Saturday, December 06, 2003

In receiving the Arts and Humanities award from Teresa Heinz at the 10th Heinz Awards Thursday night at Carnegie Music Hall, Pittsburgh playwright August Wilson, 58, delivered a short, gracious speech that left the distinguished audience of 250 buzzing with admiration.

It was a typical Wilson speech, poetic in diction, shaped with rich biblical cadences. He began with acknowledgments of the support offered by the family members present -- his siblings Freda Ellis ("who gave me the money to buy my first typewriter"), Linda Jean Denoya ("who typed my early poems and manuscripts") and Richard Kittel ("my first critic"); his nephew, niece and adopted niece, Paul Ellis, Kim Ellis and Nicky Porter; and his mother's best friend, Julia Burley ("a woman who can remember me when I was in diapers").

He regretted the absence of his wife, Constanza Romero, back in Seattle caring for their daughter, Azula Carmen Wilson, 6. He left for last "the most important acknowledgment, my daughter, Sakina Ansari, who 33 years ago burst upon the world clothed in the light of angelic grace. She has been my first inspiration, and that is the inspiration to live a full and productive life as gift and as example to her."

Wilson spoke without notes.

"This platform is but a few steps from the Carnegie Library, where as a 15-year-old high school dropout I sought refuge from the school system that failed me. I dropped out of school, but I didn't drop out of life. And when I left the library at 20, I went out into the streets of the Hill District of Pittsburgh, and there I made lifelong friends who have nurtured me, who sanctioned my life and who ultimately provided it with meaning. It would be remiss of me to stand here among this cascade of coin and blessing and not acknowledge them.

"There comes a moment in a man's life when he has to ask himself, 'How did I get here?' If he looks up to find himself thrashing about in the fires of hell's damnation, he must ask the question, 'How did I get here?' Or if, like myself, he looks up and finds himself by God's grace in a landscape rich with welcome, bright beckoning, temperate climate, sweet water and all the possibilities of life exalted, he must ask the question, 'How did I get here?'

"To arrive at this moment in my life, I have traveled many roads, some circuitous, some brambled and rough, some sharp and straight, and all of them have led as if by some grand design to the one burnished with art and small irrevocable tragedies. I've carried in my pocket, to bargain my passage, memory and a wild heart that plies its trade with considerate and sometimes alarming passion.

"Some roads have opened to me. Other roads have bred landscapes of severe wolves to blunt and discourage my advance. Still, others, closed for repair, shall remain closed in one thing forever.

"In my 35th year, I came to a road marked 'theater,' a road which has welcomed me with fresh endearments and sprouted yams and bolls of cotton at my footfall. And it is that road I have taken to be with you here this evening.

"Now these many years later, I am older, wiser, back in the saddle, riding an old warhorse, searching for the fuel for all the howls and whispers and songs that I might uncover while storming the barricade. This [the Heinz Award] adds to that fuel. It empowers me in my search for the limitations of my art. And for that most precious of gifts, I thank you."

E-mail this story   Print this story