AugustWilson.net
The Genius of August Wilson
By Harry J. Elam Jr. | October 14, 2005
I FIRST MET playwright August Wilson in 1986, when I was acting in ''Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" at the Studio Theater in Washington, D.C. I played the small role of Ma Rainey's stuttering nephew, Sylvester. August came to see the production, and I remember how unassuming he was; at a reception in his honor, he hung out at the back of the room. At the same time, he was notably engaged, always approachable.
Years later, when I was working on my book about his work, August Wilson graciously gave of his time and his materials to me. I am not alone in this; he gave of his time to many scholars and students, to many theater aficionados. We sat once for three hours, back in 2001, outside the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, between the matinee and the evening performances of ''King Hedley II," and talked about his work and about the condition of black America.
Wilson spoke with passion about these subjects and with a gleam in his eye. His concern for the fate of black America and his belief in the power of performance intricately connect in his work. Yet his plays are far from mere polemics. Depicting the daily lives of ordinary black people, as not tangential but central to the motion of history, Wilson created figures that engage, stories that move. He found, within the socially transforming space of the theater, black vernacular poetry that soars and language that sings.
Central to Wilson's 10-play cycle, his decade-by-decade chronicle of African-American experience in the 20th century, is the regenerative and redemptive force of history. Taking hold of history becomes an act of personal and communal renewal. His characters, sometimes psychologically burdened, always socially constrained, must go back and connect to the past in order to move forward in their lives. For them and us, this journey is at once personal and collective, spiritual and political, specifically racial and yet also trans-cultural. In excavating the African-American legacy of struggle and survival, Wilson provides inspiring testaments of hope.
Often it is through the world of the symbolic that Wilson conjoins the past and the present. While not a particularly religious man, he was a spiritual man and a man of spirit. He believed that throughout history, African-Americans have ''bent" Christianity to fit their purposes. And so he bent and stretched ideas of Christian faith in his plays, infusing them with African retentions and his own particular brand of mysticism.
In ''Fences," a man with a metal plate in his head opens the gates of Heaven for his recently deceased brother to enter. In ''The Piano Lesson," a sister and brother battle against a white ghost who has ventured up from the South, haunting them, in an attempt to reclaim their piano. During the climactic finale to ''King Hedley II," the title character dies, shot mistakenly by his mother, and his blood becomes the central nourishing ingredient in a ritual of regeneration. Experienced not only by the community on stage, but by the community of spectators, all of these spiritual moments link the characters to powerful spiritual forces but also locate the force of god, of spirit, within them.
It was with spirit, faith, courage, and hope that Wilson faced his last moments of life. He was prepared to die, as he felt he had completed his life's work. In August, Wilson made public what he, his family, his close friends, and his doctors already understood -- that his liver cancer was inoperable, that he had only months to live. ''I lived a blessed life; I'm ready," he said.
These words resonate with me and make me reflect on his plays and how his memorable central figures faced death with such resolve and awareness. Purposefully Wilson first released his announcement in Pittsburgh, the city of his birth, the site for nine of the 10 plays in his 20th century cycle, and the setting for his funeral and burial last Saturday.
Wilson's blood on the page and stage, his work and his words, his spirit and special insight have enriched us. He leaves a legacy that will endure. When we view his plays, his so-called ''400 year old autobiography that is the black experience," when we savor his lines, we too can be renewed. These works will never stagnate, for even as they speak to the past, they resonate in the present. That is the genius of August Wilson.
Harry J. Elam Jr., professor of humanities and chairman of the drama department at Stanford University, is the author of ''The Past as Present in the Drama of August Wilson."
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