August Wilson's Last Requiem

What could be more audacious for a self-educated African American from the Hill District in Pittsburgh, already approaching middle age, than to announce shortly after his first surprising stage success that he intended to write ten plays, one for each decade of the African American experience in the 20th century? August Wilson did, and then, he did it.

Radio Golf, his last play in this cycle--completely unique in American theatre--was finished shortly before his relatively sudden and certainly much too early death almost two years ago. As usual with his plays, it made its way slowly to Broadway, where it was nominated for the Best Play Tony. And now Playbill announces that it is closing (although the article doesn't say exactly when.)

I've read the script of Radio Golf as published last year in American Theatre magazine, and found it very accessible, very funny and more tightly and traditionally structured than his previous plays. In his last interviews he suggested his next play, liberated from this cycle's responsibility, would go even further into comedy, and perhaps farce.

Radio Golf is the last in the cycle chronologically, set in the 1997. Gem of the Ocean, set in 1904, is the first of the cycle, and is now on stage at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. I'm not going to get to New York but I do hope to get to Ashland. When I do I will be writing at length about the plays (Besides recalling the productions I've seen in Pittsburgh--where most are set--I intend to read them all again in chronological order) and about the time I spent with August Wilson.

The closing of his last play's initial production on Broadway ends an era, but perhaps it also begins another. I'm hoping that some theatre somewhere will soon take on the magnificent task of mounting all ten plays in chronological order. Man, I want to be there for that.