*Keeping The Historical Memories Alive- Playwright August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson”

Click On Title To Link To August Wilson Homepage.

Book Review

The Piano Lesson, 1936, August Wilson, Theatre Communications Group, New York, 2007

Okay, blame it on the recently departed Studs Terkel and his damn interview books. I had just been reading his "The Spectator", a compilation of some of his interviews of various authors, actors and other celebrities from his long-running Chicago radio program when I came across an interview that he had with the playwright under review here, August Wilson. Of course, that interview dealt with things near and dear to their hearts on the cultural front and mine as well. Our mutual love of the blues, our concerns about the history and fate of black people and the other oppressed of capitalist society and our need to express ourselves politically in the best way we can. For Studs it was the incessant interviews, for me it is incessant political activity and for the late August Wilson it was his incessant devotion to his century cycle of ten plays that covered a range of black experiences over the 20th century.

Strangely, although I was familiar with the name of the playwright August Wilson and was aware that he had produced a number of plays that were performed at a college-sponsored repertory theater here in Boston I had not seen or read his plays prior to reading the Terkel interview. Naturally when I read there that one of the plays being discussed was entitled "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" about the legendary female blues singer from the 1920's I ran out to get a copy of the play. That play has been reviewed elsewhere in this space but as is my habit when I read an author who "speaks" to me I grab everything I can by him or her to see where they are going with the work. This is doubly true in the case of Brother Wilson as his work is purposefully structured as an integrated cycle, and as an intensive dramatic look at the black historical experience of the 20th century that has driven a lot of my own above-mentioned political activism.

By the time that this review appears I will have already reviewed five of the ten plays in August Wilson’s Century cycle. On the first five I believe that I ran out of fulsome praise for his work and particularly for his tightly woven story and dialogue. Rather than keep following that path for the next five plays I would prefer to concentrate on some of the dialogue that makes Brother Wilson’s work so compelling. For those who want to peek at my general observations you can look at my review of “Gem Of The Ocean” (the first play chronologically in the cycle).

In all previously reviewed plays I noticed some piece of dialogue that seemed to me to sum up the essence of the play. Sometimes that is done by the lead character as was the case with Troy Maxton in “Fences” when he (correctly) stated that there should been “no too early” in regard to the possibilities of black achievement and prospects in America. Other times it is by a secondary character in the form of some handed down black folk wisdom as means to survive in racially-hardened America. In “The Piano Lesson” no one phrase sticks out as much as the story surrounding the history of the piano, the carvings engraved in it and the historical memories of slave, slave-owner and the scars of slavery’s harm on black life in the 1930’s (and the 2000’s).

The struggle between brother and sister, Boy Willie and Berneice, over this family heirloom is more than just an exercise in the productive use of the unused piano but points to the importance of trying to preserve memory in a world that does not cherish such notions. This is not the best play in the Wilson cycle by a long shot but, as always, there is plenty of food for thought for anyone who has confronted this issue. Slavery times, and Jim Crow times, and de facto segregation times and, unfortunately, now in so-called “post-racial” times demand the preservation of such memory. The ill-fated King Hedleys, I and II, and Troy Maxtons of the world (characters in other Wilson plays in this cycle) deserve no less. Once again, kudos Brother Wilson.

*It Wasn’t “Morning In America” For Everyone In Reagan's Time- Playwright August Wilson’s “King Hedley II”

Book Review

King Hedley II, 1985, August Wilson, Theatre Communications Group, New York, 2007

Okay, blame it on the recently departed Studs Terrell and his damn interview books. I had just been reading his "The Spectator", a compilation of some of his interviews of various authors, actors and other celebrities from his long-running Chicago radio program when I came across an interview that he had with the playwright under review here, August Wilson. Of course, that interview dealt with things near and dear to their hearts on the cultural front and mine as well. Our mutual love of the blues, our concerns about the history and fate of black people and the other oppressed of capitalist society and our need to express ourselves politically in the best way we can. For Studs it was the incessant interviews, for me it is incessant political activity and for the late August Wilson it was his incessant devotion to his century cycle of ten plays that covered a range of black experiences over the 20th century.

