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Scenes from August Wilson The busy playwright's been teaching, writing and rewriting Tuesday, March 24, 1998 By Christopher Rawson, Post-Gazette Drama Critic
Playwright August Wilson's recent weekend visit gave us a chance to catch up on some of his many projects for another State of the August Report.
He and wife Constanza Romero were here visiting family and friends, primarily to introduce Azula Carmen Wilson, born Aug. 27, 1997, in Seattle, their home. He also joined other artists with whom he shared dreams in the '60s and '70s for a celebration at Carnegie Lecture Hall.
Wilson had just completed two months in residence at Dartmouth College, teaching playwriting. He waxed enthusiastic about his first formal teaching experience - of his 17 students, he figures at least three have "real talent."
Some writers complain that teaching can dry up their creative juices, but Wilson - who famously dropped out of high school and educated himself at the library and on the street - didn't find that a problem. "I don't think you can teach how to write a play, and if you can, you certainly can't teach it in two months, but you can teach them how to open themselves up to their experiences and broaden their spiritual resources."
He started every class with "When I lived in Pittsburgh . . . ," telling a story from his own life. "I wanted to show that you're living a full, rich life and there are stories all around you." He was pleased that a student came up one day and said, "I can't stay because I have a dental appointment, but I didn't want to miss the story."
The Dartmouth residence concluded with a week-long national conference on black theater, convened as a result of a challenge Wilson issued at a 1995 national theater conference. A cross-section of black theater leaders, educators and businessmen shared ideas on how to support black professional theaters, which are conspicuously few.
Wilson says it had promise. "It's hot air until you do something - it depends on what concrete comes out of it, but there were a lot of ideas." Tangible steps include a new African Grove Institute to foster black theaters and a business partner initiative with the Tuck Business School at Dartmouth, which will provide business expertise and give scholarships to black theater managers.
The conference proceedings will generate a book of ideas, and there'll be follow-up at the annual black arts festival in Atlanta in July. Clearly, Wilson has started a serious national dialogue.
As to his own work, there's movement on "Jitney," his '70s play, which premiered in Pittsburgh in 1982 and re-premiered at the Pittsburgh Public in 1996. "Jitney" will be staged next at Boston's Huntington Theatre in October and possibly at Centre Stage Baltimore thereafter.
"Marion McClinton is directing and we're going to scrap everything else, the set and the costumes. We may use some of the same actors, but we're going to start over and I'm going to do some re-writes, particularly the Becker-Booster scenes" - the father and son. "I want to rethink the whole character of Booster. I wrote that 18, 19 years ago now, and I think maybe if I reimagine it, now that I'm more mature, they'll say different things."
Wilson has also started on his next play, "King Headley II." The title character is the baby Ruby is carrying in "Seven Guitars," who she says she's going to name King. "We pick them up in 1985, when King is 36 years old and Ruby is like 64, and Elmer, the guy who killed Leroy [Ruby's boyfriend] down in Alabama, is also a character." So is Mister, the baby born in "Seven Guitars" to Red Carter.
"So there's Mister, King, Ruby and Elmer, so far, and King has killed a man over his name, oddly enough, just like Headley. I'm not sure, but I think Leroy was his father, so he's sitting there drinking whiskey and playing dominoes with this guy who killed his father, only he doesn't know.
"I've just got a bunch of dialogue and some notes, but I haven't actually started writing it yet. Once you get in there all kinds of things happen, and I always say that if it doesn't change from your original conception, then you're not writing deep enough, so maybe Leroy isn't his father. Who knows? I want to find out what happened with Ruby." He remembers the vibrant way Linda Powell played the role in Pittsburgh, so the actress may have helped generate the newest play.
This fall, his writing time will go into "King Headley," which will be his '80s play, "then I'll just have the two bookends, the first decade and the last, '00s and '90s, and I don't want to wait around ten years doing them." So Wilson's epic cycle of a play for each decade of the century has only these three plays to go.
As to the other media, Wilson has written some capsulized histories of Afro-America for Hallmark Entertainment, to be broadcast on ABC-TV's "Millennium Project" in 1999. There he joins such other great playwrights as Arthur Miller, Terrence McNally, Wendy Wasserstein, Neil Simon, David Mamet and Steve Martin.
But of Wilson's plays, to date, only "The Piano Lesson" has been filmed for TV and none has been made into a movie. The movie of "Fences" was held up when Wilson insisted on a black director. But he reports movement: "We're supposed to do 'Fences,' with Laurence Fishburne directing. I don't think he signed a contract yet, but that's the talk. Paramount would like to do it this year, so I'm going to spend the summer rewriting my screenplay."
He's turned down other TV offers, holding out for the greater scope of film. "I get inquiries every once in a while about other movies, and I say the rights are available, and that's the last I hear. So that's the way that goes."
The future of August Wilson on screen depends on "Fences." But on page and stage, he sets his own goals.
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