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Issue date:
February 11, 2001
Playwright August
Wilson, 55, has made a career of documenting the
black experience, winning Pulitzer Prizes for "Fences" (1987)
and "The Piano Lesson" (1990). In December, on the opening
day of "King Hedley II," his eighth play in a series of 10,
Wilson sat with Javon Johnson, a 27-year-old playwright from
Anderson County, S.C., to discuss the politics of black theater.
August Wilson:
I first got involved in theater in 1968, at the height of
a social tumult. I was a poet. I got into theater in Pittsburgh
with the idea of using [it] as a tool to raise consciousness,
politicize the community.
Javon Johnson:
Mine was more of an accident. I was very observant. The theater
allowed me to tap into that inner spirit and those powers.
A.W.: I'm
trying to take culture and put it onstage, demonstrate it
is capable of sustaining you. There is no idea that can't
be contained by life: Asian life, European life, certainly
black life. My plays are about love, honor, duty, betrayal
-- things humans have written about since the beginning of
time.
J.J.:
I helped start a theater in Chicago, the Congo Square Company.
A flyer came out that included my play "Hambone." It labeled
me as an African-American playwright. I looked at the other
writer bios; they were labeled playwrights. It bothered me.
Why can't I just be an artist? My generation is conscious
of this question.
A.W.:
As are we all. You have to make your own definition of yourself.
That's crucial. When I do interviews, I am expected to become
some sociologist. I have to speak to the condition of black
America. My preference would be: Let's talk about theater.
Let's talk about art. The fact that I am black is self-evident.
J.J.:
I've always been apolitical. I wanted to ask you: How much
responsibility I should own up to as far as representing the
African-American community?
A.W.: The
black power movement of the '60s tried to force people to
write about certain things. What comes forth from you as an
artist cannot be controlled. But you have responsibilities
as a global citizen. Your history dictates your duty. And
by writing about black people, you are not limiting yourself.
The experiences of African Americans are as wide open as God's
closet.
JJ: Who influenced you?
AW: The blues, (Amiri) Baraka, the writer, and Romare Bearden, the canvas painter and collage-ist. Black life in all its richness and fullness without sentimentality, an honesty I hadn't seen expressed before. You can do that, I thought.
JJ: Funny, I was also
influenced by music. But more R&B than hip-hop. A lot
of times when I write, I'm playing a blues tape or some R&B
from the '70s. I think a lot of hip-hop needs to reach back
and find out where what they are doing started from. "Hambone"
deals with that.
AW:
The play that changed black theater forever would have to
be "A Raisin in the Sun," by Lorraine Hansberry.
JJ:
I would agree.
AW:
If you're dealing with the human condition ... you will recognize
the universal aspects of [it].
JJ:
I think the conflict for African-American playwrights is that
it's a struggle for us to tell our stories because of the
need for validation. When we look at material written by whites,
we don't question it, and they're not insecure about what
they've written.
AW:
As soon as white folks say a play's good, the theater is jammed
with blacks and whites. We have to get to the point where
our critical observations and reviews are just as much validation
as anybody's.
JJ: I think I'm going to adopt yet another one of your phrases, "The struggle will continue. . ."
AW: You have the gift. No question about it, you have the gift. But along with it comes the responsibility.
--Moderated by Ralph Wiley author of "Why Black People Tend to Shout."
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