Gem of the Ocean | 
| Author: August Wilson
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy New: $7.89
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Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 39189
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 112
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.4
ISBN: 1559362804
Dewey Decimal Number: 814.54
EAN: 9781559362801
ASIN: 1559362804
Publication Date: July 17, 2006
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Shipping: International shipping available
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Product Description
"No one except perhaps Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams has aimed so high and achieved so much in the American theater."-John Lahr, The New Yorker "A swelling battle hymn of transporting beauty. Theatergoers who have followed August Wilson's career will find in Gem a touchstone for everything else he has written."-Ben Brantley, The New York Times "Wilson's juiciest material. The play holds the stage and its characters hammer home, strongly, the notion of newfound freedom."-Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune Gem of the Ocean is the play that begins it all. Set in 1904 Pittsburgh, it is chronologically the first work in August Wilson's decade-by-decade cycle dramatizing the African American experience during the 20th century-an unprecedented series that includes the Pulitzer Prizewinning plays Fences and The Piano Lesson. Aunt Esther, the drama's 287-year-old fiery matriarch, welcomes into her Hill District home Solly Two Kings, who was born into slavery and scouted for the Union Army, and Citizen Barlow, a young man from Alabama searching for a new life. Gem of the Ocean recently played across the country and on Broadway, with Phylicia Rashad as Aunt Esther. Earlier in 2005, on the completion of the final work of his ten play cycle-surely the most ambitious American dramatic project undertaken in our history-August Wilson disclosed his bout with cancer, an illness of unusual ferocity that would eventually claim his life on October 2. Fittingly the Broadway theatre where his last play will be produced in 2006 has been renamed the August Wilson Theater in his honor. His legacy will animate the theatre and stir the human heart for decades to come.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Take a ride on the ship Gem of the Ocean May 25, 2008
The opening poetic elegy to the trauma and the triumphs of bondage and freedom that were the seeds of August Wilson's epic 20th Century play cycle are to be found with profound beauty in Gem of the Ocean.
In 1904, in the same Pittsburgh district that is home to all the works, the mighty, wise and supernatural Aunt Ester lives at 1839 Wylie (and address that matters in several other plays, as does Aunt Ester) with the help of Black Mary and Eli. She is a force of nature, a maternal figure who serves as the community arbitor and soother, protector and advocate. She is quite beyond reproach (despite what happens to her late in the play) and it is in her drawing/living room of 1839 Wylie that Gem of the Ocean takes place, and where she takes in Citizen Barlow, a newly arrived Southerner, and where she deals with Solly Two Kings, a local renaissance and sales man.
The struggle of a people symbolically freed but culturally separate are at the core of the play, and while some characters are grounded enough to acknowledge and try to move on from the past, some are tied tightly to it, while others are willing to step on it towards another means.
Gem of the Ocean was the second to last play written in the cycle and serves as the illuminating tale of the strong spiritual core all of his plays and many of his characters possess. Markedly it is one incredibly stirring and beautiful scene, in which Aunt Ester guides Citizen Barlow to The City of Bones on the ship Gem of the Ocean that both magnifies the unspeakable in Wilson's oeuvre and the magical in it's theatricality.
There are few more significant American theatre series than Wilson's cycle, and if possible, now that it is complete, I would strongly recommend reading them in order. They are beautiful and interesting visions of the Black American experience, and feature much wondrous theatrical magic.
Specifically the recent editions open with introductions that are equally appreciative and revealing from actors, writers, directors or critics who worked with and knew August Wilson.
 A richly textured exploration of the challenges faced in adapting to a new environment January 4, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Broadway theater playwright August Wilson presents Gem of the Ocean, the first play in a ten-play cycle about the African-American experience during the modern twentieth century. Set in 1904 Pittsburgh, Gem of the Ocean follows a long-lived, fierce-willed matriarch and the two men she welcomed into her Hill District home: Solly Two Kings, who was born into slavery and served the Union Army in the Civil War, and Citizen Barlow, a man from Alabama seeking a better life. A richly textured exploration of the challenges faced in adapting to a new environment, no matter how many hardships one faced in the past, Gem of the Ocean is highly recommended.
Gem of the Ocean January 4, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
GoO is August Wilson's first play in his ten-play epic cycle of African-American history. It is not so much literal history as metaphoric: the essential qualities of strength, endurance, and community are what hold the characters together. For someone not familiar with Wilson's work, the play may be curious, but for anyone knowledge about Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Two Trains Running, or King Hedley II, Gem of the Ocean is an important work.
One of the very best plays I have seen performed! June 2, 2006
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
I remember thinking that I was inspired and wanted to write a blues song listening to the characters speak so colorfully in August Wilson's play, Gem of the Ocean. Phylicia Rashad and the entire cast were mesmerizing in the Broadway version I was lucky enough to see. I believe GotO is even more cinematic than The Piano Lesson, a Wilson play made into a movie that worked well on the screen, in my opinion. The story line of GotO spans a few days and engages and explores a spectrum of social and moral issues, without answering them and leaving the audience to ponder those gray areas. Highly recommended.
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