CONCEPT FOR A PLAY

&* Part Two o The Nature of performance

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In the early 1980s Wilson began writing L -.y:1.

of plays chronicling Africair American life in the United States. hh"r. plays inter_ pret periods of history through ttre siories of ordinary people rather thar,

"the powerful or

famous individuals who are usually considered historical figures. For each decade of th. *"rr_ tieth century, Wilson focused on a representa_ tive group of characters whose struggles and dreams reflecr the events and attituiJ, of the lTg.r society. Just before his death in iOOS, YI.rg" completed the tenth and final play gf this. amtritiors cycle. ln his first play, Ma Rainey's Bhck Bottoru, originally proirced in 1984 and set in the 1920s,Wtson exptores the w.oJtd oj black jazz musicians ,ho ,..k recog_ nition for themselves and ownership of the music that they are making. Ma Rain)y,s Black Blttlru takes place in Chicago; it is ihe only one of the ten plays not set in pittsburgh,s Hiil District, where Wilson grew up. Feruies looks at life in the America oithe tqSOs. A former ba s eball play er, force d by r acial.i..rrrrrc t.-.", to become a garbage hauler, battles with his son to justifi, his own life.

In The Piano Lesson, representing the 1930s, a brother and sisrer fight oier th. frl of the old lamily piano. Cawed on the piano,s legs are the faces of relatives who w.r. slarrer. ny ,Ztfi"g tt. piano, the brother hopes to make enough *Zrr.y

to buy land and secure a place for himself in America. For the sister, the piano sl,rnbolizes the presence of their ancestors, a presence that she cannot part with.

In Two Trains Running the characters gather in Memphis Lee's diner, where they nia tne determination in each other,s company to take their places with dignity in the hostiie urban environment of Pittsburgh in 1969. Seaen Gui_ tars, set in 1940s pittsburgh, returns to the struggles of a musician, this time the singer and guitar player Floyd Barton, and the eveits that led up to his death.

King Hedley 11 looks at the str-uggles of an ex-convict try4ng to make a life foiiimself in the 1980s. Jitney, written in 1979, was recendr rer.ised and given a new series of producdons beginning in 1996. Set in the li70s, Jinm reflects the tensions of inner-city life ihio"gfi the world of unlicensed cab drivers who drire their "jitneys" through the decaying sffeets of, Pittsburgh, beyond the boundaries If ,fr. t.gd taxi trade. The last two plays written by \\ il' son,_Gem of tbe Ocean and Radio Gotf, prori& the beginning and the ending for the ten_pla-r, 100-year cycle. Gem of tbe (hean, placed ai Sc opening of the twentieth century in 1904, f*- tures a mystical 30O-year-old character, At,rtr Ester, who lives at 1839 Wylie Avenue and har; the power to cleanse people,s so,is. Radio @

To write is to fix language, to get it down and fir AUgUSt WilSOn to a spot and have it have meaning and be fat uf

substance. It is in many ways a remaking of the setf which all of the parts have been rearigned, redisiributed, and reassemhr into a new being of sense and harmony. you have wrought something being, and what you have wrought is what you have learned about and what you have learned is always pointed toward moving the hari parts of your being closer to home. To write is to forever circle the marking it all down, the latitude and longitude of each specific beail giving new meaning to something very old and very sacred-life itselfr

-August