August Wilson American Century Cycle - September 29, 2021. Day 1, Synopsis, clips and mapping the influences (4B's).
Welcome to this introductory course on the works of August Wilson’s American Century Cycle. The normal course runs for ten weeks and involves reading and discussing each of the ten plays in the Cycle. In this mini course, we will cover a representative sampling of the plays in the cycle.
I have been leading OLLI study groups for the discussion of August Wilson plays since 2018. Midway through the spring session of 2020 we shifted to the Zoom environment. This Fall I will hold my first ten-week study group as a free-standing weekly Zoom group outside of any institutional or administrative umbrella. We will see how it goes.
I don’t have a background in theater. I started going to plays in Seattle in the early 80’s and continued when I returned to the east coast. I have a joint undergraduate degree in Economics and Naval Science. I spent one year in a PhD program in Economics. Later I completed a masters degree in International Studies. After I retired I did a second masters in Library and Information Science. I have worked a variety of librarian and archivist jobs since. I still go to plays and I write some poetry on the side.
OK. Enough about me. Let’s take the plunge.
Today we will do a quick synopsis of all the plays, with each accompanied by a short, less than two minute video clip. I will share with you my “map” of August Wilson influences. And if time remains we will begin with the Wilson-Bearden collaboration. I will set aside at lease 20 minutes for questions and discussion.
Tomorrow we will resume with the plays resulting from the Wilson-Bearden collaboration and we will take a look at the end-of-the-cycle tragedy-comedies and why they are so. I will end with a listing of milestones in Wilson’s professional and personal life, hopefully leaving some time at the very end for questions and discussions.
August Wilson began his writing life as a poet. He had a few pieces published in small presses. His poetry, while interesting, was pretty much unremarkable. In his thirties he got a job at a science museum in St. Paul writing small skits for science exhibits. That is basically where his life as a playwright began.
A few notes of introduction are in order. August Wilson wrote over 15 plays that we know about. Ten of them make up the American Century Cycle, one play per decade. Yet despite the historicity of the plays’ settings, the plays themselves are not, nor can they be considered histories as such. For example, the play set in the 1920’s, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, makes no mention of World War 1, the failed League of Nations, or the institution of the Federal Reserve System. The play set in the 30’s, The Piano Lesson, fails to acknowledge the Great Depression or the buildup of the German Army under Hitler. The play set in the 40’s, Seven Guitars, makes barely a passing reference to World War II, despite the fact that the lead protagonist served in the Army during that war. The play set in the 50’s, Fences, does not acknowledge the Korean Conflict or Brown versus the Board of Education. The 60’s play, Two Trains Running, only makes oblique references to King, Malcolm X, and the significant civil rights legislation that came out during the period. The 70’s play, Jitney, makes barely a reference to Vietnam. A minor character in the ensemble was a Vietnam veteran, but the reference is cultural, not geo-political. There is no mention in the 70’s play of Nixon or Watergate. The 80’s play, King Hedley II, completely overlooks the two scourges of the black community in that decade, HIV-AIDS and drug addiction. Finally, the 90’s play, Radio Golf, while largely viewed as Wilson’s nod to the black middle class, makes no mention of HBCU’s (the college educated characters all went to predominantly white institutions), black sororities and fraternities, and the whole black middle class social infrastructure.
And there is more.
The social maladies that one might automatically associate with urban black communities, such as homelessness, absentee fathers and unwed mothers, welfare dependency, and even rampant racial discrimination do not exist in the American Century Cycle world. In each play, people own their houses or rent from someone they know in the community. Characters are gainfully employed, though it might be menial jobs. And for the most part, with rare exceptions, daily interaction with white people is minimal or non-existent. So there is little to no chatter about white people or racism or systemic discrimination. The world of the American Century Cycle is pretty much an enclosed, contained, and self-sustaining world
After this short clip of Wilson reciting one of his poems to friends, we will return for a synopsis of each play in the Cycle.
We will spend the bulk of today’s talk on a short synopsis of each play in the cycle, followed by what August Wilson considered his primary influences.
