Resilient August Wilson emerges in ‘What I Learned’
It is fitting that a critical section of “August Wilson’s How I Learned What I Learned” delves into legendary jazz saxophonist John Coltrane.
In one particular moment, as the strains of Coltrane’s instantly recognizable horn work fill the theater, Wilson conducts the symphony. Both arms flutter in exultation as the angelic sound majestically rises, puncturing the heavens deeply until perfect silence lands at his hardened feet.
Coltrane and Wilson’s parallels are uncanny. Both reached dizzying heights in their respective genres, only to be taken too soon from the same fate; liver cancer took Coltrane at 40, Wilson at 60. But a harmonious channeling of both allows for universal revelations, and a view as to how blatant racism informed Wilson’s truth within his plays and poetry.
TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s production of Wilson’s 2003 memoir, a play he performed before his death in 2005, is wondrously insightful, but one will not find secrets as to how he wrote “Fences” or “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” This narrative, focusing on the playwright’s younger years, shares the wisdom of how what makes a Black man from Pittsburgh, a high school dropout who struggled in menial jobs while tapping out prose and poetry on a stolen typewriter he bought on the cheap, emerge as one of the greatest playwrights in history.
Former TheatreWorks artistic director Tim Bond, a celebrated Wilson interpreter who’s currently artistic director at Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, readies Bay Area acting dean Steven Anthony Jones into a guttural, grizzled version of the playwright. So often, the harmony produced between both stalwarts feels like any of the scintillating four suites in Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.”
Much like fine jazz, with Bond’s purposeful pacing, Jones pulls out any necessity at any time, all loaded with effervescent humor that forces the audience to not just laugh at Wilson’s surreal interactions, but uncomfortably chuckle at racism’s blight. Jones, whose vivacious voice features distinct and succulent hints of gravel, carries the power to roar like a lion as he purrs like a kitten. He can move at breakneck speed, yet stop on a dime to change each intent of Wilson’s journey.
Connecting Wilson to some of Black America’s most iconic figures is obvious. There is a moment when the discoveries of how black and white are defined in the dictionary, running similar to Malcolm X’s own understanding of how systemic inequities falsely conditioned society that white is alright but black is wack. Discoveries continue to reveal themselves as time goes on, many examples of Wilson standing up to the devastations of racial weathering. With his education crafted from trauma, his ten plays that made up the American Century Cycle shaped African American theatrical narratives for all time.
In one painful reminder of his rooted place in the caste of America, his mother wins a new washing machine from a radio contest, but once the station found out she was Black, a Salvation Army substitute was offered instead. Witnessing the pride of his mother, who simply said, “Something isn’t always better than nothing,” immediately builds towards the machine’s cost of $89 with a nickel in a jar. That single action instilled in young August an esteem that radiated throughout many of his play’s memorable characters.
Those characters were often built in the streets of Pittsburgh’s Hill District, the setting for a great many of those ten plays. There is Chawley Williams, a poet ten years his senior, who took a young Wilson under his wing. His first lessons weren’t about couplets and enjambment, but about who to call when, not if, he is imprisoned, because “as a 20-year-old Black man in the Hill District in Pittsburgh, you going to jail.”
There are also folks like Steve Bartoromo, his lawyer buddy who offers up shaky legal advice which comically leads to Wilson’s jail stint. Finally, hooking up with the married Snookie, who fires up his inner Guy de Maupassant, leads to a duel offer towards a disrespectful bartender.
Wilson’s resilience and mind turned hustle into art, getting him to unprecedented heights in history. Certainly a far cry from when the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner was just happy to snag a job in a mailroom for the free supplies.
Bond’s steady hand and Jones’ understanding of how to exploit each radiant acting beat gives the play its rhythmic quality. Much like Coltrane’s genius within an art form he helped define, the love crafted from a narrative such as “How I Learned What I Learned,” is indeed, supreme.
‘AUGUST WILSON’S HOW I LEARNED WHAT I LEARNED’
Co-conceived by Todd Kreidler, presented by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley
Through: Feb. 3
Where: Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View
Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $27-$100; theatreworks.org
It is fitting that a critical section of “August Wilson’s How I Learned What I Learned” delves into legendary jazz saxophonist John Coltrane.