Strangely, although I was familiar with the name of the playwright August Wilson and was aware that he had produced a number of plays that were performed at a college-sponsored repertory theater here in Boston I had not seen or read his plays prior to reading the Terrell interview. Naturally when I read there that one of the plays being discussed was entitled "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" about the legendary female blues singer from the 1920's I ran out to get a copy of the play. That play has been reviewed elsewhere in this space but as is my habit when I read an author who "speaks" to me I grab everything I can by him or her to see where they are going with the work. This is doubly true in the case of Brother Wilson as his work is purposefully structured as an integrated cycle, and as an intensive dramatic look at the black historical experience of the 20th century that has driven a lot of my own above-mentioned political activism.

By the time that this review appears I will have already reviewed five of the ten plays in August Wilson’s Century cycle. On the first five I believe that I ran out of fulsome praise for his work and particularly for his tightly woven story and dialogue. Rather than keep following that path for the next five plays I would prefer to concentrate on some of the dialogue that makes Brother Wilson’s work so compelling. For those who want to peek at my general observations you can look at my review of “Gem Of The Ocean” (the first play chronologically in the cycle).

In all previously reviewed plays I noticed some piece of dialogue that seemed to me to sum up the essence of the play. Sometimes that is done by the lead character as was the case with Troy Maxton in “Fences” when he (correctly) stated that there should been “no too early” in regard to the possibilities of black achievement and prospects in America. Other times it is by a secondary character in the form of some handed down black folk wisdom as means to survive in racially-hardened America. Here it is the simple common phrase “it ain’t always about you” that several characters throw at King Hedley as he unsuccessfully tries to make his kind of sense out of the 1980’s.

Somehow the ‘abundant’ of the Reagan years in America did not trickle down to King Hedley’s Pittsburgh ghetto neighborhood. In the post civil rights, post affirmative action era he was the forgotten man, the man left out, so that he had to made do- any way he could. He made the wrong choices, as sometimes happens, and paid the price. In 2009 we can make this assertion- for every Barack Obama and others of W.E.B. Dubois' "talented tenth" who were incubating during the Reagan years there were ten (maybe more) young black men who were left to drift. Is Hedley’s story so different today in the ghetto? I think not. Thanks, Brother Wilson for speaking “truth to power” in addressing another timeless piece of the puzzle.

*Searching For The Roots- August Wilson's "Radio Golf"

Click On Title To Link To August Wilson Homepage.

Play Review

Radio Golf (1997), August Wilson, Theater Communications Group, New York, 2007

Okay, blame it on the recently departed Studs Terkel and his damn interview books. I had just been reading his "The Spectator", a compilation of some of his interviews of various authors, actors and other celebrities from his long-running Chicago radio program when I came across an interview that he had with the playwright under review here, August Wilson. Of course, that interview dealt with things near and dear to their hearts on the cultural front and mine as well. Our mutual love of the blues, our concerns about the history and fate of black people and the other oppressed of capitalist society and our need to express ourselves politically in the best way we can. For Studs it was the incessant interviews, for me it is incessant political activity and for the late August Wilson it was his incessant devotion to his century cycle of ten plays that covered a range of black experiences over the 20th century.

Strangely, although I was familiar with the name of the playwright August Wilson and was aware that he had produced a number of plays that were performed at a college-sponsored repertory theater here in Boston I had not seen or read his plays prior to reading the Terkel interview. Naturally when I read there that one of the plays being discussed was entitled "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" about the legendary female blues singer from the 1920's I ran out to get a copy of the play. That play has been reviewed elsewhere in this space but as is my habit when I read an author who "speaks" to me I grab everything I can by him or her to see where they are going with the work. This is doubly true in the case of Brother Wilson as his work is purposefully structured as an integrated cycle, and as an intensive dramatic look at the black historical experience of the 20th century that has driven a lot of my own above-mentioned political activism.

By the time that this review appears I will have already reviewed five of the ten plays in August Wilson’s Century cycle. On the first five I believe that I ran out of fulsome praise for his work and particularly for his tightly woven story and dialogue. Rather than keep following that path for the next five plays I would prefer to concentrate on some of the dialogue that makes Brother Wilson’s work so compelling. For those who want to peek at my general observations you can look at my review of “Gem Of The Ocean” (the first play chronologically in the cycle).

