Pittsburgh
The very opening of the acting edition of the play sets the stage: “It is August in Pittsburgh, 1911. The sun falls out of heaven like a stone. The fires of the steel mill rage with a combined sense of industry and progress.” One theme which is explored in the play is the consequences of the Great Migration; the term used to describe the mass exodus of African Americans from the remnants of the Confederacy to those northern population centers. While NYC and Chicago are the most notable and obvious of these urban centers, the list extends from St. Louis to Detroit to Cleveland to Washington, D.C. Pittsburgh is situated as a symbolic city here by the ambiguous imagery of the sun falling from heaven and the steel mill “raging” with progress. These cities represented a dream of progress, desegregation and opportunities that often turned out to be a disappointment.
Joe Turner
Joe Turner is the plantation owner who abducted and illegally enforced Herald Loomis into slavery after abolition. He is the symbol of continued white exploitation of blacks even after slavery was ended.
Jeremy’s Guitar
The play uses the metaphor of “finding one’s song” to represent the idea of self-identity. Young Jeremy has yet to find his song, but is definitely searching. His guitar becomes the symbol of his continuing search for an identity he can call his own.
“Bynum Walker”
The name is a chosen one, symbolically displaying the essential necessity of finding one’s song. The character flat out signals his name is symbolic: “Been binding people ever since. That’s why they call me Bynum. Just like glue I sticks people together.” But the Walker part of the name is also symbolic as it ties to the theme of the Great Migration and the long walk from the identity of “slave” imposed by others toward the search for identity through location.
Herald Loomis Standing
At one point Herald Loomis experiences an epiphany almost verging—maybe not even almost—on a Biblical-style prophetic vision. He wants to stand up philosophically and literally, but experiences obstruction, claiming “My legs…my legs won’t stand up.” The plays comes to an end after Loomis has slashed himself across the chest in a blood sacrifice of his past to the promise of the future and his finals words—almost the play’s final words—are “I’m standing now.” Loomis finding the ability to stand is the symbol of his finding his “song” and at long last throwing of the shackles of having his identity imposed by Joe Turner.
