You know by now, I’m sure, that the great playwright August Wilson has died. Here are stories in the LA Times, the BBC, and I read an excellent obiturary in the Guardian which you can find here. (Photo at left is by Genaro Molina of the LA Times.)

Of his work, I’ve only ever seen the play Jitney on a live stage, at the Donmar Warehouse in London. This was some years back, now. I decided back then I’d been missing out and should see more.

There was an “appreciation” of the man and his work, written by Charles McNulty in the LA Times Tuesday, which is (interestingly) somewhat careful and measured in its assessment. Here is a couple of paragraphs that I found stayed with me:

Wilson often referred in interviews to James Baldwin’s call for a “profound articulation of the black tradition,” and this imperative fueled his artistic journey with a sense of public mission. “I am trying to write plays that contain the sum total of black culture in America, and its difference from white culture,” he explained to an interviewer. “Once you put in the daily rituals of black life, the plays start to get richer and bigger. You’re creating a whole world in the process of telling your story, of writing this character. Once you place him down in his environment, you have to write about his whole philosophical approach to life. And then you can uncover, from a black perspective, the universalities of life.”

And further:

Though conscious always of the historical division between white and black America and its deleterious repercussions, Wilson refused to paint in black and white. While reminding us of the roots of our 20th century racial nightmares (whether it’s Jim Crow fallout or ghetto blight), he went to great lengths to reveal the ways men and women contribute to their own tragedy or transcendence.

The list of African American actors who owe a debt to Wilson is staggering — Charles S. Dutton, James Earl Jones, Mary Alice, S. Epatha Merkerson, Angela Bassett, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Viola Davis, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Leslie Uggams and L. Scott Caldwell, to name just a few. His works have given to each of them, in starring and supportive roles alike, the chance to reveal onstage the hopes and heartbreak of an embattled life.

Do go and see a play of his when you get the chance. Especially some of his modern classics, perhaps from the cycle of ten “Pittsburgh” plays. I certainly will:

Gem of the Ocean (2003), set in 1904; Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (1986), in 1911; Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1984), in 1927; The Piano Lesson (1987), in 1936; Seven Guitars (1995), in 1948; Fences (1990), in 1957; Two Trains Running (1990), in 1969; Jitney (1982), set in 1977; King Hedley II (1999), in 1985; Radio Golf (2005), in 1997.

-cvj