AugustWilson.net
Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Gem of the Ocean" is the ninth completed of 10 plays in August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle, also known as his 20th-Century Cycle. All take place in a different decade in Pittsburgh's Hill District except "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," set in Chicago. Here is the cycle in chronological order:
"Gem of the Ocean" (1904): Former slaves under the protection of Aunt Ester struggle for a better life in a changing world.
"Joe Turner's Come and Gone" (1911): A mysterious man named Herald Loomis turns up in a boardinghouse seeking his missing wife.
"Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" (1927): In a Chicago recording studio, four backup blues musicians tell stories and squabble among themselves while waiting for the diva, Ma Rainey.
"The Piano Lesson" (1936): A brother and sister battle over their family's troubled legacy as embodied in a piano carved with scenes from slavery.
"Seven Guitars" (1948): Floyd Barton's death crystallizes the condition facing black Americans in the postwar world.
"Fences" (1957-63): Wilson's great confrontation between father and son about prospects past and future.
"Two Trains Running" (1969): In the aftermath of the upheavals of 1968, urban change brings crisis to the regulars at a neighborhood diner.
"Jitney" (1977): The drivers in a Hill District jitney office create the environment for another father-son clash.
"King Hedley II" (1985): Wilson's darkest tragedy, in which the title character struggles against an era that seems all too bleak.
"Radio Golf" (1990s, work in progress): Two golf-playing real estate developers have designs on the former home of Aunt Ester.
-- Christopher Rawson
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