. Bisguier

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Webquest: The plays of August Wilson

English language arts, Playwriting

Bronx Leadership Academy

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ntroduction:

Figure 1 August Wilson, photographer uncredited, Gale Research, www.dartmouth.edu/~awilson/bio.html

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ugust Wilson is an acclaimed poet and playwright whose experience of growing up black and in poverty in Pittsburgh has led him to become what he has himself termed “a cultural nationalist…trying to raise consciousness through theater.”¹

Contending that: “My generation of blacks knew very little about the past of our parents…[because we had been] shielded…from the indignities they suffered,”²Wilson staked out the ambitious project of chronicling these “indignities” decade by decade across the last century of American history. In researching and representing these various eras, Wilson discovered that racist America’s power structure operated in such a way that black people often became the agent of discrimination and violence against themselves.

The plays of August Wilson can usually be read as ALLEGORIES, that is as stories in which characters, situations, events, challenges, places, and things represent larger stories about people, situations, challenges, events, places, and things. Thus, the story of one character, for instance that of Fences’ Troy Maxson, can stand in for the story of a whole class of people, in this case that of the African American men who were sons of Southern sharecroppers and grandsons of slaves, and who migrated North in search of greater opportunity.

The largely (if not entirely) segregated space of an August Wilson play presents the profound richness, comforts, and pleasure of an all-black environment along with the obvious drawbacks associated with limited access to opportunity. Therefore, there are many characters in August Wilson plays who, as a result of the way they were raised and of the circumstances of the lives they have made for themselves, well might resist attempts to change the fundamental ways in which they live, even if such a change were to promise improvement in some aspects of quality of life and opportunity for black Americans in their community and beyond.

Americans tend to think of desegregation only as something that occurred during the 1960s in the South. In fact the desegregation of America began in earnest with Truman’s desegregation of the military in recognition of black service during World War II. Many cities, counties, and towns in the North took steps (from boycotting to integrating public schools) to desegregate the places where they lived and worked.

For this webquest, you will be asked to consider how various characters in an August Wilson play would respond to the dilemma presented by a public initiative instituted at a local level and designed to improve the lot of black people by encouraging desegregation.

The following plays are part of Wilson’s important cycle and are suitable texts for this webquest:

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

The March 2003 playbill pictured below documents the Broadway revival of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, featuring Whoopi Goldberg in the title role and Charles S. Dutton reprising the role of Levee, which he originated. The 1984 play was produced in New Haven at the Yale Repertory Theatre before moving to the Cort Theatre on Broadway, thus launching Wilson’s career. Ma Rainey - Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.mp3

Above right pictures the “real” Ma Rainey in an uncredited photograph from a re-issue of her work.

Fences

August Wilson Hits a Home Run!

Wilson’s

First

Pulitzer

Prize !

Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

“…leaves no doubt that Mr. Wilson is a major writer, combining a poet’s ear for vernacular with a robust sense of humor (political and sexual), a sure instinct for cracking dramatic incident and passionate commitment to a great subject.” Frank Rich in The New York Times Review³

The Piano Lesson

1990 Pulitzer Prize Winner

“thematicaly rich,” David Ansen, Newsweek

“thematicaly rich,” David Ansen, Newsweek

Two Trains Running

“delicate and mature,” William A. Henry III, Time Wilson “at his lyrical best.”⁵

“delicate and mature,” William A. Henry III. Time. Wilson “at his lyrical best.”

delicate and mature,” William A. Henry III, Time Wilson “at his lyrical best.”⁵

Seven Guitars

“a kind of jazz cantata for actors….that evokes the character and destiny of these men and women who can’t help singing the blues even when they’re just talking.” Jack Kroll, Newsweek⁶

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ask: Your task is to bring your literary critical training to bear on the question of how characters in an August Wilson play exert power over and through one another.

It is 19--, the era in which the play you have chosen has been set. You are a hungry young legislative aide eager to please the boss and advance your career.

