’s Century Cycle of plays, and has been the hardest one for me to reread as I go back through to review them all. It’s August Wilson’s work, so it’s not a bad play, it just doesn’t resonate with me the way most of his others have, and, beyond the dark symbolism of the death of the Aunt Ester (which almost feels like the destruction of the community these plays have been chronicling) I can’t find anything l want to say about it.
October 29, 2022
This one is solid with lots of possibilities that aren’t realized. The tension is there as is the payoff but the character depth wasn’t as much.
April 16, 2024
"King Hedley II" is August Wilson's play set in the 1980s in the Century Cycle of ten plays. Many of the characters are from the play "Seven Guitars" (set in the 1940s), so it would be more meaningful to see or read that play first.
"King Hedley II" is one of the most tragic of Wilson's plays. Aunt Ester, the matriarch who represents the black women who have dispensed wisdom for centuries, dies. Her name sounds like the word "ancester." This death is a huge loss for the black community in the Hill District of Pittsburgh who depend on her for guidance.
The play centers around King Hedley II, a black man in his thirties. He has spent time in prison, has a hot temper, and wants to get ahead financially. He and Mister come up with illegal schemes, such as selling stolen goods, to get some quick cash so they can open a video store. His wife, Tonya, is pregnant and she does not want her child to have a father in prison, or in a coffin as the victim of violence. She wants King to be present in their lives, and doesn't care about material possessions.
The play is set up like a Greek tragedy with Stool Pigeon acting as the leader of a Greek chorus and providing commentary on the important moments in the play. The cycle of poverty, lack of opportunity, violence, and incarceration are all elements leading to terrible tragedy in this neighborhood.
"King Hedley II" is one of the most tragic of Wilson's plays. Aunt Ester, the matriarch who represents the black women who have dispensed wisdom for centuries, dies. Her name sounds like the word "ancester." This death is a huge loss for the black community in the Hill District of Pittsburgh who depend on her for guidance.
The play centers around King Hedley II, a black man in his thirties. He has spent time in prison, has a hot temper, and wants to get ahead financially. He and Mister come up with illegal schemes, such as selling stolen goods, to get some quick cash so they can open a video store. His wife, Tonya, is pregnant and she does not want her child to have a father in prison, or in a coffin as the victim of violence. She wants King to be present in their lives, and doesn't care about material possessions.
The play is set up like a Greek tragedy with Stool Pigeon acting as the leader of a Greek chorus and providing commentary on the important moments in the play. The cycle of poverty, lack of opportunity, violence, and incarceration are all elements leading to terrible tragedy in this neighborhood.
June 3, 2013
A week and two more plays later, I still don't know if I've found my footing after reading King Hedley II. As I mentioned in Seven Guitars, King Hedley II is the life force of two plays, itself and Seven Guitars. It is perhaps the most straight-up Shakespearean tragedy of the many tragic plays in Wilson's Century Cycle, from the name (though King Hedley II, like his namesake, is not royalty) to the conclusion. King Hedley II plays out on the edge of a blade, on one side there is success, love, and redemption; on the other violence, failure, anger. There are tragedies within tragedies--the tragedies from the past (Elroy, Leroy, and Ruby; the quiet tragedy of Canewell's life; Neesi's death) unfold as we barrel down the path of the play and concurrently, King Hedley's life.
It is a play of secrets--from us (who Stool Pigeon is, though there are breadcrumbs here); from the characters (we know who King Hedley II's father is not before he does). It is a play of answers: again, Stool Pigeon's identity; what happened after King Hedley killed Floyd; who Rose is; who Elroy is; who Leroy is. Secrets extend from Seven Guitars to King Hedley II, inform and shape it. We are given answers from left open questions from the first play; and we learn new questions. And there are legacies here: almost everyone we meet in King Hedley II is tied to their history, to the decisions of those who came before them. In this way, each play's tragedies haunt the other.
There is King Hedley II--a larger, more grand, more damaged version of his nameasake, a signal that family and identity cannot be tied merely to blood (a theme running through the cycle, I would argue). He is a masterful character, the culmination of generations, and the culmination of his own choices. He is seeking to grow, equally propelled and stunted by the anger he carries with him. He comes to terms with his history as we, as readers, learn what that history is: Neesi, the girlfriend who died; the man he killed; the origin of his scar; the history of his own conception.
And if I had concerns about the female characters in Seven Guitars, they were banished in fair part here. Ruby was transformed from one of the most troubling examples of female disempowerment to a fascinating, multidimensional character, whose decisions and growth were perhaps less angry and loud than King's, but no less forceful in the play. And to the same token, Tonya was not quite as fully developed, but it is one of the first relationships in the Cycle where the woman asserts her own needs, fears, and goals in equal consideration with that of her partner. One understood King's yearning for a child, but Tonya's fears, anger--and more importantly, her awareness of self and her own needs and goals--were given full consideration by Tonya and Wilson as playwright, if not by King (whose character was driven toward the possibility of reasserting a good life, as he struggled to understand what that meant or who he needed to learn to include).
