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His refusal to take the blame, and a city already in chaos is drastically changed by the decision of two men in Aunt Ester’s home.Ī.C. The Gem of The Ocean tells the story of Blacks’ plight endured by white hands that caused riots across Pittsburgh’s Hill District.Īs one man refuses to confess to a crime of stealing a bucket of nails he didn’t commit, he jumps into the river and drowns. Sydney Charles (Black Mary) Photo by Liz Lauren

Smith (Eli), Sharif Atkins (Citizen Barlow), Lisa Gaye Dixon (Aunt Ester). Eli tells him to come back on Tuesday, but Citizen needs help now, so he sneaks in through a window and learns from Aunt Ester about a journey he must take on a legendary slave boat, Gem of the Ocean, to see the mythological City of Bones. The people know Aunt Ester as a healer, so when a young man named Citizen Barlow does something that vexes his soul, he comes to her abode seeking a cleansing. Lisa Gaye Dixon (Aunt Ester) Photo by Liz Lauren Sydney Charles (Black Mary) and Sharif Atkins (Citizen Barlow) Photo by Liz Lauren The last frequenter in Aunt Ester’s home is Rutherford Selig, a peddler that sells rocks, pots, pans, and anything he can get his hands on to sell. Caesar is a baker, landlord, and oppressive negro policeman who believes it’s his civic duty to keep all the Negro’s in line. Black Mary, Ester’s housekeeper, who she is painstakingly preparing as her Soul cleansing protege, is Caesar Wilks’s sister. Solly has an unusual business of collecting Dog waste, which he called “ Pure,” used for leather cleaning. Sydney Charles (Black Mary) and Gary Houston (Rutherford Selig) Photo by Liz Lauren

We met Eli, Aunt Ester’s caretaker of the house, and Solly Two Kings, a formerly enslaved person, and Eli’s comrade, who were Underground Railroad helpers for the Union Army. She owns a dwelling in the Pittsburgh Hill District at 1839 Wylie Avenue, allowing wayward people seeking peace and a clean soul to stay. Gem of the Ocean is set in 1904, where Aunt Ester, a character seen throughout many of Wilson’s plays, claiming to be 285-year-old, is the matriarch. Williams (Solly Two Kings) Photo by Liz Lauren Lisa Gaye Dixon (Aunt Ester) and James A. Most of August Wilson’s plays were set in the Pittsburgh Hill District, with only Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom in 1927, Chicago. August Wilson, described as the theater’s Poet of Black America, is the playwright that Goodman Theatre brings to the stage in his first installment of a ten-play catalog known as The Pittsburgh Cycle explored 100 years of the African American experience Gem of the Ocean.