( 3 reviews )
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( 1 of 3 found this review helpful ) Posted: Dec 2 2008
August Wilson is hot these days in the theater communities near me. I've seen two of the plays in this book - Joe Turner & Fences - in the last six months, performed well and enthusiastically received by predominantly white audiences. I enjoyed both evenings. Oddly, my wife, who is the live theater buff in the family, thought both plays were too wordy and static. I found myself defending a theater of words, the theater inherited from O'Neil, Ibsen, Shakespeare. My disappointment was not a matter of stage-craft, but of content. Are Wilson's plays clever? Yes, but no more clever than films like Barbershop. Do Wilson's play capture the savor of African-American dialect and humor? Yes, but in a stereotypical fashion that adds little to the legacy of such humor, starting from Joel Chandler Harris. Frankly I kept hoping he'd stretch more, surpass the condescending Amos 'n Andy exaggerations that play so amusingly on stage. Do Wilson's plays have profundity? Hmm... That's the main question, isn't it? Critics write about Wilson's vision of the tragedy of the Southern Blacks abandoning their agrarian world to migrate north into an industrial/urban world where they were unwelcome and spiritually lost. In other words, Wilson could be seen as another Wendell Berry, of a different complexion but equally mystico-sentimental, or as proof of William Faulkner's racialist faith in the innate rightness of staying in your place, and true to 'what you are.' Well, well, of course, for us relativistic post-modernists, all profundities are created equal.... but some are more equal than others. I don't find Wilson's plays as deep as the author apparently did, but they're a welcome change from the assaultive triteness of David Mamet and Co.
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( 16 of 19 found this review helpful ) Posted: Jun 17 2005
August Wilson is the greatest American playwright. Not the greatest living American playwright, but the greatest, period. His best plays stand comparison with the best work of Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, and Tennessee Williams. No American playwright has produced such a consistent body of work, and no American playwright has attempted a cycle with the scope and ambition of his series of plays. Wilson's subject is the Great Migration, the story of the African-Americans who emigrated from the southern states to the cities of the industrial North and their slow construction of satisfactory lives in the difficult and changing world of 20th century America. Wilson has written 10 plays on this subject, one for each decade of the 20th century, amounting to a fictional history of African-Americans in the urban North. This is, however, history from below. Wilson's heroes are garbagemen, short-order cooks, day laborers, self-taught musicians, and street vendors. One of his great gifts is his ability to use common speech in a way that is consistently interesting, frequently eloquent, and often powerful. He gives poetic voice to people usually regarded as inarticulate and invests ordinary struggles with real but not exaggerated significance. The African-Americans of Wilson's plays are a doubly uprooted people. Uprooted initially by the grievous trauma of slavery that sundered their connection with their native traditions, the emigrants fleeing the Jim Crow south and its brutal racism are uprooted also from their homes, families, and the traditions developed in the aftermath of slavery.
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( 10 of 12 found this review helpful ) Posted: Oct 26 2004
Lauded as one of the greatest African American playwrights, August Wilson, born in 1945, has earned numerous Tony nominations and awards, including two Pulitzer Prizes for "Fences" and "The Piano Lesson". Who He Is: He is known for his "poetic poetry" in language while the blues music plays a significant role in his work. In this book is a thorough understanding called, "August Wilson's Blues Poetic" by Paul Carter Harrison. Meanwhile, a lengthy preface by Wilson provides insight into his experience as a playwright. Ten of Wilson's plays, chronicle decades of African American heritage and experience. In this book, "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" covers the twenties, "Fences", the fifties; and "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" explores the turn of the century. The only thing better than reading Wilson's plays is to SEE them performed, complete with the vernacular - the spoken language of an area. If you have ever believed that you have had no interest in theatre plays, rethink that notion and see the work of August Wilson. Ma Rainey: The scene for "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom", takes place in a recording studio in 1927 where two white music executives are making a record of blues singer, Ma Rainey and a group of musicians. Because the focus is on four male band members. It may take a while to try to put a face with each character, but within a short time, you grasp who the characters are - their values, beliefs and fears. Ma Rainey's tone of voice is profound and nobody can push her around. Some critics report that Ma Rainey was exploitive and abusive to her band members, but I certainly did not get that impression. She was just tough and she knew how important her role was in blues music! During rehearsal, the members share their experience in racist America and where they are now with racist treatment. A dramatic ending caps when the most bitter player reacts violently when another member steps on his shoes. Prize Winning "Fences": The Pulitzer Prize, "Fences" takes place at the home of Troy Maxson, a garbage collector who felt cheated of fame as a baseball player by a white system. Troy is set to build a fence around his property and symbolically, the fence stands for his protection from the outside. He contains what he earned and seeks to keep out any evil. Troy's conflict is with his younger son who is about to be recruited with a football scholarship. Troy dissuades the boy by instilling the value and certainty of life is only with hard labor. Joe Turner: The setting for "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" takes place in a boarding house where owners Seth and his wife operate with strict rules for the many transients. Joe Turner is not a character in the play, but a man who enslaved Harold Loomis, the main character, for years. Now Loomis tries to find his wife. This is a wonderful story with folklore, blues, spirituality and identity, which is metaphorically referred to as a "song". These plays are wonderful and it's difficult to say which is best, because they are so different. ...MzRizz