And in the background, shaping the play's tenor and drawing together the cycle, is the death of Aunt Ester--of a broken heart. For those she loved, for the failures of the United States to ever, finally, become better than it had been? The most depressing part of this play is that it is set in the 1980s. The violence and racism and oppression--and all the implications they wield for those under the thumb of these forces---is no longer a century ago, or half a century ago, or before the Civil Rights Movement, or so soon thereafter. It is right now: it is here, and it is us. And to add insult to injury--the coroner refused to give Aunt Esther's body back to those who deserved her and loved her, those to whom she had dedicated herself, the disenfranchised, searching, struggling black Americans she mysterious and constantly helped. Her body was kidnapped and desecrated. (And as a side note this remark--not even a scene, just a line of dialogue--summed up perfectly so much of the tone of the play and indeed the whole cycle. It was a deft and cutting moment that encapsulated an enormous amount, another piece of evidence of Wilson's masterful writing).
Wilson has so few pages to work with, and he launches an incredible amount of lives and histories in those pages. I lost count of the number of climaxes in this play; the stories were numerous and they played out in perfect if sometimes chaotic formation; seemingly disparate storylines merged together. Wilson knit histories, characters, themes, stories, hitting one resolution after another in stride toward the play's ultimate conclusion. Not a word is wasted in this play. Having read the next two books in the cycle (opening and closing the century), I'm certainly glad Wilson finished his project. That being said, in some ways King Hedley II reads as its own denouement of the cycle, and could have served as a fitting one.
It is a play of secrets--from us (who Stool Pigeon is, though there are breadcrumbs here); from the characters (we know who King Hedley II's father is not before he does). It is a play of answers: again, Stool Pigeon's identity; what happened after King Hedley killed Floyd; who Rose is; who Elroy is; who Leroy is. Secrets extend from Seven Guitars to King Hedley II, inform and shape it. We are given answers from left open questions from the first play; and we learn new questions. And there are legacies here: almost everyone we meet in King Hedley II is tied to their history, to the decisions of those who came before them. In this way, each play's tragedies haunt the other.
There is King Hedley II--a larger, more grand, more damaged version of his nameasake, a signal that family and identity cannot be tied merely to blood (a theme running through the cycle, I would argue). He is a masterful character, the culmination of generations, and the culmination of his own choices. He is seeking to grow, equally propelled and stunted by the anger he carries with him. He comes to terms with his history as we, as readers, learn what that history is: Neesi, the girlfriend who died; the man he killed; the origin of his scar; the history of his own conception.
And if I had concerns about the female characters in Seven Guitars, they were banished in fair part here. Ruby was transformed from one of the most troubling examples of female disempowerment to a fascinating, multidimensional character, whose decisions and growth were perhaps less angry and loud than King's, but no less forceful in the play. And to the same token, Tonya was not quite as fully developed, but it is one of the first relationships in the Cycle where the woman asserts her own needs, fears, and goals in equal consideration with that of her partner. One understood King's yearning for a child, but Tonya's fears, anger--and more importantly, her awareness of self and her own needs and goals--were given full consideration by Tonya and Wilson as playwright, if not by King (whose character was driven toward the possibility of reasserting a good life, as he struggled to understand what that meant or who he needed to learn to include).
And in the background, shaping the play's tenor and drawing together the cycle, is the death of Aunt Ester--of a broken heart. For those she loved, for the failures of the United States to ever, finally, become better than it had been? The most depressing part of this play is that it is set in the 1980s. The violence and racism and oppression--and all the implications they wield for those under the thumb of these forces---is no longer a century ago, or half a century ago, or before the Civil Rights Movement, or so soon thereafter. It is right now: it is here, and it is us. And to add insult to injury--the coroner refused to give Aunt Esther's body back to those who deserved her and loved her, those to whom she had dedicated herself, the disenfranchised, searching, struggling black Americans she mysterious and constantly helped. Her body was kidnapped and desecrated. (And as a side note this remark--not even a scene, just a line of dialogue--summed up perfectly so much of the tone of the play and indeed the whole cycle. It was a deft and cutting moment that encapsulated an enormous amount, another piece of evidence of Wilson's masterful writing).
Wilson has so few pages to work with, and he launches an incredible amount of lives and histories in those pages. I lost count of the number of climaxes in this play; the stories were numerous and they played out in perfect if sometimes chaotic formation; seemingly disparate storylines merged together. Wilson knit histories, characters, themes, stories, hitting one resolution after another in stride toward the play's ultimate conclusion. Not a word is wasted in this play. Having read the next two books in the cycle (opening and closing the century), I'm certainly glad Wilson finished his project. That being said, in some ways King Hedley II reads as its own denouement of the cycle, and could have served as a fitting one.
