Actor Kevin Kenerly reflects on the playwright’s legacy

By Jim Flint

While the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is best known for its commitment to the Bard, its stages have long featured a wide range of playwrights. One writer, in particular, stands out as OSF’s most produced after Shakespeare: August Wilson.

The acclaimed chronicler of Black life in America has had many of his plays performed in Ashland, with longtime OSF actor Kevin Kenerly taking on key roles in several of them over his 26 seasons with the company.

This season, OSF’s 90th, the actor returns to Wilson’s world in “Jitney,” playing on the Angus Bowmer Theatre stage through July 20.

Kenerly shared his reflections on the playwright’s enduring impact, as well as his own experiences inhabiting Wilson’s richly drawn characters.

From the rhythm of the dialogue to the depth of the storytelling, Wilson’s work resonates powerfully on the OSF stage. Kenerly said it’s because there is an honesty and earnestness to each play.

“It speaks to the human experience, not just that of African Americans,” he said. “The need to foster a family, maintain an intimate relationship, hold on to a family object or home, and touch the spiritual are all things we as a society can embrace.”

An August Wilson veteran

At OSF, Kenerly played Levee in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” in 2005, Citizen Barlow in “Gem of the Ocean” in 2007, Lyons in “Fences” in 2008, and Sterling in “Two Trains Running” in 2013. He has performed in Wilson plays elsewhere as well.

“I have been incredibly fortunate,” Kenerly said. “Each play speaks to a specific time or decade in the Black experience, and it’s been an honor to speak to the truths of those lives.”

He acknowledges OSF’s dedication to Wilson’s work as a key factor in preserving its relevance for new generations.

“We’ve kept these plays alive simply by doing them,” he said. “They are truly timeless. OSF has very wisely produced them and filled them with talented crews who beautifully tell these wonderful stories.”

OSF is one of dozens of theaters producing Wilson’s work. Some of the plays have been made into films, and actor Denzel Washington has said he plans to produce films of Wilson’s entire cycle of 10 plays that he set in Pittsburgh. He has produced three so far.

“But there’s nothing like the experience of watching the language come to life in live theater,” Kenerly said.

Artistic director’s support key

OSF’s artistic director, Tim Bond, promoted Wilson’s plays at the festival long before he assumed his present job. From 1996 to 2007, he directed 13 productions as associate artistic director when Libby Appel was the artistic director. Two of those plays were by Wilson: “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and “Gem of the Ocean.”

“We had a short hiatus from completing the canon here,” Kenerly said, “Now that Tim Bond is stewarding this institution, we are back in the game. It’s only fitting that we produced another August Wilson for such a milestone year.”

Kenerly plays Turnbo in this season’s “Jitney.”  He describes the character as “the memory of the neighborhood,” a type of historian for his society.

“His doggedness about right and wrong is what I find most interesting,” he said.

Turnbo is known for stirring up drama among his fellow jitney drivers.

‘A pain in the butt’

“He is meddlesome, but it comes from a place of genuine concern for the future of his neighbors,” Kenerly said. “Playing up his curiosity and watchfulness keeps him human. In my opinion, though, inarguably, the man is a pain in the butt.”

Kenerly said there is a touch of mysticism in “Jitney,” as well as echoes of other Wilson plays.

“’Jitney’ has some of the heartstrings of ‘Fences,’ some of the yearning of ‘King Hedley II’ and the musicality of ‘Seven Guitars.’ It very neatly and elegantly shows August Wilson’s use of rhythm, culture and shared language though monologues and quick verbal exchanges,” Kenerly said.

The actor said the challenge is to look for the complexities of his character — the who, what and why he is as he is.

“It would be a mistake to play him as clownish or two-dimensional,” he said. “Turnbo is hilarious. He has some of the best quotable quips in any play I’ve ever been in. He’s also irritating.”

Speaking the truth

Kenerly said performing in Wilson’s plays has had a positive influence on him as an actor and a person.

“The characters have encouraged me to speak the truth when telling these stories. There’s a frankness and song to much of the language, and I hear the history of my family in their voices. That gives me a deep appreciation for where I’ve come from and where I’m heading,” he said.

Is there an August Wilson role on his bucket list?

“I’ve never been in a production of ‘Joe Turner.’ I’d happily play any role in it that was offered to me.”

There are limits, of course.

“You have to be of a particular age to play some of these characters,” he said. “There are windows where I’ve been too young or too old to be cast as a character, and had to wait until I was ready — or accept that those characters passed me by, or vice versa.”

Wilson died of cancer in 2005. If Kenerly could have a conversation with him today, what would he ask him or tell him?

“I would say the same thing I said to him once before: Thank you!”

Jim Flint’s Curtain Call column publishes on the second and fourth Mondays of the month. Email Jim at [email protected].