Jitney, the first play in the Cycle, was first written by Wilson in 1979 and premiered in in Pittsburgh in 1982, though it didn’t make it to off-Broadway until much later, re-written in 1996 and performed in 2000. In the ten-week course, I liken Jitney to Da Vinci’s Madonna of the Rocks, emerging in one form in the 1480’s, only to re-merge in a slightly different form in 1508. To this day, the earlier painting is housed at the Louvre in Paris and the later one, in London’s National Gallery. Jitney, set in 1977, depicts the operation of an off-the-books cab operation in Black Pittsburgh and the intersecting and overlapping lives of its owner, drivers, customers and their families. Like many of Wilson’s plays, a tragic ending is overcome by redemption and a muted celebration of life. Jitney also holds the distinction of being the only play in the Cycle that was written in the same decade in which it was set.
The second play in the Cycle, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, is set in 1927 Chicago and details a recording session of blues vocalist Ma Rainey, her relationship with her recorders/producers and band members, and interrelationships among the members of her band and entourage. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom was initially presented in a staged reading in 1982. It opened on Broadway in 1984. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom stands out for me not because of the star character of the play, Ma Rainey, but because of the role of the anti-hero, trumpeter Levee, who in so many ways reminds us of a young and precocious Louis Armstrong, and who actually played trumpet in Ma Rainey’s band for a while. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is the only play in the Cycle written with a character who was a real historic personality.
Fences was the third play written in the series. Set in 1957 Chicago, it examines the life and death of another anti-hero, Troy Maxsom, who worked on a garbage truck and resents not getting a chance, due to his advanced age at the time, to play in newly integrated major league baseball after being a star in the Negro Leagues. There are lots of family dynamics in the play, and in fact, after Ma Rainey, Wilson was encouraged to do a play about a nuclear family, something more “accessible” to audiences. Wilson referred to Fences as his best play. Completed in 1983, it was first performed in 1985 and opened on Broadway in 1987.
Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, set in a Pittsburgh boarding house in 1911, examines such themes as post-slavery peonage, the false hopes and expectations of emancipation, and the early stages of the Great Migration. It was inspired by a Romare Bearden collage, Mill Hand’s Lunch Bucket, which Wilson saw in an exhibition catalog at the home of a friend. Written in 1984, the play was first performed regionally in 1986, and opened on Broadway in 1988. It was Wilson’s favorite play by his own account. Its main character, Herald Loomis, actors, critics, reviewers and scholars all agree, is one of the most difficult characters to portray in all the plays in the Cycle. (Start at 1:30)
The Piano Lesson, fifth in the Cycle, is set in 1936 Pittsburgh. Named after a painting by Romare Bearden, the play follows the Charles family, first generation migrants from the south. A brother who remained in the South and a sister who immigrated North have different ideas about what to do with their family keepsake piano, whether to sell it to purchase land their enslaved ancestors once toiled upon, or keep it as a family heirloom. The piano was originally acquired in exchange for some of their enslaved ancestors and its housing includes carved depictions of distant relatives. Completed in 1987, the play was performed in the very same year and opened on Broadway in 1990.
The sixth play, Two Trains Running, is set in 1969, revolves around a Pittsburgh Hill District restaurant that has suffered a long economic decline in a neighborhood that is being “redeveloped.” The restaurant owner, Memphis, worries what will happen when the city comes to claim the building through urban renewal and eminent domain. A young activist, Sterling, tries to organize protests and rallies that can help save the restaurant, but Memphis is not so supportive. The play includes lots of social dynamics between employees and customers at the diner, including an undertaker, a numbers game operator, and an orphan who shows up again in a later play. Completed in 1990, it was performed the same year and opened on Broadway in 1992.
Seven Guitars, the 7th play in the Cycle, was set in 1948 Pittsburgh and features blues singer Floyd “Schoolboy” Barton, a WWII veteran newly freed from prison on vagrancy charges. His managers invite him to Chicago to sign a record deal after a song he recorded months before his imprisonment becomes a surprise hit. He struggles to right wrongs and make his way back to Chicago to record. Completed in 1994, it was performed in 1995 and opened on Broadway in 1996. Seven Guitars represents Wilson’s successful attempt at a true Borgesian tragedy, which we will discuss in more detail later.
King Hedley II, set in 1985 Chicago, is considered Wilson’s “darkest” play. A sequel of sorts to “Seven Guitars,” many of the first play’s characters continue almost 40 years later. King Hedley is best understood as a precursor to the mythical George Floyd, an ex-convict with a propensity for violence and criminal activity. Unemployed and unemployable, and recently returned home from a prison sentence for murder, Hedley represents a loss of hope in the black community without touching on the ravaging effects of drugs and AIDS prevalent at the time. Hedley also represents, in his death, an opportunity for the community’s survival. Seven plays in the Cycle have deaths occurring among the cast ensemble: Becker dies in Jitney, Toledo dies in Ma Rainey, Solly Two Kings dies in Gem of the Ocean, Troy Maxsom dies in Fences, Floyd dies in Seven Guitars, Hambone dies in Two Trains Running, and King Hedley dies in King Hedley II. Wilson completed King Hedley II in 1999, it was performed regionally the same year, and opened on Broadway in 2001.
