Timeless ‘Joe Turner’s Come and Gone’ richly acted by Goodman Theatre’s all-Chicago cast

Many who have seen a significant number of August Wilson’s plays end up choosing a favorite from his seminal 10-play Century Cycle of the African American experience in the 20th century.

Or maybe the favorite chooses you. I think Wilson would probably say it’s the latter.

Either way, mine is “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” now receiving a big, richly acted revival at the Goodman Theatre.

For me, this play, first produced in 1986 and feeling timeless, represents the ultimate expression of Wilson’s indelible artistry. It beautifully blends realism, lyricism and mysticism in a manner both unique and reminiscent of classical dramatists like Sophocles and Shakespeare. The ensemble storyline captures not just a time and place, but a core theme he’d continue to express throughout his cycle. We’re all searching for something in life, and probably looking in the wrong direction: outward rather than inward, or only forward with no sense of the past.

Set in 1911, the play takes place in a Pittsburgh boarding house, at the start of the Great Migration, a time when an entire generation of African Americans were on the move, searching for their future and in many cases, such as the central figure Herald Loomis (A.C. Smith), looking for people from their past. Telephones were ultra-rare. Professional finders, such as the play’s character Selig (Gary Houston), would go around knocking on doors, selling wares and also asking if they’d seen so-and-so.

An image of an industrial steel factory — representing economic opportunity and yet also an ominous destructiveness — dominates the rear of Linda Buchanan’s set. Surrounding the proscenium, there’s an uncountable number of small rooms — cubbies might be a better word — with a table, chair and a small suitcase. The sheer volume of them expresses the scope of the movement North, the grayness of the pieces providing a sense of what’s left behind, a type of blurred collective memory.

Director Chuck Smith brings out from this all-Chicago cast a collection of performances both convincing and evocative. As the owner of the house Seth Holley, Dexter Zollicoffer magnificently mixes mathematical utilitarianism with a comically intense unease about Herald Loomis’ foreboding presence. And his oft-foil, tenant Bynum Walker — a shamanistic figure who has found, or chosen, or been given his “song” as a “conjurer” who binds people together — is portrayed by Tim Rhoze with authoritative folk wisdom. Seth puts up with Bynum’s “mumbo jumbo” — for the sake of his wife Bertha (TayLar), he insists — and, in a genius and exceedingly amusing choice, stops talking momentarily when either one says a silent prayer, only to immediately pick up again at the same volume.

Anthony Fleming III brings an oversized personality to Jeremy Furlow, a character who epitomizes the vast array of men streaming into the city, where work on building roads is easy to find. He makes a quick connection with Nambi E. Kelly’s immediately sympathetic Mattie Campbell, a young woman looking for a guy who’ll stick, even if she needs some “binding” help from Bynum. And Krystel V. McNeil brings abundant confidence, and a touch of condescension, to Molly Cunningham, an independent woman who’s not sure where she’ll go next but for sure knows it won’t be South.

But Smith’s Herald Loomis becomes the focus. He appears at the house with his young daughter Zonia (Kylah Renee Jones). For years, they’ve been searching for his wife Martha, who had moved North while he was unwittingly bound into post-Emancipation indentured servitude by the titular Joe Turner. Smith gets that Loomis lives both in the real and the mystical worlds of this play, embodying both the continuing torture of the past, as well as the sense that he’s impacted by some uncontrollable force that could trigger an explosion at any moment. Smith excels at the explosions more than at the character’s sensitive qualities, but his Herald certainly comes across as bigger-than-life.

Unfortunately, the intense, final scene of this play is also the least satisfying here. At the very moment of essential revelation, those proscenium-placed cubbies suddenly change color, distracting us from what is already a challenging, fleeting climax, and sending us off with a sense of the unfinished when it should, and could, be transcendent.

Like many a Wilson character, the production looks in the wrong direction — away from the playing and not right in it — for its payoff. But in this case, it’s important to realize that “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” can be treasured for its journey, and not just its final destination.