Joe Turners Come and Gone review: Cedric the Entertainer and Taraji P. Henson star in uneven revival

Two hours and 30 minutes, with one intermission.At the Barrymore Theatre, 243 West 47th Street.Almost without fail, the brilliance of August Wilson emerges even in mediocre stagings of his plays.That is the unshakable feeling at the revival of his “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” that opened Saturday night at the Barrymore Theatre.

You’re never less than pleased you’ve come, and yet you’re constantly aware that something’s gone.What thrives in director Debbie Allen’s production of one of the writer’s best works is the drama’s musical conversationality and boisterous spirit.How could it not when the 1911 Pittsburgh boarding house it’s set in is run by Cedric the Entertainer?He is smart casting for Seth, a sensible man who provides rooms at $2 a week for, broadly speaking, people in search of something: a missing wife, a job, a man.

By design, the transient tenants with secrets are more intriguing than the steady proprietor. But Cedric’s stand-up personality precedes him.

And his funny glances, surprised entrances and one-liners give him as much presence as those with baggage and… more baggage.Nobody bears as much of an emotional burden as Herald Loomis (Joshua Boone), a frightening livewire who arrives at the establishment in the Hill neighborhood with his 11-year-old daughter.We first see his hatted silhouette ominously behind a frosted door window like a gunslinger entering a saloon.That scary first impression does not mislead.Ghoulish aside from his temper, Herald is looking for his better half Martha, who he was separated from 11 years earlier.

He’s endured a difficult past, which Bynum (Ruben Santiago-Hudson), a wise practitioner of folk magic, can quickly sense.Boone’s Loomis is ferocious and plagued by his life’s unimaginable suffering. Growling at times, he’s all bark and bite.But, by no fault of the actor, the wanderer is where Allen’s revival wobbles.There is an imbalance of warmth and darkness throughout the...