Gem of the Ocean, the penultimate play in the series, is set in 1904 Pittsburgh, in the century’s first decade. Memories of enslavement and the Underground Railroad are fresh, and all the characters are recent arrivees to Pittsburgh, seeking livelihoods in a new world. Gem premiered in 2003 and opened on Broadway in 2004.
The tenth and final play in the Cycle, Radio Golf, set in 1997 Pittsburgh, has interesting elements of Greek and Roman tragedy. Its protagonist, Harmond Wilks, is poised to be elected the first black mayor or Pittsburgh before everything unravels and falls apart. Radio Golf premiered in 2005, just before Wilson’s passing. It opened on Broadway in 2007.
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Artists, writers, playwrights don’t always explain the influences on their work so candidly and so explicitly. Wilson tells us up front: the Blues, Baraka, Bearden, and Borges. The 4B’s.
Here is my attempt at mapping the “genealogy” of Wilson’s 4B’s.
The Blues.
We will begin at the top. The Blues. Wilson says he discovered the blues when he bought a 45 of Bessie Smith singing that jelly roll song, “Nobody Makes a Jelly Role like Mine” and played it 223 times in a row. Wilson became a “decoder” of the Blues, concluding its music and lyrics contained and were a source of the folklore of American blacks.
Every play in the Cycle is infused with blues lyrics. It’s almost as if the blues provide characters their dialogues, another aspect of Wilson’s decoding and transmission.
Ma Rainey says in the play, “White folks don’t understand about the blues. They hear it come out but they don’t know how it got there (they cannot decode it). They don’t understand that’s life way of talking. You don’t sing to feel better. You sing cause that’s a way of understanding life.”
Wynton Marsalis on blues fundamentals:
One more thought about the blues before we move on. In the blues you hear work songs, gospel and praise songs, and songs about romance and breakup. The work songs clearly have African origins in their rhythms. But while the gospel songs and the romance/love blues songs appear to be purely American in their origin, and purely derived exclusively from American experiences, you will find traces of it on the African continent in the desert songs of the Malians and north African desert tribes. Examples include Ali Farka Toure, and most recently, Mdou Moctar.
Borges.
How did Borges poetry, essays and short stories affect and influence Wilson’s playwriting? Borges development of a technique he loosely called magical realism, or in Spanish, “lo real maravillosa” shows up in Wilson’s plays, in the use of ghosts, spirits, angels, and in the use of hypnotism, trances, seances, and exorcisms. Another Borges manifestation in Wilson’s plays is in plot development, where Wilson gives away the plot punch line in advance, then still manages to hold his audiences in suspense as the plot unfolds. We see ample amounts of this in both Seven Guitars and in King Hedley II. Both techniques follow a straight line path from Poe through Borges to Wilson. Borges cites this Poe influence in his own self-referential writings.
A second set of influences comes from Walt Whitman, again through Borges to Wilson. Whitman’s self-referencing, about his craft and his own life, in, for example Song of Myself, I Hear America Singing, and Salut Au Monde, reflects the same self-referential considerations and self-reflexivity about his work as does Wilson in Ma Rainey, The Piano Lesson, Two Trains Running, and Jitney. Borges covered this self-referentiality in his lectures on English literature course at the University of Buenos Aires.
Before going to Baraka, there are other influences we should mention.
In the upper right quadrant, Ed Bullins (https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/bullins-ed-1935/) and Ron Milner (https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100158957) were both playwrights with whom Wilson associated early in his writing career. It was Bullins, for example, who had the original idea to produce a cycle of multiple plays. At one point, Bullins was the Minister of Culture for the Black Panthers. He wrote over 50 plays, including a 12-play series of plays, a cycle.
Lorraine Hansberry was the most prominent black playwright of the early 1960’s. Her greatest work, “Raisin in the Sun,”
received critical acclaim on Broadway, was adapted to film, and gave rise to its own series of plays, called “The Raisin Cycle.” Noted Wilson interpreter and critic, Frank Rich wrote, “A Raisin in the Sun changed American theater forever.”