March 17, 2013
Set in 1985 and involving two characters from Seven Guitars, King Hedley II is a contemporary tragedy of urban violence and the ninth of ten plays in August Wilson’s Century Cycle. Ruby and Stool Pigeon (called Canewell) are in Seven Guitars. Ruby is Hedley II’s mother; his father is the first Hedley, who kills the blues musician Floyd Barton in the earlier play. Ruby now lives with Hedley, called King, and his wife Tonya. King has a scar on his face, put there by a man he killed and spent time in prison for. The dead man’s cousin has put word on the street that he is looking for King. King and his friend Mister have jobs but work the backside of the law too, dealing probably stolen refrigerators. They also have plans for a robbery and hope to open a video store together with the cash from their various endeavors, legal and not. A character named Elmore, a con man and gambler who has wooed Ruby off and on for decades, turns up.
Ruby and her son do not get along, King believing he was abandoned by his mother to pursue a singing career that came to little. Along with that abandonment, King has lost Mama Louise, the woman Ruby left King with, and his first love Neesi, both of whom died in the years prior to the play’s present.
King, of all of Wilson’s characters, seems to have most clearly stepped out of a Greek tragedy. Maybe said better: Wilson has taken what could be a cliché of urban drama whether presented in film, play or song, and has given it a resonating depth and universality that makes it fresh. King, then, doesn’t so much step out of Greek tragedy but into it. He is impulsive and quick to choose violence, yet he wants something like a normal life. He is a hot mess of contradictions trying to figure out the rules or, hubris, trying to write his own and the gods, real or metaphorical, do not allow that. He wants Tonya who is pregnant and considering an abortion to have the baby but her daughter from an earlier relationship has repeated Tonya’s mistake and become a teenage mom. She loves King but doesn’t trust that he will be around to help raise the child; nor does she trust her parenting skills in the world they live in.
King’s personality is a roller-coaster of optimism and gloom, of possibility and pragmatism, of folly and bitter, violent anger. He and other characters travel a path so rooted in conflict and violated personal honor and historical injustice that rules, promises, responsibilities and intentions get bent or tossed aside to pursue rash actions. Wilson works brilliantly and inventively in the timeless dramatic tradition that runs from Sophocles to Shakespeare to O’Neill. King Hedley II is potent, insightful, and tragically real.
Ruby and her son do not get along, King believing he was abandoned by his mother to pursue a singing career that came to little. Along with that abandonment, King has lost Mama Louise, the woman Ruby left King with, and his first love Neesi, both of whom died in the years prior to the play’s present.
King, of all of Wilson’s characters, seems to have most clearly stepped out of a Greek tragedy. Maybe said better: Wilson has taken what could be a cliché of urban drama whether presented in film, play or song, and has given it a resonating depth and universality that makes it fresh. King, then, doesn’t so much step out of Greek tragedy but into it. He is impulsive and quick to choose violence, yet he wants something like a normal life. He is a hot mess of contradictions trying to figure out the rules or, hubris, trying to write his own and the gods, real or metaphorical, do not allow that. He wants Tonya who is pregnant and considering an abortion to have the baby but her daughter from an earlier relationship has repeated Tonya’s mistake and become a teenage mom. She loves King but doesn’t trust that he will be around to help raise the child; nor does she trust her parenting skills in the world they live in.
King’s personality is a roller-coaster of optimism and gloom, of possibility and pragmatism, of folly and bitter, violent anger. He and other characters travel a path so rooted in conflict and violated personal honor and historical injustice that rules, promises, responsibilities and intentions get bent or tossed aside to pursue rash actions. Wilson works brilliantly and inventively in the timeless dramatic tradition that runs from Sophocles to Shakespeare to O’Neill. King Hedley II is potent, insightful, and tragically real.
December 30, 2024
The ninth of Wilson's ten play century cycle. Many of the ideas in this play have been running through Wilson's century cycle and the main character of King is similar to some of the other male protagonists from the earlier plays. As usual in this cycle, Wilson writes powerfully about the African American experience, especially through the male perspective. This play is set in 1985, when the Reagan economy seemed to be working for many Americans, but not within the black community. Joblessness and alienation are widespread amongst the men. There is tension and the possibility of violence erupting seems to be just below the surface.
One aspect of this play that I like is the reintroduction of some of the characters from an earlier play, "Seven Guitars" who are now some thirty years older. It gives the story continuity and connects the themes of the entire cycle more tightly. As I move to the last play in the cycle, "Radio Golf" I must applaud Wilson for writing a monumental analysis of the black experience in America. It is a rich cycle of ideas, and he has developed plays that are insightful, moving, and challenging. "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" is still my favorite play in the cycle, but I am impressed by the high standard that Wilson has reached throughout this century cycle. Such a worthy reading experience!
One aspect of this play that I like is the reintroduction of some of the characters from an earlier play, "Seven Guitars" who are now some thirty years older. It gives the story continuity and connects the themes of the entire cycle more tightly. As I move to the last play in the cycle, "Radio Golf" I must applaud Wilson for writing a monumental analysis of the black experience in America. It is a rich cycle of ideas, and he has developed plays that are insightful, moving, and challenging. "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" is still my favorite play in the cycle, but I am impressed by the high standard that Wilson has reached throughout this century cycle. Such a worthy reading experience!
