All Hail the King

Kevin Bond

A Royal Pain: L. Peter Callender infuses an un-self-knowing street hustler with a brash and volatile force.

Details

Through March 14

Tickets are $25-32

474-8800

www.lhtsf.org

Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, 620 Sutter (at Mason), S.F.

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More About

• August Wilson
• Charles Branklyn
• Pittsburgh
• L. Peter Callender
• Lorraine Hansberry

Wilson's decade-by-decade history of the Hill District during the 20th century is almost done; he still has to write installment No. 10, set in the '90s. The plays come out of Wilson in no particular order -- last year's Gem of the World was set in 1904 -- and director Stanley E. Williams has been diligent about bringing each one to town as soon as he can get the rights. The project is unprecedented, and I'm sure the full cycle will amount to more than the sum of its parts. But so far each play has a similar flaw: Wilson writes rounded, moving characters, but dissipates their drama with concepts borrowed from Shakespeare and the Greeks, as if he doesn't trust his own legacy.