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Playwright August Wilson said that his characters had to talk to him before he could bring them to life. For the longest time, Aunt Ester, the ancient medium of "Gem of the Ocean," would not talk. Well, she talks now. And talks. Shortly before his death in 2005, Wilson completed a 10-play cycle that traces the history of African-Americans in the 20th century, no less. With a play set in each of 10 decades, 2003's "Gem of the Ocean," which opened at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Bowmer Theatre Saturday night, directed by Timothy Bond, is Wilson's next to last play, but it's first in the cycle's time. It is a sort of prequel to the later plays, and perhaps because of the load of baggage it is forced to carry, it is Wilson at his most discursive. It is 1904 in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, and slavery is a living memory for the older characters. Here, at 1839 Wylie Ave., Aunt Ester (Greta Oglesby), a wise woman and spiritual counselor who claims to be 285 years old, lives with her minions Black Mary (Shona Tucker), a domestic servant and protegee, and Eli (Josiah Phillips), a man Friday and gatekeeper. Aunt Ester is a repository of wisdom, and it is understood that her home is a sanctuary. Even its address commemorates the seizure of the slave ship Amistad by its human cargo in that year (and perhaps recalls the tag line of the film of that name: "Freedom is not given"). This is quite a home. William Bloodgood's high-ceilinged, two-story set fills the stage and has more rooms we do not see. The set truly reveals its capabilities in the second act. You may wonder how an old ex-slave comes by such a house, but Wilson has one foot in mythic space here, and such questions must not be allowed to linger. Into this sanctuary comes Citizen Barlow (Kevin Kenerly), a young black man from Alabama who seeks out Aunt Ester because he needs his soul cleansed. He has a terrible secret we suspect is somehow linked to the news brought by Aunt Ester's friend and former Underground Railroad activist Solly Two Kings (G. Valmont Thomas): A black millworker accused of stealing a bucket of nails jumped into the Monongahela River proclaiming his innocence and drowned (as in Shakespeare, key events often happen off-stage and are reported by messengers). What unites these characters is the great quest to grasp and define freedom two generations after emancipation. Solly is perhaps the best-written character here, and Thomas brings his usual brio to the part of the old freedom fighter. But the off-stage drowning is the most exciting action in a first act given to establishing characters and themes. Since "Gem" fills in the pre-history of the nine later plays in the cycle, we are getting the background of the background. Aunt Ester first popped up off-stage in 1992's "Two Trains Running" as an embodiment of the wisdom of the old gods. In 1999's "King Hedley II" she is declared to be dead, a sign of the estrangement of some 1980s black people from their roots. With all this backgrounding there is little narrative momentum in the first act. The sense that things are dragging is exacerbated by Wilson's wont of giving these characters long-winded, Shakespeare-like speeches that while poetic and monologistic, but do little to propel the action. They are also hell on actors. How do you act a line that goes on and on? Too often you stand around and declaim. Aunt Ester, Black Mary and Caesar (Derrick Lee Weeden), in particular, go on and on. Caesar is Black Mary's brother who sold his soul to The Man for a constable's gun and badge and despises the blacks he hunts as much as does any cracker racist. By the end of his turgid description of his own motivation, you almost expect him to twirl a moustache. But the story is finally Citizen's, and his hero's journey takes him to a descent into the mythological City of Bones for a supreme test, which Bond stages to good effect as a sort of Voodoo trance managed by Aunt Ester. Things pick up here in the play's emotional heart, and also in a melodramatic sub-plot involving labor troubles at the mill. Wilson is delving deeply here, and he's more interested in letting his characters speak through him — and speak and speak — than in crafting a well-made play. You are moved by Solly's question — "What good is freedom if you can't do nothing with it?" — and you wish he'd get on with it. You cannot help wonder if Wilson would have made "Gem" tighter if he'd had more time, or if he somehow sensed time was short. Director Kenny Leon, who directed Wilson's "Seven Guitars" at OSF in 1999, cut half an hour from the Grammy-winning version he directed on Broadway. This production takes nearly three hours. It runs at the Bowmer through Oct. 27. Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or e-mail [email protected].