A Gem from August Wilson at the Black Rep
By Joe Pollack
August Wilson was not just a playwright—he was also a poet, storyteller and cultural preservationist. His 10-play “Pittsburgh Cycle,” which looked at the African-American experience through each decade of the 20th century, was an unflinching but celebratory account of black life in America, told with lyrical dialogue and a mythical sensibility.
One of Wilson’s recurring characters, Queen Ester, is a survivor of the Middle Passage and repository of all African-American history. We first meet her at age 285 in Gem of the Ocean, which opened at the St. Louis Black Rep on March 21, with Linda Kennedy in the lead role. It marked the ninth of Wilson’s works to play at the Grandel—pretty good, considering that his last play, Radio Golf, will not make it to Broadway for a few months. Ron Himes, founder and artistic director of the Black Rep, hopes to secure the production rights to Golf in the 2008–2009 season and plans to do all 10 plays, in order, in future seasons.
“Wilson has taken us on a series of journeys,” says Himes, “following men whose roots are gone and who are struggling to find them again.”
Before his death in 2005 at the age of 60, Wilson had seen Golf open in New Haven, where most of his plays had their first productions. The play is now in Chicago, in its final pre–New York run … and, we hope, one step closer to its St. Louis premiere.
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