In one particular moment, as the strains of Coltrane’s instantly recognizable horn work fill the theater, Wilson conducts the symphony. Both arms flutter in exultation as the angelic sound majestically rises, puncturing the heavens deeply until perfect silence lands at his hardened feet.
Coltrane and Wilson’s parallels are uncanny. Both reached dizzying heights in their respective genres, only to be taken too soon from the same fate; liver cancer took Coltrane at 40, Wilson at 60. But a harmonious channeling of both allows for universal revelations, and a view as to how blatant racism informed Wilson’s truth within his plays and poetry.
TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s production of Wilson’s 2003 memoir, a play he performed before his death in 2005, is wondrously insightful, but one will not find secrets as to how he wrote “Fences” or “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” This narrative, focusing on the playwright’s younger years, shares the wisdom of how what makes a Black man from Pittsburgh, a high school dropout who struggled in menial jobs while tapping out prose and poetry on a stolen typewriter he bought on the cheap, emerge as one of the greatest playwrights in history.
Former TheatreWorks artistic director Tim Bond, a celebrated Wilson interpreter who’s currently artistic director at Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, readies Bay Area acting dean Steven Anthony Jones into a guttural, grizzled version of the playwright. So often, the harmony produced between both stalwarts feels like any of the scintillating four suites in Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme.”
Much like fine jazz, with Bond’s purposeful pacing, Jones pulls out any necessity at any time, all loaded with effervescent humor that forces the audience to not just laugh at Wilson’s surreal interactions, but uncomfortably chuckle at racism’s blight. Jones, whose vivacious voice features distinct and succulent hints of gravel, carries the power to roar like a lion as he purrs like a kitten. He can move at breakneck speed, yet stop on a dime to change each intent of Wilson’s journey.
Connecting Wilson to some of Black America’s most iconic figures is obvious. There is a moment when the discoveries of how black and white are defined in the dictionary, running similar to Malcolm X’s own understanding of how systemic inequities falsely conditioned society that white is alright but black is wack. Discoveries continue to reveal themselves as time goes on, many examples of Wilson standing up to the devastations of racial weathering. With his education crafted from trauma, his ten plays that made up the American Century Cycle shaped African American theatrical narratives for all time.
In one painful reminder of his rooted place in the caste of America, his mother wins a new washing machine from a radio contest, but once the station found out she was Black, a Salvation Army substitute was offered instead. Witnessing the pride of his mother, who simply said, “Something isn’t always better than nothing,” immediately builds towards the machine’s cost of $89 with a nickel in a jar. That single action instilled in young August an esteem that radiated throughout many of his play’s memorable characters.
Those characters were often built in the streets of Pittsburgh’s Hill District, the setting for a great many of those ten plays. There is Chawley Williams, a poet ten years his senior, who took a young Wilson under his wing. His first lessons weren’t about couplets and enjambment, but about who to call when, not if, he is imprisoned, because “as a 20-year-old Black man in the Hill District in Pittsburgh, you going to jail.”
There are also folks like Steve Bartoromo, his lawyer buddy who offers up shaky legal advice which comically leads to Wilson’s jail stint. Finally, hooking up with the married Snookie, who fires up his inner Guy de Maupassant, leads to a duel offer towards a disrespectful bartender.
Wilson’s resilience and mind turned hustle into art, getting him to unprecedented heights in history. Certainly a far cry from when the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner was just happy to snag a job in a mailroom for the free supplies.
Bond’s steady hand and Jones’ understanding of how to exploit each radiant acting beat gives the play its rhythmic quality. Much like Coltrane’s genius within an art form he helped define, the love crafted from a narrative such as “How I Learned What I Learned,” is indeed, supreme.
‘AUGUST WILSON’S HOW I LEARNED WHAT I LEARNED’
Co-conceived by Todd Kreidler, presented by TheatreWorks Silicon Valley
Through: Feb. 3
Where: Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View
Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $27-$100; theatreworks.org
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