Read
August 31, 2024"You got King Hedley II and then you got King Hedley III. Got rocky dirt. Got glass and bottles. But it still deserve to live."
a high watermark of wilson's work. difficult and thorny, full of ugly histories and grim, impossible futures. likely the most exceptional thing i've read all year.
a high watermark of wilson's work. difficult and thorny, full of ugly histories and grim, impossible futures. likely the most exceptional thing i've read all year.
September 1, 2007
not as enamored of this play as Jitney
but it did stimulate the old brain pan
and i like the idea of a single set in fiction
but it did stimulate the old brain pan
and i like the idea of a single set in fiction
February 3, 2013
All that for a cat?
April 17, 2023
Woah. Hmmmmmmm
October 28, 2019
What?!? What!?!?
March 15, 2019
King Hedley II is a poignant and tragic play, one of a series of poignant and tragic plays by the author, in which a black man ends up being both defined and doomed by his proud and brittle code of honor which forces him to avenge wrongs done to him by others. In providing us with a play which has a very dark look at life in the seemy and violent underbelly of 1980's America, we witness the sort of tensions that make family ties a challenge and also look at the murderous secrets that hide just beneath the surface that make pleasant and tranquil family life impossible for violent men (and women) seeking for dignity and their piece of the American pie, even if it tends to involve a lot of shady behavior, as is the case here. Like many of the author's other plays, this particular volume is centered in a Pittsburgh where ex-cons and their womenfolk ponder about the possibility of marriage and where the threat of violence and arrest is never far away for those whose desires to make it big do not include a high degree of interest in obeying the law.
The action of this play is straightforward enough, focused on a household where an ex-con, King Hedley II and his associate, Mister, seek to make money by selling stolen fridges to the local black population, while engaged in other forms of theft as well which include stealing from a jewelry store. Hedley has a troubled relationship his wife/main girl Tonya, who has an abortion and claims it to be because of her fear that Hedley wants a child but isn't going to be alive or out of jail to help provide for the family he wants. Meanwhile, Hedley's mother has been carrying on a long-term relationship with the shady and shiftless ex-con Elmore while Stool Pigeon brings ambiguous discussion about prophecy and God's judgment on a fallen society. A great deal of the discussion ends up turning around the question of violence--whether we are looking at the violence of abortion against the unborn, the violence of black men to other black men because of taunts and attacks to honor, and the violence that cross generational lines as sons seek to avenge their fathers at terrible cost to themselves as well as the well-being of their families.
The end of this play is one of the most pointed tragedies that one can imagine and it forces upon the reader the understanding of the sorts of choices that are faced by people when it comes to their own happiness as opposed to the well-being of their children. While Wilson has frequently dealt with the troubled relationships between fathers and sons, here the author places the relationship between a mother and her son as as being at the heart of the play's dark and tragic nature. Indeed, this play presents motherhood as itself the source of a great deal of tragedy, when it comes to the way that many mothers simply do not want to bring forth children, show a reluctance to accept marriage as being conducive to the well-being of both men and women, and often pit their own desire to protect and defend their own sexual interests even at the cost of subjecting their children to intense violence. All of these are the subject of real problems in the black community and far from it (some of these themes, indeed, have shaped my own existence) and all of them present the reader of this play with a deep understanding of the brokenness of community in Wilson's plays.
The action of this play is straightforward enough, focused on a household where an ex-con, King Hedley II and his associate, Mister, seek to make money by selling stolen fridges to the local black population, while engaged in other forms of theft as well which include stealing from a jewelry store. Hedley has a troubled relationship his wife/main girl Tonya, who has an abortion and claims it to be because of her fear that Hedley wants a child but isn't going to be alive or out of jail to help provide for the family he wants. Meanwhile, Hedley's mother has been carrying on a long-term relationship with the shady and shiftless ex-con Elmore while Stool Pigeon brings ambiguous discussion about prophecy and God's judgment on a fallen society. A great deal of the discussion ends up turning around the question of violence--whether we are looking at the violence of abortion against the unborn, the violence of black men to other black men because of taunts and attacks to honor, and the violence that cross generational lines as sons seek to avenge their fathers at terrible cost to themselves as well as the well-being of their families.
The end of this play is one of the most pointed tragedies that one can imagine and it forces upon the reader the understanding of the sorts of choices that are faced by people when it comes to their own happiness as opposed to the well-being of their children. While Wilson has frequently dealt with the troubled relationships between fathers and sons, here the author places the relationship between a mother and her son as as being at the heart of the play's dark and tragic nature. Indeed, this play presents motherhood as itself the source of a great deal of tragedy, when it comes to the way that many mothers simply do not want to bring forth children, show a reluctance to accept marriage as being conducive to the well-being of both men and women, and often pit their own desire to protect and defend their own sexual interests even at the cost of subjecting their children to intense violence. All of these are the subject of real problems in the black community and far from it (some of these themes, indeed, have shaped my own existence) and all of them present the reader of this play with a deep understanding of the brokenness of community in Wilson's plays.
October 20, 2019
Hits hard at the end. Gorgeous.
