August Wilson 1945-2005
October 3, 2005

"You can only close if you opened."

First Arthur Miller, now August Wilson. Damn 2005. Damn cancer. Bad year to be a legendary playwright whose work is required reading for writers, actors, and dramaturgs. Anybody keeping an eye on Mamet?

I remember the key thing that impressed me about Wilson's work was the way his fully-realized characters related to their culture and history. They existed as part of the world, not just in the vacuum of a story. It's 1:30AM and right now I'd rather not go into the overly cerebral "art as instrument for social change" sermon, no matter how obligatory such comments are when bringing up Wilson's plays. (Okay, who wants to diagram that sentence?)

But it occurs to me that, while I've read a number of his plays, I've never seen a production of any of them. (I'm sensitive to the significant difference between the two experiences right now, I think, because I'm studying comic book scripts.) Music features so predominantly in his work, so I know I've missed out on at least one important aspect of his theater. Who knows what else my mind's eye has left out of the experience?

I'll have to do something about that.

"All you need in the world is love and laughter.
That's all anybody needs.
To have love in one hand and laughter in the other."
by Alex Wilson. This is from an online journal/blog I kept from 1998-2009. Back to alexwilson.com.