COME SEE THIS FINE 'TURNER' BEFORE IT'S GONE.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

In a Pittsburgh boarding house where rooms rent for $2 per week (It's 1911; the price includes meals), an old man with a wonderful knack for stories casts benevolent spells and tangles with the neighborhood pigeons. The house's owner assembles pots in his off hours and dreams of getting his own tools. A young would-be Casanova 1/3 a road builder  1/3 romances anybody and everybody wearing a skirt.

A man named Herald Loomis arrives with thunder in his eyes and a young girl at his heels. He's looking for the girl's mother. The old man thinks Loomis also needs to locate his song.

Could any playwright have painted this picture in more vibrant hues than the late and very great August Wilson? And is there any reason under the sun why Los Angeles hasn't seen a revival of Wilson's "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" in the past decade?

Rectifying this omission is director Ben Bradley, whose production of "Joe Turner" for the Fountain Theatre is replete with spirit and magic, song and poetry, not to mention a top flight cast.

Followers of Wilson's 10 play cycle chronicling the history of African Americans through the 20th century will get a charge out of seeing the 1910s so deftly recreated (down to a working water pump at the sink).

"Joe Turner" echoes plays written later in Wilson's cycle ("Gem of the Ocean" leaps most readily to mind), but it stands masterfully as its own separate entity as well. The playwright is dealing with a multitude of different characters, encompassing several overlapping plot strands, all of whom seem to end up at this strange intersection.

"Joe Turner" also features a fairly prominent white character, the dusty finder of missing persons, Selig (played by Michael Edwin) and, uncharacteristically for this playwright, a couple of scenes between Loomis's daughter, Zonia, (played in alternating performances by DaShawn Barnes and Crystal Williams) and a neighborhood rooster (DeMont Washington switching off with Jordan Carroll).

A lot of diverse folks make their way into 1/3 and, in some cases, back to 1/3 Seth Holly's (Gregg Daniel's) house. Together they gossip, play music and get into each other's business. The constant is Bynum (Adolphus Ward) the house's elder statesman, whose magic helps bring people together (He comes from a family of "bringers").

Ultimately discover what has happened to Herald's wife, Martha, and why Bynum repeats a sung refrain about one Joe Turner.

Until we do, the experience is like being one of Seth's guests: a front row witness to the owner's occasional bluster, his wife Bertha's (Lorey Hayes) unconditional comfort, new guest Mattie's loneliness (Dele, substituting for Nambi Kelley), Jeremy Furlow's (Andre Jackson's) rakishness, and the soul searching of Herald Loomis (Bernard K. Addison).

Thanks to Bradley, his cast and the words of August Wilson, there is no choicer place to be a guest.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

[e-mail]

JOE TURNER'S COME AND GONE - Four stars

Where: Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave., Hollywood

When: 8 p.m. Thursday to Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday; through May 7.

Tickets: $25-$28. Call [phone] or visit fountaintheatre.com

In a nutshell: A rare and superb revival of August Wilson's play about a quest and a boarding house in 1911 Pittsburgh.

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Photo:

Zonia Loomis (Crystal Williams) and her father, Herald Loomis (Bernard K. Addison), embrace in August Wilson's ``Joe Turner's Come and Gone.''