October 18, 2017
Slowly but surely, I've made my way through Wilson's Pittsburgh cycle. As almost all of the reviewers attest, it's a stunning series with profound insights into the generational evils of systemic injustice, populated with characters who can be deeply flawed and quietly heroic. King Headly II, which takes place in the 1980's, is no exception.
You can get a much better plot synopsis elsewhere. Simply, the story revolves around King, a hard-edged local who, like other mythological heroes, is admirable but wounded. He's trying to turn a corner and stabilize his life in the community, but the elder Elmore is back in town, and he's eager to unload a burden that could threaten King's lineage and his standing in the Hill District.
I've been reading these plays through the lens of racial equity and systemic oppression. It's clear, through that lens, that we see valiant and brilliant people tested, deformed and destroyed by that oppression. We also see resilience, bravery and transcendent wisdom, too. However, plays like King Hedley II also intersect with more broad frameworks of masculinity. King is plagued by discrimination, but also by an inability to reciprocate in his relationships. Ruby tries to keep King safe; he sees it as intrusion. Tonya seeks emotional intimacy and a partnership of security; King can only frame the strength of their relationship through a baby. Even Elmore, in his flawed way, seeks to honor King with the brutal truth; King sees it as a warrant for blood.
There's a terrible tragedy that flows from this, made even more tragic because it comes at the moment of King's greatest growth, his willingness to learn from the past and to set aside a grudge. But it should serve as a reminder to all of us readers: the real-life violence we see in oppressed communities is spawned not merely by the character flaws of those who engage in violence, but by the conditions and stresses people live within. That makes the tragedy ours.
You can get a much better plot synopsis elsewhere. Simply, the story revolves around King, a hard-edged local who, like other mythological heroes, is admirable but wounded. He's trying to turn a corner and stabilize his life in the community, but the elder Elmore is back in town, and he's eager to unload a burden that could threaten King's lineage and his standing in the Hill District.
I've been reading these plays through the lens of racial equity and systemic oppression. It's clear, through that lens, that we see valiant and brilliant people tested, deformed and destroyed by that oppression. We also see resilience, bravery and transcendent wisdom, too. However, plays like King Hedley II also intersect with more broad frameworks of masculinity. King is plagued by discrimination, but also by an inability to reciprocate in his relationships. Ruby tries to keep King safe; he sees it as intrusion. Tonya seeks emotional intimacy and a partnership of security; King can only frame the strength of their relationship through a baby. Even Elmore, in his flawed way, seeks to honor King with the brutal truth; King sees it as a warrant for blood.
There's a terrible tragedy that flows from this, made even more tragic because it comes at the moment of King's greatest growth, his willingness to learn from the past and to set aside a grudge. But it should serve as a reminder to all of us readers: the real-life violence we see in oppressed communities is spawned not merely by the character flaws of those who engage in violence, but by the conditions and stresses people live within. That makes the tragedy ours.
May 14, 2014
Well, I read this a long time ago in like a 7 hour version...or, at least, it felt that way. This version was much more manageable to read and it's really cool to see how August edited his plays. Anyway, I'm sure this is one of the more difficult of the cycle to act and direct, but, nonetheless, a really insightful play on the African-American experience of the mid-1980s. It was also cool to the see the child that Ruby was carrying in SEVEN GUITARS and how he emulated King Hedley I. It was also interesting to Canewell (also from SEVEN GUITARS) come back as a "stool pigeon". It also seems that the fact that Aunt Ester dies in this one also brings about the gentrification of the last play, RADIO GOLF, because the people of the neighborhood have lost their spiritual ties.
From the back cover: "Set in 1985 in two tenement backyards in Pittsburgh's Hill District, KING HEDLEY II continues playwright August Wilson's monumental cycle of plays chronicling African American life in twentieth century America. An epic tragedy of the common man and the crushing weight of everyday life and our ultimate struggle to regain our sense of community and culture in a crumbling urban society."
I had several dog-eared quotes I like, but this one was my favorite: "I ain't sorry for nothing I done. And ain't gonna be sorry. I'm gonna see to that. 'Cause I'm gonna do the right thing. Always. It ain't in me to do nothing else. We might disagree about what that is. But I know what is right for me. As long as I draw a breath in my body I'm gonna do the right thing for me. What I got to be sorry for?"
From the back cover: "Set in 1985 in two tenement backyards in Pittsburgh's Hill District, KING HEDLEY II continues playwright August Wilson's monumental cycle of plays chronicling African American life in twentieth century America. An epic tragedy of the common man and the crushing weight of everyday life and our ultimate struggle to regain our sense of community and culture in a crumbling urban society."
I had several dog-eared quotes I like, but this one was my favorite: "I ain't sorry for nothing I done. And ain't gonna be sorry. I'm gonna see to that. 'Cause I'm gonna do the right thing. Always. It ain't in me to do nothing else. We might disagree about what that is. But I know what is right for me. As long as I draw a breath in my body I'm gonna do the right thing for me. What I got to be sorry for?"
April 20, 2021
There are lukewarm reviews here on King Hedley II. Well, I have led discussion groups on the complete 10 plays of the American Century Cycle for the past four years and I find nothing lacking in King Hedley II. In fact, it may well be the August Wilson "sleeper" of the series. I will post my notes here for one of the sessions (we are in #5 right now) along with a link to my substack where I am transferring my material on all the plays (see link at the end of this review).
