Famed Playwright of African-American
Experience Passes at 60
By Thomas J. S. Shannon
August Wilson passed away on October 2 from liver cancer. Considered
a great playwright of his time, he was born Frederick August Kittel
(He changed his name to August Wilson to honor his mother after his
father’s death in 1965) in 1945 to a baker and a cleaning woman.
Growing up with five siblings in poverty, Wilson encountered racism
in school. He dropped out of his predominantly white high school (he
was the only black in his school) in tenth grade because of a teacher
accused him of plagiarizing a paper. He educated himself at the library,
and in the streets. Going from one menial job to the next, Wilson began
to write, submitting poems that eventually got published in the publications
at the University of Pittsburgh. Wilson once said, “My generation
of blacks knew very little about the past of our parents.” Because
of this lack of knowledge, Wilson attempted to educate through his plays
and shed light on black issues. In 1968, Wilson co-founded Hills on
the Horizon, writing such plays as Jitney and Fullerton Street. But
it wasn’t until his breakthrough play, Ma Rainey’s Black
Bottom, that Wilson received major critical acclaim. Wilson went on
to write such plays as Fences, Joe Turner’s Come & Gone, The
Piano Lesson, Two Trains Running, and Seven Guitars. Radio Golf, his
final play, released in April of this year, was the signaling of the
completion of a 10 year-10 play cycle to track the African-American
experience in the 20th century. Wilson is the recipient of many awards,
including two Pulitzer prizes, a Tony award, and many more from critics’
circles.
In an interview with Caroline Jackson-Smith, Associate Professor of
African American Studies here at Oberlin, Wilson and his work were further
discussed.
Q: How did you know August Wilson?
A: From 1989-1991, I was the director of the Afro-American Cultural
Center at Yale. I was very involved in Yale’s theater department.
I was at a festival in 1983 where I got to see one of his plays (Ma
Rainey’s Black Bottom) before it went to Broadway, and I have
also directed several of his plays, including Jitney, Joe Turner’s
Come & Gone, and Seven Guitars.
Q: What struck you most about Wilson and what do you remember him by?
A: I came of age during the Black Power Movement, and what stuck with
me most about August Wilson was the vibrant way he portrayed the complexity,
dignity, and cultural vitality of the African-American experience. The
language in his plays was so beautiful, but the language also included
a spiritual dimension to it. I find that the further we move into the
20th century, the more those spiritual dimensions become more crucial
on the stage.
Q: What do you think he’d want to be remembered by?
A: I think he’d most want to be remembered by and is most proud
of, an indomitable spirit to do justice to the experiences of our ancestors
and the black community and the issues we face.
Q: Why do you think his work is important to not only the black community,
but the greater community?
A: After his death, many started comparing August to Tennessee Williams
and other great playwrights. Some even went as far as to name him the
greatest dramatist in American history. The first time I interviewed
him in 1984, we were commenting on the Black Power Movement. We figured
our jobs were to tell the story of our struggles and the movement, and
allow Americans to look differently at themselves, revaluating themselves
as Americans and people. We also wanted to the global community to hear
our story so that they too might look differently at themselves.
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