In all previously reviewed plays I noticed some piece of dialogue that seemed to me to sum up the essence of the play. Sometimes that is done by the lead character as was the case with Troy Maxton in “Fences” when he (correctly) stated that there should been “no too early” in regard to the possibilities of black achievement and prospects in America. Other times it is by a secondary character in the form of some handed down black folk wisdom passed on as means to survive in racially-hardened America. In “Radio Golf” this task falls to Roosevelt Hicks, a man who has been a beneficiary of some affirmative action by the white establishment (as always not directly present in the story line as it unfolds), when he candidly and ironically notes that when heading to the golf club with his white associates he has to pass out business cards so that others do not think that he is the caddy.

That says more in a couple of sentences about a central aspect of black experience in America than many manifestos, treatises or sociological/psychological studies. That Wilson can weave that home truth into a play of less than one hundred pages and drive the plot line of a story that deals with the contradiction between black aspirations to “make it in America”, at least for those who fall into W.E.B. Dubois’ “talented tenth”, and that nagging feeling of selling out for a ‘mess of pottage’ to the mainstream white culture. Given the continuing hard fate for most blacks in housing, education and jobs today Brother Wilson is on to something. As I have also noted previously- that, my friends, is still something to consider in the “post-racial” Obamiad. We shall see.

*Joe Turner Get Away From My Door- August Wilson's "Joe Turner's Come And Gone"

Click On Title To Link To August Wilson Homepage.

Play Review

Joe Turner’s Come And Gone, August Wilson, New American Library, New York, 1988

The first couple of paragraphs of this review have been used as introduction to other August Wilson Century Cycle plays as well.

Okay, blame it on the recently departed Studs Terkel and his damn interview books. I had just been reading his "The Spectator", a compilation of some of his interviews of various authors, actors and other celebrities from his long-running Chicago radio program when I came across an interview that he had with the playwright under review here, August Wilson. Of course, that interview dealt with things near and dear to their hearts on the cultural front and mine as well. Our mutual love of the blues, our concerns about the history and fate of black people and the other oppressed of capitalist society and our need to express ourselves politically in the best way we can. For Studs it was the incessant interviews, for me it is incessant political activity and for the late August Wilson it was his incessant devotion to his century cycle of ten plays that covered a range of black experiences over the 20th century.


The old blues song "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" is a familiar one to me. I have heard it in many versions, some where Joe is a good guy and others, as here with August Wilson's concept of Joe, bad. Bad, indeed, for black people who tried in the second decade of the 20th century to try to make a decent life for themselves and their families. The specific case highlighted in the play is the fate of one Herald Loomis (and his daughter). Herald, having come up against Joe Turner's justice (read white Jim Crow justice) and paid the price with the lost of his wife, as well as part of his sanity, is searching to find his roots.

In the opening play of this series "Gem of the Ocean" we find the characters there trying to figure out what to do with their new found freedom. Here were are involved in a search to find meaning for the black family, the black man and anyone else who is confounded by the race question, circa 1910. One of the most dramatic lines in the whole play is when one of the boarders at Seth's Holly's house, Molly, who is about to go off with fellow boarder Jeremy for parts unknown in order to have fun or just to get a fresh start. She says- "I will go anywhere with you-except the South". That, my friends, says as much about this play as anything else. Of course, as always with Wilson one gets a deep dialogue, a very real feel for the confined space that the whites, North or South have left for blacks and with the exception of the link with the white travelling salesman Selig are not part of the flow of national capitalist society. Yes, "Joe Turner's Come and Gone", circa 1911 style, is gone but are we so sure that he is gone for good? As always, kudos, Brother Wilson.

*The Struggle Continues- August Wilson's "Gem Of The Ocean"

Click On Title To Link To August Wilson Homepage.

Play/Book Review

Gem Of The Ocean, August Wilson, Theater Communication Group, New York, 2007

The first couple of paragraphs of this review have been used as introduction to other August Wilson Century Cycle plays as well.

Okay, blame it on the recently departed Studs Terkel and his damn interview books. I had just been reading his "The Spectator", a compilation of some of his interviews of various authors, actors and other celebrities from his long-running Chicago radio program when I came across an interview that he had with the playwright under review here, August Wilson. Of course, that interview dealt with things near and dear to their hearts on the cultural front and mine as well. Our mutual love of the blues, our concerns about the history and fate of black people and the other oppressed of capitalist society and our need to express ourselves politically in the best way we can. For Studs it was the incessant interviews, for me it is incessant political activity and for the late August Wilson it was his incessant devotion to his century cycle of ten plays that covered a range of black experiences over the 20th century.