The legislator from this district is eager to sponsor a policy initiative that would offer a comprehensive package of inducements and penalties (tax incentives and penalties for landlords, landowners, and employers who take measures to integrate housing and work spaces; preferential contracts and agreements for government work to employers who can demonstrate progress in integrating their work forces; increased funding to public schools who can show advancement in meeting targeted goals for racial integration of both schools and classes; government boycott of service providers who refuse to integrate; government funding for a public education campaign to include billboards, radio-aired public service announcements promoting integrationist themes, and so forth ) to prompt racial desegregation of public and private spaces district-wide. Before sponsoring the bill, however, the legislator wants to make sure that the policy would pass in a district-wide referendum. He estimates that each character in the drama represents approximately 500 constituents, and that approximately 2500 votes for the bill are needed to assure its passage in this district.

Your job is to sketch out the policy initiative package designed to integrate public spaces to the constituents. Then you are to poll each of the people (characters) in the play and to try to determine his or her stance on the piece of legislation. Since the referendum will take the form of a public meeting, some characters will hold sway over others. Take the influence of some characters on the opinions of others into consideration in your polling.

The Public Policy Analyst’s Prince System at http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/prince1.html will assist you with this process.

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rocess:

1. Go to the Prince System of the Public Policy Analyst at the following URL:

http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/plegal/TIPS/prince1.html

2. Read the description of the Prince System.

3. Complete Worksheet 11: Identifying the Players.

4. Complete Worksheet 12: Estimating Issue Position, Power, and Priority for Each Player.

5. Complete Worksheet 13: Calculating the Prince Chart and Calculating the Probability of the Policy Being Accepted.

Note: You may—indeed are encouraged to—work in groups; however, each student must turn in the worksheets, calculations, and interpretations on his or her own (in order to receive credit for the work). You may also work alone.

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valuation:

Each of the three worksheets “counts” as twenty points. While all worksheets must be accurately and satisfactorily completed to earn credit, particular weight will be given to your “reasoning” on Worksheet 11, your “justification” on Worksheet 12, and your “interpretation” on Worksheet 13

onclusion: As a self-proclaimed “cultural nationalist trying to raise consciousness through theater,” August Wilson writes plays that foster an understanding of the complexity of the forces at work in the time period during which the action of his plays takes place. It is to be hoped that your work with the Prince System of the Public Policy Analyst has given you some insight into the social forces with which policy-makers must contend in their struggle to effect social justice.

Text Box: THIS WEBQUEST FOCUSED PRIMARILY ON THE DEMONSTRATION OF NEW YORK STATE ENGLISH LEARNING STANDARD #1: USING LANGUAGE FOR INFORMATION AND UNDERSTANDING.

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cknowledgements:

Thanks to David Schweitzer and Kevin Collins for their technological expertise, editing, and patience. Thanks also to Elyse Doti for her helpful supervisory advice and Brenda Santos for clarifying a historical concern. Special thanks to Matt Higgins and Mariana Houston at the Theater Development Fund for assisting me in my thinking about power relations in the work of August Wilson. I am of course indebted to the good folks at TIPS (Teaching Interdisciplinary Problem Solving) for providing me with the equipment and know-how to make this project possible. And, finally, a shout-out to my Playwriting and Senior English classes for all the above and more.

I also consulted the following:

Works Cited

Biography of August Wilson. August Wilson@Dartmouth. 28 Jan. 1998.

www.dartmouth.edu/~awilson/bio.html 24 Apr. 2003.

“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” Playbill. Mar. 2003.

Photograph of Ma Rainey from The Paramount Book Of Blues, 1927. The photograph appears in Ma Rainey’s Black

Bottom, Yazoo, 1990.

Notes

¹ The New York Times, 1968 qtd in Biography of August Wilson. AugustWilson@Dartmouth. 28 Jan. 1998.