There are traces of “Raisin” in Fences, Jitney, and Two Trains Running, among others. It may be argued that without Lorraine Hansberry, there would have been no creative space for a August Wilson.
Athol Fugard is a South African playwright who has chronicled in his over 30 plays the relationships between blacks and whites under the rule of apartheid. Wilson mentions Athol Fugard as one of the few playwrights whose work he had actually seen performed. https://profiletheatre.org/12-13/about-fugard/
And behind the scenes there was the Yale Rep Director, Lloyd Richards. Wilson had a unique father-son relationship with Richards that informed the work they did together and resulted in an excellent collaboration. Richards, for his part, had also produced Fugard and Hansberry plays in the past. For more on the Richards/Wilson collaboration: http://exhibits.library.yale.edu/exhibits/show/yalerep/richardsandwilson
Also in the upper quadrant we have the influences of the English Romantics on Poe, then to Borges. Juxtaposed on the opposing end of the map are the Harlem Renaissance influences on Bearden and through him to Wilson.
Baraka.
There are two sets of influences here. There is the pre-1965 Leroi Jones, hanging out with the Beat Poets in Greenwich Village after his discharge from the Air Force. And there is the transformed, changed-his-name, divorced-his-wife Amiri Baraka, who radically changed political and cultural course following the assassination of Malcolm X.
The map shows the two divisions of Baraka’s influence, both divisions of which had a similar effect on Wilson. A riveting read on the pre-1965 Leroi Jones is the memoir of his former wife, “How I Became Hettie Jones.” Baraka’s primary influence during that period was the beat poet Allen Ginsberg (https://www.npr.org/transcripts/261379770), and by inference, the entire Beat Poetry movement. But he was radicalized into a more ethnic black cultural nationalism following his brief flirtation with Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam that somewhat unwound with the demise of Malcolm X. August Wilson underwent a similar transformation in his futile attempt to save his first marriage with Nation of Islam member Brenda Burton.
Finally, there is the indisputable influence of Whitman on the Beat Poets with whom Baraka hung out and with some of whom Wilson may have had a slight infatuation during his earlier, poet days.
A beat poetry favorite of mine is Kerouac’s October in Railroad Earth.
Bearden.
Numerically and graphically on the map, Romare Bearden has the largest number of second degree influences. Interesting because it weighs disproportionately the Bearden influence on Wilson. It can be argued that Bearden’s influence on Wilson is the greatest of all the 4B’s.
The boarding house in Pittsburgh where Bearden spent summers with his grandparents was the same boarding house that served as the setting for his collage, Mill Hand’s Lunch Bucket, and later, for Wilson’s play by the same name, Mill Hand’s Lunch Bucket, which was later named, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Bearden’s collage, The Piano Lesson, also called Homage to Mary Lou Williams following a collaboration the blues singer had with Bearden’s wife, Nanette, inspired Wilson’s play by the same name. The two characters in the collage, teacher and student, found their way into Wilson’s play as Berniece and Maretha.
Bearden’s collage from the series, Continuities, named “Miss Bertha and Mister Seth,” served as the inspiration source for Fences. Wilson never met Bearden, but he repeatedly cited him as a major influence. In an interview, Wilson recounted how he stood outside Bearden’s New York City apartment, never mustering the courage to knock on the door and introduce himself. The story is told that Wilson wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times wherein he cited Bearden’s immense influence on his plays and his playwriting. A Bearden associate with whom Bearden was having breakfast asked him if he had seen Wilson’s op-ed and if he was aware of the credit Wilson gave him on his work. Bearden said he had not seen the op-ed, adding “He could have at least sent us tickets to the show.”
The list of Bearden’s influences is limited on the map due to space limitation, but they include Picasso, the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, Matisse and the French Impressionists, The Harlem Renaissance painter, Aaron Douglas, Van Gogh (and Vermeer and the Dutch Masters), African statue art, and Chinese landscape artists and calligraphers, of whom Bearden said,
"In Chinese paintings, probably the greatest of paintings, you'll find - and I sometimes try to do this - an open area, or open space, which allows the onlooker to enter the painting and find his own surprises in it. They always refer to the "open corner" of Chinese painting."
Here’s the complete playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0Lvs-e_eIXYMq0cuFUCNHmQc2-9JpQZE
In part 2 which follows, we will go into deeper detail on the Romare Bearden influence on Wilson’s playwriting, especially during what we will call “the Bearden-Wilson period.”