Actors’ Shakespeare Project brings August Wilson’s ‘King Hedley II’ to Hibernian Hall

Celina Colby

Celina Colby is an arts and travel reporter with a fondness for Russian novels.... VIEW BIO

King Hedley II returns from a prison sentence in 1985 to find his Pittsburgh community in crisis, burdened with violence, the effects of redlining and the unfulfilled promises of Reagan economics. He desperately wants to be able to support his family on the straight and narrow, but the path to his dream of owning a video store is filled with twists and turns.

So begins “King Hedley II,” the penultimate piece in playwright August Wilson’s American Century Cycle. Actors’ Shakespeare Project presents the piece at Hibernian Hall this month, fresh off the success of Wilson’s “Seven Guitars” last season, the company’s most successful production of all time. “King Hedley II,” performed by an all-Black cast and directed by acclaimed local talent Summer L. Williams, seems destined for the same success.

“August Wilson seamlessly captures the nucleus of the Black experience in a way that hits home for all those who can relate and have gone through some of that,” says James Ricardo Milord, who plays the title character.

James Ricardo Milord in the title role. PHOTO: MAGGIE HALL PHOTOGRAPHY

“King Hedley II” has been described as one of Wilson’s darkest works, but Milford disagrees with that phrasing. A “dark work” seems to imply exaggeration, but Milford says it’s the gritty realism of the play that unnerves viewers.

“There’s a poignancy to ‘King Hedley’ that’s uncomfortable,” says Milford. “I think that’s what some may consider dark … but in my humble opinion, it’s because of how well he captures what’s happening to people in a specific time in America.”

Those challenges weren’t specific just to Pittsburgh, nor just to this time period, though trickle-down economic policies were a factor. This production is at Hibernian Hall in the heart of Nubian Square, a reminder that Boston’s Black populations experienced and continue to experience similar inequities.

“As an itinerant theater company, we have a unique ability to bring high-quality and intimate theatre to all corners of Boston,” says Actors’ Shakespeare Project Artistic Director Christopher V. Edwards. “And we’ve always been welcomed so graciously and enthusiastically when we perform in Roxbury.”

Wilson’s American Century Cycle spans the entirety of the 20th century, illustrating Black life, beginning with formerly enslaved people grappling with their identities in the early 1900s, through the Great Migration, up to King Hedley stealing refrigerators in the 1980s to make a more stable life for his family, and finally into the 1990s, with the experience and dilemmas of the Black middle class. Wilson is one of the most significant playwrights in American history, and this performance is a love letter to Black creativity in this country.

“I love to see how that manifests itself, when it’s Black voices, when it’s Black essence, when it’s Black faces, when it’s Black words,” says Milford. “When you have Black creativity, the powers look different.”

“King Hedley II” runs at Hibernian Hall through March 31. Tickets range from $20–60.