Session #3 notes on King Hedley II (5.8.2019)
I’d like to focus on just three elements of this penultimate play in the American Century Cycle. First, there is the structure of the play, especially with the single narrator Prologue by Stool Pigeon, formerly known as Canewell the harmonica player in Seven Guitars, an expert on roosters. If this play were a Greek tragedy, and some may argue that it may be, Stool Pigeon fulfills the role of the Greek Chorus, and of Coryphaeus, the leader of the Greek Chorus, in the Prologue, and everywhere he speaks in the play. Let that sink in for a minute, then go back through the play and attribute all Stool Pigeon’s speaking parts to the Greek Chorus, beginning at the very end of Scene 1, “Lock your doors! Close your windows! Turn your lamps down low! We in trouble now. Aunt Ester died! She died! She died! She died!“
In brief, the function of the chorus in Greek Drama is to provide commentary on actions and events occurring in the play, to allow time and space to the playwright to control the atmosphere and expectations of the audience, to allow the playwright to prepare the audience for key moments in the storyline, and to underline certain elements and downplay others. Go back and re-read Stool Pigeon’s parts and it becomes evident that is the role he is playing.
And oh, by the way, Stool Pigeon often quoted the Bible throughout the play. But guess what? None of those quotes are actually from the Bible that most folks know about. I postulated in an earlier session that his quotes may actually be from The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, a book written in the early 1900’s that became popular among New Age spiritual groups in the 70’s and 80’s.
The second element that stood out during my reading was King’s insistence, first to Mister (in Act 1 Scene 1) and later to Elmore (in Act 2 Scene 1), that he had a halo above his head. (Could have also been early signs of glaucoma!) King is alerting folks around him (and in the audience) that he has been singled out for a special purpose, a special mission in life.
The play is a tragedy for King. Nothing works out right. He has been lied to all his life about his parentage. He has resorted to a life of petty crime. Now his wife has promised to abort the baby he had high hopes of raising, in his mind possibly his last chance at redemption. He had a relationship with Aunt Ester, and she gave him a gold key ring, but without a key (we’ll get back to that in the third element).
Tonya’s monologue on abortion is the the longest in the play. Abortion can be a touchy subject but the fact that it occupies so much real estate in the play forces us to face it squarely. Tonya’s defense is persuasive (to everybody except King) and equally compelling. Abortions are legal after Roe v. Wade, accessible, and relatively inexpensive. By all measures, it is a convenient option for Tonya for all the reasons she so eloquently states.
But historical numbers and trends tell an interesting story, one to which August Wilson calls our attention. In the aggregate, CDC reports 45,789,558 abortions performed in the U.S. between 1970 and 2015 (California, Maryland and New Hampshire do not report abortions to CDC, so this is by definition an undercount). In 2013, CDC reported 134,814 (37.3%) white, 128,682 (35.6%) black, and 68,761 (19.0) (Hispanic) abortions performed (same under-reporting applies, but overall percentages have been trending lower for whites and higher for blacks and Hispanics over the past few years). Without going into much detail, simple arithmetic says over 16 million black babies have been aborted since 1970.
Hedley explains at the end of Act 2 Scene 3 what, to him, is the significance of this pregnancy:
“That’s why I need this baby, not ’cause I took something out of the world, but because I wanna put something in it. Let everybody know I was here. You got King Hedley II and then you got King Hedley III. Got rocky dirt. Got glass and bottles. But it still deserves to live. Even if you do have to call the undertaker. Even if somebody come along and pull it out by the root. It still deserve to live. It still deserves that chance.”
Spoiler alert! At the end of the play King dies a grisly, ritualistic death, cementing his personal tragedy. But there is yet redemption in King’s ultimate price payment. His spilled blood (he is shot in the neck) makes its way to the grave of Aunt Ester’s cat and the cat returns to life (magical realism) with a meow as the lights go down and the set fades to black. Maybe it means there is a possibility for a resurrection of Aunt Ester and salvation for her people. We have to read Act Three to know for sure.
OK. The third element. The Key to the Mountain. Early in Act 2, Scene 5, King returned to the yard, having learned earlier that Leroy was his real father, and carrying his false father’s machete, loaded for bear (Elmore). Scene 5 has competing choruses, spurring King on to two alternate and opposite outcomes. Mister, son of Red Carter in Seven Guitars, tells King, “Blood for blood,” urging him to fulfill a destiny of extracting revenge, that will surely result in his death. Meanwhile, Stool Pigeon reminds King, “You got the Key to the Mountain,” which is forgiveness even in the face of a great wrong, an alternate destiny that results in life. King chooses forgiveness, sticking the machete into the ground. In turn, Elmore chooses to forgive, firing his gun into the ground and not towards King. Then, confused perhaps from the sounds in the yard, Ruby appears and fires the pistol Mister gave her, without looking perhaps, we don’t really know, fatally shooting King in the throat.
