August Wilson: Plays and Legacy

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August Wilson Plays and Legacy

• Dr. Mike Downing
• Kutztown University of PA
• March 25, 2009

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Website

• I am the web master of AugustWilson.net.

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Who was August Wilson?

• August Wilson was an award-winning playwright who
  chronicled the African-American experience
  through a series of ten plays.
• He was born Frederick August Kittel, Jr. on April
  27, 1945 in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, PA.
  His father was a German immigrant named Frederick
  August Kittel and his mother was an
  African-American woman named Daisy Wilson.

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The Pittsburgh Cycle

• Mr. Wilson is best known for 10 plays. Known as
  The Pittsburgh Cycle, each play is set in a
  different decade of the 20th Century, chronicling
  the African-American experience.
• Nine of the ten plays are set in Pittsburghs
  Hill District, near Wilsons childhood home. The
  only exception is Ma Raineys Black Bottom, which
  is located in Chicago. 

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The Pittsburgh Cycle (Part Two)

• Fullerton Street and Jitney! were both submitted
  to the Eugene ONeill Theater Centers National
  Playwrights Conference. Both were sent back to
  Wilson.
•  
• Wilson realized that Jitney! (in its original
  form) wasnt big enough, and Fullerton Street
  was, in Wilsons own words, epic and too
  unwieldy. So he sat down and wrote Ma Rainey
  and sent it to the ONeill Conference. They
  accepted it.

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An Historical Chronicle

• 1904 - Gem of the Ocean (2003) 9
• 1911 - Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1984) 4
• 1927 - Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1982) 2
• 1936 - The Piano Lesson (1986) 5
• 1948 - Seven Guitars (1995) 7
• 1957 - Fences (1983) 3
• 1969 - Two Trains Running (1990) 6
• 1977 - Jitney (1979) 1
• 1985 - King Hedley II (2001) 8
• 1997 - Radio Golf (2005) 10

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Awards

• Over the years, Mr. Wilson has received several
  awards, including a Pulitzer Prize for Fences and
  The Piano Lesson, a Tony award for Fences, and
  several New York Drama Critics awards for Best
  Play, among many others.

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Sad News

• Early in 2005, Mr. Wilson was diagnosed with
  liver cancer. He passed away on October 2 of
  that year. His legacy lives on, however, through
  his plays and the lives he touched.

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Jitney!

• Jitney takes place in 1977. The focus of the play
  is on unlicensed cab drivers in the city of
  Pittsburgh.
• Despite its flaws, Jitney's is certainly
  important reading for anyone who strives to
  understand the collective contributions of this
  important playwright.

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Ma Raineys Black Bottom

• Ma Raineys Black Bottom is set in a Chicago
  recording studio in early March 1927. Ma Rainey
  has taken a break from touring to record some
  songs for Sturdyvants studio.
•  
• Throughout the play, Ma illustrates her
  understanding of the fact that the white record
  producers only want to trap her voice in that
  little box and then theyre done with her.

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Fences

• Fences is set in 1957 and features the legendary
  Troy Maxson.
• Troy was in the Negro Leagues but never got a
  chance to play in the Major Leagues because he
  got too old to play just as the Major Leagues
  began accepting black players.
• Fences is quite similar to Death of a Salesman.

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Joe Turner's Come and Gone

• Joe Turner's Come and Gone is about a man named
  Herald Loomis and his daughter, Zonia. Herald is
  looking for his wife, Martha.
• Bynum, the conjure man, casts a spell to re-unite
  mother and child.
• Eventually, Martha Pentecost arrives. Mother and
  daughter are re-united.

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The Piano Lesson

• The Piano Lesson is set in Pittsburgh in 1936,
  with all the action taking place in the house of
  Doaker Charles.
• A 137-year-old, upright piano, decorated with
  totems in the manner of African sculpture,
  dominates the parlor.

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Two Trains Running

• In a restaurant across the street from West's
  Funeral Home and Lutz's Meat Market, West,
  Memphis, and Holloway discuss the local scene.
• Holloway philosophizes that there is nothing in
  the world but love and death. The men discuss
  the lottery and the value of Memphis restaurant.
• The play is basically about African Americans
  getting what is fair in a white-dominated
  culture.

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Seven Guitars

• Seven Guitars is set in 1948. The play begins and
  ends after the funeral of one of the main
  characters, showing events leading to the funeral
  in flashbacks.
• The play's recurring theme is the
  African-American male's fight for his own
  humanity, self-understanding and self-acceptance
  in the face of personal and societal ills.

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King Hedley II

• Set in 1985, King Hedley II tells the story of an
  ex-con in Pittsburgh trying to rebuild his life.
• It's been described as one of Wilson's darkest,
  telling the tale of a man trying to save 10,000
  by selling stolen refrigerators so that he can
  buy a video store.

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Gem of the Ocean

• As in all the plays in this cycle, Gem of the
  Ocean exudes an irony that demonstrates how it is
  almost impossible for poor African Americans to
  lead ethical lives in a society that is unwilling
  to grant them equal opportunities.
• If black people commit crimes far in excess of
  those committed by white people, then it is
  largely because their backs are to the wall in an
  unjust society.

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Radio Golf

• Radio Golf, August Wilsons last play, is set in
  1997. It is also the last play chronologically
  in his famous Pittsburgh Cycle, a series of ten
  dramas chronicling African-American life in
  twentieth-century America.
• Radio Golf is Wilsons most direct interrogation
  of his audience regarding what it means to be
  African American. He ultimately asks whether it
  is possible for black culture and heritage to be
  preserved when it is integrated into mainstream
  white society.

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Sources

• Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. Figures in Black Words,
  Signs, and the "Racial" Self. New York Oxford
  UP, 1987.
• Shannon, Sandra. The Dramatic Vision of August
  Wilson. Washington, D.C. Howard UP, 1995.
• Wilson, August. Fences. New York Penguin,
  1986.
• ---. Joe Turner's Come and Gone. New York
  Penguin, 1988.
• ---. Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. New York
  Penguin, 1985.
• ---. The Piano Lesson. New York Penguin, 1990.
• ---. Two Trains Running. New York, Penguin,
  1992.

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Questions