ABLE CAST FAILS TO SAVE 'KING'.

Byline: David Mermelstein Correspondent

August Wilson's ambitious attempt at chronicling the 20th-century black-American experience through a series of plays gets one step closer to completion with ``King Hedley II,'' now at the Mark Taper Forum, which is having something of a Wilson year, having brought audiences ``Jitney'' in January. ``Hedley'' marks the eighth installment in Wilson's projected series of 10 plays and examines black life during the 1980s.

Each of these works (``Fences'' and ``The Piano Lesson'' are among the best-known) is set in a different decade, but certain themes, most significantly struggle and hope, run through the cycle. The plays are nearly all set in Pittsburgh's Hill District, but seldom has the neighborhood seemed as bleak and tumbledown as it does in David Gallo's skillfully crafted set for this production.

Yet, though one can't help but admire the sweep and scope of Wilson's vast effort, one must quibble with the playwright's failings in portions of his series. In the case of ``King Hedley,'' which is prolix (opening night ran to three hours), pretentious and predictable at times, the faults outweigh the strengths.

Essentially the story of a hard-luck ex-con who wants a better life but can't quite figure out how to achieve it, ``King Hedley'' explores the cyclical nature of failure. It does so sympathetically but also, one feels, with a kind of what-is-to-be-done impotence.

King (Harry Lennix) wants to go straight; he wants to open a video store. But how is he supposed to manage that and support his pregnant wife, Tonya (Mone Walton), when there's little or no work to be found? His temporary compromise is selling refrigerators of unknown provenance for cash. After all, he has no idea where they come from. But when Hedley's old friend Mister (Monte Russell), his putative video-store partner, wants to pull out of the venture, Hedley starts considering other ways of acquiring funds.

Against this central struggle, a clique of colorful characters and other painful situations lends breadth to the drama. Ruby (Juanita Jennings), King's long-absent mother and a failed singer, has long been bedeviled by romantic frustrations and crushed career aspirations. Elmore (Charles Brown), a dapper gambler whose smooth ways conceal a brutal core, is an agent of that pain, and his return to Ruby's life only complicates matters. Tonya has problems beyond King as well: A daughter born 17 years ago is now pregnant and ruining her life. There's also Stool Pigeon (Lou Myers), a kind of comic-relief prophet of doom, whose cryptic pronouncements echo the mysticism Wilson has previously touched on in ``Joe Turner's Come and Gone'' and ``Piano Lesson.''

As Hedley, Lennix gives an intense performance that is frequently moving. Though she has a much smaller role, Walton's Tonya has much the same effect, especially during a monologue in which she enumerates the reasons she does not want to bear a second child. Jennings' Ruby falls into that cherishable category of sassy matrons, and Brown's self-satisfied Elmore is a rich sketch. Myers' Stool Pigeon may have all the best lines, but his lovable portrayal transcends the material. Only Russell's Mister comes off a bit flat, but that may be because he is in especially fine company.

Yet, all this talent, and Wilson's good intentions, can't make this flawed work sparkle. It moves in obvious directions and takes far too long to get there.

``KING HEDLEY II''

Where: Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles. When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; through Oct. 22. Tickets: $30 to $44. Call [phone]. Our rating: Two stars

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Photo:

Elmore, played by Charles Brown, left, attempts to counsel King (Harry Lennix) in August Wilson's ``King Hedley II,'' at the Mark Taper Forum.