In the battle of competing choruses, Stool Pigeon wins out, King fulfills his destiny, and his sacrifice restores life to Aunt Ester.
Notes on all the plays in the Cycle: https://raymondmaxwell.substack.com/
Session #3 notes on King Hedley II (5.8.2019)
I’d like to focus on just three elements of this penultimate play in the American Century Cycle. First, there is the structure of the play, especially with the single narrator Prologue by Stool Pigeon, formerly known as Canewell the harmonica player in Seven Guitars, an expert on roosters. If this play were a Greek tragedy, and some may argue that it may be, Stool Pigeon fulfills the role of the Greek Chorus, and of Coryphaeus, the leader of the Greek Chorus, in the Prologue, and everywhere he speaks in the play. Let that sink in for a minute, then go back through the play and attribute all Stool Pigeon’s speaking parts to the Greek Chorus, beginning at the very end of Scene 1, “Lock your doors! Close your windows! Turn your lamps down low! We in trouble now. Aunt Ester died! She died! She died! She died!“
In brief, the function of the chorus in Greek Drama is to provide commentary on actions and events occurring in the play, to allow time and space to the playwright to control the atmosphere and expectations of the audience, to allow the playwright to prepare the audience for key moments in the storyline, and to underline certain elements and downplay others. Go back and re-read Stool Pigeon’s parts and it becomes evident that is the role he is playing.
And oh, by the way, Stool Pigeon often quoted the Bible throughout the play. But guess what? None of those quotes are actually from the Bible that most folks know about. I postulated in an earlier session that his quotes may actually be from The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, a book written in the early 1900’s that became popular among New Age spiritual groups in the 70’s and 80’s.
The second element that stood out during my reading was King’s insistence, first to Mister (in Act 1 Scene 1) and later to Elmore (in Act 2 Scene 1), that he had a halo above his head. (Could have also been early signs of glaucoma!) King is alerting folks around him (and in the audience) that he has been singled out for a special purpose, a special mission in life.
The play is a tragedy for King. Nothing works out right. He has been lied to all his life about his parentage. He has resorted to a life of petty crime. Now his wife has promised to abort the baby he had high hopes of raising, in his mind possibly his last chance at redemption. He had a relationship with Aunt Ester, and she gave him a gold key ring, but without a key (we’ll get back to that in the third element).
Tonya’s monologue on abortion is the the longest in the play. Abortion can be a touchy subject but the fact that it occupies so much real estate in the play forces us to face it squarely. Tonya’s defense is persuasive (to everybody except King) and equally compelling. Abortions are legal after Roe v. Wade, accessible, and relatively inexpensive. By all measures, it is a convenient option for Tonya for all the reasons she so eloquently states.
But historical numbers and trends tell an interesting story, one to which August Wilson calls our attention. In the aggregate, CDC reports 45,789,558 abortions performed in the U.S. between 1970 and 2015 (California, Maryland and New Hampshire do not report abortions to CDC, so this is by definition an undercount). In 2013, CDC reported 134,814 (37.3%) white, 128,682 (35.6%) black, and 68,761 (19.0) (Hispanic) abortions performed (same under-reporting applies, but overall percentages have been trending lower for whites and higher for blacks and Hispanics over the past few years). Without going into much detail, simple arithmetic says over 16 million black babies have been aborted since 1970.
Hedley explains at the end of Act 2 Scene 3 what, to him, is the significance of this pregnancy:
“That’s why I need this baby, not ’cause I took something out of the world, but because I wanna put something in it. Let everybody know I was here. You got King Hedley II and then you got King Hedley III. Got rocky dirt. Got glass and bottles. But it still deserves to live. Even if you do have to call the undertaker. Even if somebody come along and pull it out by the root. It still deserve to live. It still deserves that chance.”
Spoiler alert! At the end of the play King dies a grisly, ritualistic death, cementing his personal tragedy. But there is yet redemption in King’s ultimate price payment. His spilled blood (he is shot in the neck) makes its way to the grave of Aunt Ester’s cat and the cat returns to life (magical realism) with a meow as the lights go down and the set fades to black. Maybe it means there is a possibility for a resurrection of Aunt Ester and salvation for her people. We have to read Act Three to know for sure.
OK. The third element. The Key to the Mountain. Early in Act 2, Scene 5, King returned to the yard, having learned earlier that Leroy was his real father, and carrying his false father’s machete, loaded for bear (Elmore). Scene 5 has competing choruses, spurring King on to two alternate and opposite outcomes. Mister, son of Red Carter in Seven Guitars, tells King, “Blood for blood,” urging him to fulfill a destiny of extracting revenge, that will surely result in his death. Meanwhile, Stool Pigeon reminds King, “You got the Key to the Mountain,” which is forgiveness even in the face of a great wrong, an alternate destiny that results in life. King chooses forgiveness, sticking the machete into the ground. In turn, Elmore chooses to forgive, firing his gun into the ground and not towards King. Then, confused perhaps from the sounds in the yard, Ruby appears and fires the pistol Mister gave her, without looking perhaps, we don’t really know, fatally shooting King in the throat.
