In My Write Mind

Going dark. That’s Broadway-speak for when a play is about to end, as in “the theater is going dark after this Sunday’s final performance.” Usually, another play will follow that one into the theater. The next week, the next month. Whenever.

On Broadway, that’s a given.

What’s also a given — with news of the death last Sunday of one of America’s greatest playwrights, Frederick August Kittel (he took his mother’s maiden name Wilson after his father passed) — is that with this loss, the lights on Broadway will always be a bit more dim.

He was born in 1945, in Pittsburgh, the son of a baker and a cleaning woman, which seemingly pre-determined that he’d go on to cook up some of the nation’s most acclaimed dramatic plays and would clean up in Pulitzer Prizes with a total of four.

That his city is famous for its bridges is significant as well, as Wilson, a black man, bridged the gap for many African-American playwrights that would follow in his large footsteps, bringing a total of eight plays to the Great White Way.

His plays are a roll call of which most are familiar, each one standing on its own merit, each one displaying the mastery of drama with a poetic backbeat:

The overbearing diva of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” the struggling garbageman of “Fences,” the wrongfully imprisoned everyman of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” the displaced dreamers of “Two Trains Running,” the attempt at a comeback of “King Hedley II,” the missed promise of “Seven Guitars,” the sibling drama that composed “The Piano Lesson.”

All of these characters came from Wilson’s great imagination, as well as his experiences growing up in the Hill section of the steel city, and rang true as they battled their demons (some literally, all memorably) and attempted to gain absolution. That he set all of his plays throughout different eras of the 19th Centruy was no coincidence. He placed himself on task, through a cycle of ten plays, to describe each decade of that century through African-American eyes, for the world to see.

They were always set during a more traditional time, one with supernatural undertones that Wilson made sure to include in each of his works. Brilliantly.

Poetically, even.

It’s that poetry that set his work apart. Made it unique. His writings were full of rhythm, of a pace that resonated off of each page. Reading him made you understand how the plays were an inevitable reality.

It also makes you understand why great actors such as Phylicia Rashad, James Earl Jones, Angela Bassett, Mary Alice, Delroy Lindo and Charles S. Dutton, flock to his productions.

He gave Ma Rainey free reign, making her as obnoxious and she was legendary. All with a twinkle in her eye. He gave Troy Maxson, the garbageman from Fences (who was brought to life by Jones), an unmistakable cadence and candor that helped you identify with his struggle to be a good husband and father.

His last play, “Gem of the Ocean,” opened on Broadway late last year, going dark this past February. A few years after Whoopi Goldberg attempted to resurrect “Rainey.” That run ended prematurely after only three weeks of previews.

It wasn’t always success on Broadway for August. It was, however, always important. That was a given.

Now, the great playwright, who was 60, is no longer with us, losing his battle with liver cancer this past Sunday. None of us are better for this. He, fittingly, told the world about the disease last August, when he knew he only had months to live.

It gave us time to reflect. On his life. His name is defined as “inspiring awe and admiration.” He did just so with a body of work that was intended to leave us all a bit brighter, a bit wiser.

He was his name.

So now Broadway’s lights grow a bit more dim as one of its greatest contributors goes dark one final time. There will never be another play that can fill that theater.

Ever.

That’s a given, too.

R.I.P. Frederick “August” Wilson (1945 - 2005)