Although "Gem Of The Ocean" was not August Wilson's first play written in what has become the century cycle it is first in time at the turn of the 20th century. To set the context it was time when black chattel slavery had been abolished legally but after the time, at least in the South (and de facto in the North), that Jim Crow ruled race relations in America. The great promise of the Civil War and the post-war Reconstruction period gave way to the doctrine, if one can call it that, of "separate but equal". The struggle to come to terms with that hard reality , and the realization that an additional struggle or two were going to be necessary in order to regain that promise, sets the tone for the play and for the cycle.

As for the actual dynamics of this play itself it takes place in 1904, in as is most usually the case in Wilson's work budding industrial Pittsburgh, a place that theoretically could provide hope for the black masses heading north from the dead-end of the agrarian South. That hard dirty wage slavery could provide some positive relief shows the precarious position of blacks at that time. Moreover, this is a mixed blessing as blacks could be just as easily used as `scabs', and then discarded, as an core component of the labor force.

The story hinges around the actions that occur at one of the mills when blacks go on strike themselves for better wages and working conditions. Enter, one Citizen freshly arrived from the South but also frustrated by his prospects. He commits crime and another takes the fall for it. Then, all hell breaks loose until the time of redemption.

The agent of redemption will be none other than Aunt Ester, a figure who hovers around other Wilson plays, Black Mary as her lady-in waiting and Solly Two Kings, a hardened veteran of the black struggle for equality and himself a slave before he became an agent on the Underground Railroad a job he never gave up even after the abolition of slavery. It is that premise-one that the fight for black equality is neither a given nor an easy task that, without giving the plot away, creates the dramatic tension here. Along the way we cross swords with the Booker T. Washington figure of Caesar as the black agent of the unseen (in the play) white power elite to provide the contrary notion that black self-help and black folk wisdom is passé and that one must accept that this is a dog-eat-dog world. As always Wilson provides powerful dialogue to move the action and, once again, I hear that little bluesy, gospelly music in the background that always pushes the rhythm of these works. Kudos, once again, Brother Wilson. The struggle continues.

*Bottom Rail On Top?- Playwright August Wilson's "Seven Guitars"

Click On Title To Link To August Wilson Home page.

Play Review

Seven Guitars (1948), August Wilson, Theater Communications Group, New York, 2007

Okay, blame it on the recently departed Studs Terkel and his damn interview books. I had just been reading his "The Spectator", a compilation of some of his interviews of various authors, actors and other celebrities from his long-running Chicago radio program when I came across an interview that he had with the playwright under review here, August Wilson. Of course, that interview dealt with things near and dear to their hearts on the cultural front and mine as well. Our mutual love of the blues, our concerns about the history and fate of black people and the other oppressed of capitalist society and our need to express ourselves politically in the best way we can. For Studs it was the incessant interviews, for me it is incessant political activity and for the late August Wilson it was his incessant devotion to his century cycle of ten plays that covered a range of black experiences over the 20th century.

Strangely, although I was familiar with the name of the playwright August Wilson and was aware that he had produced a number of plays that were performed at a college-sponsored repertory theater here in Boston I had not seen or read his plays prior to reading the Terkel interview. Naturally when I read there that one of the plays being discussed was entitled "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" about the legendary female blues singer from the 1920's I ran out to get a copy of the play. That play has been reviewed elsewhere in this space but as is my habit when I read an author who "speaks" to me I grab everything I can by him or her to see where they are going with the work. This is doubly true in the case of Brother Wilson as his work is purposefully structured as an integrated cycle, and as an intensive dramatic look at the black historical experience of the 20th century that has driven a lot of my own above-mentioned political activism.


The action of this play takes place in a black neighborhood in Pittsburgh (Wilson's home town) in 1948. This, moreover, is the fifth and thus the middle play in the century cycle. Both these facts are important in understanding the tensions of the play. One of Terkel's oral histories is entitled "The Good War", about the trials and tribulations of those on all sides of the conflict in World War II and from all strata in the American experience of that war. Implicit in Terkel's use of quotation marks around the words in his title is that, on reflection and with time the expectations from that war might not be all they were made out to be. That, at least, jibes with my own sense of the dilemma that confronted those who fought the war. I believe that Wilson also is reflecting on that understanding in this work since some promises were made to black people then that "their boats would also rise" after their key role in industry on the home front and in the ranks of the (segregated) army.

