REVIEW ROUNDUP: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Delroy Lindo, et al. Open in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone at the Young Vic

The Young Vic’s revival of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone opened officially on June 3. David Lan has directed the production which will continue through July 3.

Part of Wilson’s 10-play Pittsburgh cycle, the work is set in the year 1911 and tells the story of a man who finds himself in an unusual Pittsburgh boarding house on a journey north. The company features Adjoa Andoh, Brandon Benoit-Joyce, Daniel Cerqueira, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Petra Letang, Delroy Lindo, Nathaniel Martello-White, Tapiwa Mugweni, Leah Ocran, Demi Oyediran, Jessica Richardson, Danny Sapani, and Riann Steele.

The creative team for the production includes Patrick Burnier (production design), Mike Gunning (lighting design), and Gareth Fry (sound design).

The initial reviews are in and Lan’s production is receiving praise, as is Wilson’s writing. While the cast members are receiving almost unanimous glowing notices, two of the performers are being singled out for their work: Delroy Lindo, who was seen in the original Broadway production, who plays Bynum Walker, and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, who is playing Herald Loomis.

Among the reviews are:

Daily Telegraph
Joe Turner’s Come and Gone: Young Vic, review
“…the drama, lovingly directed by David Lan and played on a set, by Patrick Burnier, covered in compacted soil as a reminder of the rural roots of many of the characters, proves both amusing and deeply moving. At times one might be watching a black American Chekhov.”

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“The performances are superb, with especially fine work from Danny Sapani as the cantankerous but basically good-hearted Seth, Adjoa Andoh as his kind loving wife, Delroy Lindo as the wise, mysterious Bynum, and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, who brings a fierce sense of anger and anguish to the stage as Loomis.”

Evening Standard
Snapshot of black lives in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
“Nonetheless, Joe Turner (1986), with his meandering comings and goings, isn’t one of the project’s highlights, as David Lan’s sometimes over-languid production emphasises.”

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“There’s much fine work from a talented ensemble, in particular from those who bring the more marginal characters to richly realised life in just a couple of scenes. Kobna Holdbrook-Smith has a nice line in monodirectional intensity as Loomis, although he needs to make far more of a key speech that details his Joe Turner years.”

Whatsonstage.com
Joe Turner’s Come and Gone
“David Lan’s Young Vic production is a fearless mix of the everyday pain and spiritual aspiration in a 1911 Pittsburgh boarding house…”

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“…Herald Loomis, whom the brilliant Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, a star in the recent Tricycle black theatre season, plays as a parched obsessive in search of his vanished wife, with a docile daughter in tow.”

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“Bynum is played by the hypnotically powerful American actor Delroy Lindo, who played Herald on Broadway over twenty years ago. He becomes the conduit and catalyst in the psychological action, which remains tethered in everyday rituals of meal times and recreation…”

For further information, visit: www.youngvic.org.