In the battle of competing choruses, Stool Pigeon wins out, King fulfills his destiny, and his sacrifice restores life to Aunt Ester.
Notes on all the plays in the Cycle: https://raymondmaxwell.substack.com/
January 18, 2018
When referring to the Pittsburgh Cycle from here on out, let’s not refer to it as the African-American experience of the 20th century but rather the experience of African-American MEN in the 20th century.
Once again, there’s not much in King Hedley II to differentiate it from other plays in the cycle. There’s the men with big dreams and big talk, the token put-upon woman, and societal inequality. All of these things are legit bases for play, but this play, like most others in the cycle, feel like it could be set at any time and in any city. There’s nothing much tying it to the 1980s – there are mentions to characters from earlier plays, but it’s not enough to make it feel like this story has to be told in THIS place and time.
There’s no doubt that writing ten plays that take place over a century is an enormous achievement, but I’m not convinced the actual plays are as good as I’ve been told. Quasi-recommended.
Once again, there’s not much in King Hedley II to differentiate it from other plays in the cycle. There’s the men with big dreams and big talk, the token put-upon woman, and societal inequality. All of these things are legit bases for play, but this play, like most others in the cycle, feel like it could be set at any time and in any city. There’s nothing much tying it to the 1980s – there are mentions to characters from earlier plays, but it’s not enough to make it feel like this story has to be told in THIS place and time.
There’s no doubt that writing ten plays that take place over a century is an enormous achievement, but I’m not convinced the actual plays are as good as I’ve been told. Quasi-recommended.
December 15, 2012
I've been spending the year reading Wilson's Century Cycle. I decided to read them in the order they take place, not the order they were written. This may have been a dumb decision. It turns if I had read them in the order Wilson wrote them I would have read Seven Guitars right before Hedley, which would have probably been preferred, considering Hedley is basically Guitars's sequel. Having read the plays the way I did, Seven Guitars was 3 plays ago and I didn't remember much. Now this doesn't hurt Hedley at all, but it did make things a little jarring from time to time. "I remember that. Oh wait, do I?," I thought a lot. This is probably the darkest of the cycle and it is quite good, I just wish I had read this and Guitars back to back. I'll probably reread those as such in the near future.
December 16, 2014
One of a series of plays set in Pittsburg, PA in each of the decades of the 20th century all with Black characters and all in the same impoverished neighborhood, the Hill section. Several of the plays were hits on Broadway and Off.
Only two of the plays have some of the same characters, this one and Seven Guitars which takes place 30 years earlier.
It's 1985 and King Hedley II, the son of a popular singer who is also in both plays, has just come out of the pen and is determined to build a new life as a video rental store owner with his partner Mister. His wife is pregnant, he's planting a garden for her, he's full of hope in a situation where the deck is stacked against him and he adds a few cards to that deck.
Only two of the plays have some of the same characters, this one and Seven Guitars which takes place 30 years earlier.
It's 1985 and King Hedley II, the son of a popular singer who is also in both plays, has just come out of the pen and is determined to build a new life as a video rental store owner with his partner Mister. His wife is pregnant, he's planting a garden for her, he's full of hope in a situation where the deck is stacked against him and he adds a few cards to that deck.
April 27, 2015
King Hedley II is a decent play but doesn't strike me with the originality of the other plays in the cycle. It's nice to have some closure around the frayed and sudden ending of Seven Guitars but it almost feels like fan service. The eventual conclusion of this play is telegraphed pretty early and comes across more hamhandedly than I expected.
March 16, 2017
King Hedley II continues 7 Guitars in a form and fashion, and there are some beautiful monologues which touch upon dreams deferred and rebuilding lives. I liked it and didn't love it, though there are just turns of phrase and rhythms to the speech that August Wilson just captures beautifully. His prose soars.
February 25, 2017
I'm a huge fan of August Wilson, and with King Hedley II, I have now completed the Century Cycle. Wilson always has engaging characters that allow you to see the progress and struggle of the African-American community within a given decade. Amazing story with great depth, but as usual, I am not fond of Wilson's endings. It is, however, a fantastic read full of rich detail.
February 27, 2018
I saw this at Kenny Leon's True Colors theatre and I was very impressed with the quality for the production. As the last play in Wilson's Century Cycle, it's a frightening condemnation of what the 20th Century meant for black people, and its focus on gun violence could not have come at a more relevant time.
September 21, 2019
It's set in 1985 and tells the story of an ex-con in post-Reagan Pittsburgh trying to rebuild his life. Very bleak, chaotic...everyone has his own rules...lots of selfishness. Urban America at the nadir.
November 28, 2016
1985 in August Wilson's century is a devastated urban landscape undone by too much violence and excessive material longing, without the comforts of community and spiritual nurturing as a counterbalance as in other periods he dramatized.
October 5, 2021
A masterfully written play! Beautifuly deep themes, and an interesting story. Definitely a surprising ending as well. I expect nothing less from such a critically acclaimed writer such as August Wilson!
April 17, 2011
King and Mister search for ways to get the money to buy a video store. King won't get the chance.
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