The Theatre of August Wilson

Description

The first comprehensive study of August Wilson's drama introduces the major themes and motifs that unite Wilson's ten-play cycle about African American life in each decade of the twentieth century. Framed by Wilson's life experiences and informed by his extensive interviews, this book provides fresh, coherent, detailed readings of each play, well-situated in the extant scholarship. It also provides an overview of the cycle as a whole, demonstrating how it comprises a compelling interrogation of American culture and historiography. Keenly aware of the musical paradigms informing Wilson's dramatic technique, Nadel shows how jazz and, particularly, the blues provide the structural mechanisms that allow Wilson to examine alternative notions of time, property, and law. Wilson's improvisational logics become crucial to expressing his notions of black identity and resituating the relationship of literal to figurative in the African American community. The study is augmented by a small collection of essays by two other major scholars: Harry Elam and Donald Pease Cover Title Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Becoming August Wilson 2. History and/as Performance: The Drama of African American Historiography 3. Cutting the Historical Record, Recording the Blues: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom 4. Beginning Again, Again: Gem of the Ocean and Jitney 5. The Boundaries of Property and the Properties of Humanity: Fences and Joe Turner’s Come and Gone 6. The Properties of the Piano and the Legacy of Human Property: The Piano Lesson 7. Urban Renewal by Any Means Necessary: Two Trains Running 8. “Sad Stories of the Death of Kings”: Seven Guitars and King Hedley II 9. The Century That Can’t Fix Nothing with the Law: Radio Golf 10. Critical and Performance Perspectives Seven Guitars and King Hedley II: August Wilson’s Lazarus Complex Performance Politics and Authenticity: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone and Jitney Notes References Notes on Contributors Index