August Wilson, beyond the page
A new biography places the renowned playwright among the greatest Americans
Which playwright was nominated for the most Pulitzer Prizes (six, winning twice) and the second-most Tony Awards ever (nine, winning once)?
Would you guess Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller or Edward Albee?
They may be the original Mount Rushmore of American drama, but Patti Hartigan's new biography, “August Wilson: A Life,” is a vivid reminder why the writer of “Fences,” “Jitney” and “The Piano Lesson” deserves to be etched in stone alongside — or perhaps above — them.
Wilson's American Century Cycle featured one play set in each decade of the 20th century, all but “Ma Rainey's Black Bottom” set in Pittsburgh, and all illuminating the troubles imposed on Black Americans by White society while celebrating the Black community's resilience.
His plays featured dazzling monologues, soaring riffs reminiscent of the blues music he loved so powerfully. The work attracted and boosted several generations of Black actors; just the list of stars from the original Broadway productions is impressive: Delroy Lindo, Angela Bassett, James Earl Jones, Mary Alice, Courtney B. Vance, Frankie Faison, Charles S. Dutton, S. Epatha Merkerson, Anthony Chisholm, Laurence Fishburne, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Viola Davis, Phylicia Rashad, Keith David, Stephen McKinley Henderson and John Douglas Thompson.
“Wilson is right there in the pantheon of great Americans who came from nothing, like Abe Lincoln and Barack Obama,” Hartigan says. “That's why I spent six years writing the book.”
Hartigan captures Wilson's life in all its complexity, starting with the mythology he created about himself: He took on a new last name, wouldn't talk about his estranged White father and didn't really discuss his childhood stutter while embellishing other facts about his life.
The book features backstage battles like his fight with a neophyte producer and Jones over the ending of his breakout hit, “Fences,” and the dissolution of his partnership with legendary director Lloyd Richards. And she examines his evolving attempts to write fuller, richer characters for women and the way his temper could sometimes explode at unsuspecting hotel clerks, waitresses and others.
“He was like his character Levee” in “Ma Rainey,” Hartigan said in a recent phone interview. “He doesn't blow up because somebody stepped on his shoes — he blows up because he's faced a lifetime of racism and of being a talented person living in a culture that doesn't recognize him.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
QWhat made Wilson's plays so powerful when they were first staged, and what makes them still so relevant today even as the theater finally welcomes the voices of more Black playwrights?
AThere's poetry in his plays, like there is in those by Tennessee Williams and Eugene O'Neill. You can take a Wilson monologue out of the play, bring it two blocks away and deliver it — and it stands on its own. The writing is that brilliant. And the characters he created are so full-blooded; they're so universal and yet so specific to the streets of Pittsburgh. He's documenting the brilliant perseverance of those people.
Also what he was capturing in those 10 plays is the history of this country. That's why they're so important.
People have asked me what he would have thought about George Floyd's murder and everything that happened after that, and if you look at these plays written 30 or 40 years ago, it's all in there.
QWhy did his estate deny you access to his papers, and what impact did it have on the book?
A It didn't work out with the estate, and that's too bad. I wish her peace (Wilson's widow, Constanza Romero). That's all I'll say.
It made it much more difficult because I had to work 10 times as hard to get documents like unpublished plays and unpublished poetry. But in August Wilson's universe, there are a lot of pack rats who saved everything, and there were many people who were so generous, and many archives, like Lloyd Richards' at Yale.
QSome say Wilson's work went downhill after his rift with longtime director Lloyd Richards, but there was powerful work like “Gem of the Ocean.” So how much do you think the split really impacted his final plays?
AWhen they broke up, there was a real divide. There were those who sided with Wilson, those who sided with Richards and those who said, “Mom and Dad, please just get back together.” The ones who sided with Lloyd will tell you handsdown that the plays suffered. “Hedley” and “Radio Golf” are not his finest plays, but with “Hedley” he hated the 1980s culture, hated the hip-hop culture. He struggled with that and probably would have with Lloyd there, although Lloyd always did ask really good questions. The fact that he got “Radio Golf” finished at all is monumental — you have a couple of months to live and you finish what you promised you'd do and that's admirable.
When you look at the work he did on (rewriting his early play) “Jitney,” it was brilliant and so different from the original. He had lived a life and he no longer just solved things by killing people off. I can't see it without crying and loving all the characters. It's his most accessible and, in a weird way, heartwarming play.
QHad he lived, were there any other plays besides “Jitney” he might have revisited? Which might have benefited most from a fresh look?
AI don't know if he would have gone back again. He was 60 and he had finished these plays. He had a novel and a comedy play in the works. But I do know he wasn't satisfied with “Two Trains Running.” He felt you could just switch the order of the scenes and it would still work, and that's a problem for a play.
QIn a later production of “Two Trains,” Wilson seems unable to accept an actor's ideas for playing the character of Hambone, ideas that seem to strengthen the play. Why was he so resistant?
AHe was stubborn and particular about what he wrote. It's partly because of what happened with “Fences,” where you write one of the best endings in American drama and someone wanted to change that. When that happens, you become a little attached to your work. There's something admirable about that.
QDo you have a favorite Wilson play?
AMy favorite is clearly “Joe Turner's Come and Gone.” I do think it's a masterpiece but it was also the first one that I saw. It was 1986 and I was reviewing for a Boston newspaper. Being there on opening night, seeing that play for the first time and hearing those speeches and that phenomenal ending — it's not an exaggeration to say it was life-changing. It opened up a whole world to me.