The story line, as seems to be axiomatic with Wilson, is fairly straight forward if the issues presented and the dialogue spoken that convey those issues are much more complex. Army veteran Floyd has some musical talent and heads out to try his luck in the Mecca (for migrating southern blacks)- Chicago and has just had a hit. However, through the well-known vagaries of American racial life, as filtered through common black experience, he hasn't been able to cash in on his success. So, to avoid being the classic `one hit' Johnnie who clutter the cultural landscape of America, Floyd sets out to re-conquer Chicago on his terms- if he can just get that guitar out of hock, get that band together, get that woman (Vera) to believe in him and his ability to succeed and if he can avoid the "cutthroats" (literally) out to cut him down to size all will be well. Floyd fails, and that failure is a metaphor for the black condition in the 1940's. Maybe things will turn out better later but "the dream" is still on hold here. This, my friends, is powerful, powerful stuff beyond what I can describe to you here in this short summary.

Wilson's conceptual framework, as I have mentioned previously in a review of his "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom", is impeccable. Placing the scene in 1940's Pittsburgh permits him to give a bird's eye view of that great migration of blacks out of the south in the post-World War I period at a time when they are shaking off those roots (as exemplified by the nice contrast in the play between the old time thinking Miss Tilley's with her ill-fated rooster and Louise and Vera ). Floyd, Red Carter and Canewell, among others (including Ruby, recently arrived from the South) are now "assimilated". Moreover, Wilson is able to succinctly draw in the questions of white racism (powerfully so in the story of Floyd's agent, Mr. T. H. Hall), black self-help , black hatred of whites (Hedley's tirades), black self-hatred, black illusion (that the `lifting' of the white boats was going to end, for blacks, the seemingly permanent Great Depression), black pride (through the link with past black historical figures and with the then current hero, Joe Louis), the influence of the black church (good or bad), black folk wisdom (as portrayed by Canewell, who is more grounded in his memories of his southern roots than the others) and, in the end, the rage behind black on black violence (Hedley) resulting from a world that not was not made by the characters in this play but took no notice of their long suppressed rage that turned in on itself.

And all the time while one is reading the play one is struck by the music of the dialogue, it's always the blues. I posed a question in the review of "Ma Rainey" asking, plaintively, "what are the blues?". That is, apparently, to be my theme in reviewing the body of Brother Wilson's work. I will let the last line of that review stand here. "So if anyone asks you what the blues are you now know what to say- read and see Mr. Wilson's play(s)".

*Better Days Are Coming?-"Never Should Have Been No Too Early"-Playwright August Wilson's "Fences"

Click On Title to Link To August Wilson Home page.

Play/Book Review

Fences, August Wilson, New American Library, New York, 1986

The first couple of paragraphs of this review have been used as introduction to other August Wilson Century Cycle plays as well.

Okay, blame it on the recently departed Studs Terkel and his damn interview books. I had just been reading his "The Spectator", a compilation of some of his interviews of various authors, actors and other celebrities from his long-running Chicago radio program when I came across an interview that he had with the playwright under review here, August Wilson. Of course, that interview dealt with things near and dear to their hearts on the cultural front and mine as well. Our mutual love of the blues, our concerns about the history and fate of black people and the other oppressed of capitalist society and our need to express ourselves politically in the best way we can. For Studs it was the incessant interviews, for me it is incessant political activity and for the late August Wilson it was his incessant devotion to his century cycle of ten plays that covered a range of black experiences over the 20th century.

Strangely, although I was familiar with the name of the playwright August Wilson and was aware that he had produced a number of plays that were performed at a college-sponsored repertory theater here in Boston I had not seen or read his plays prior to reading the Terkel interview. Naturally when I read there that one of the plays being discussed was entitled "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" about the legendary female blues singer from the 1920's I ran out to get a copy of the play. That play has been reviewed elsewhere in this space but as is my habit when I read an author who "speaks" to me I grab everything I can by him or her to see where they are going with the work. This is doubly true in the case of Brother Wilson as his work is purposefully structured as an integrated cycle, and as an intensive dramatic look at the black historical experience of the 20th century that has driven a lot of my own above-mentioned political activism.

The action of this play takes place in the mid-1950's in a black neighborhood in Pittsburgh (Wilson's home town) as do most of the plays in the cycle. This is the sixth play in the cycle and the first to reflect that notion that some profound changes were in the offing for black people, not all of them good and not all for the better. Both these facts are important in understanding the tensions of the play. Although Wilson's plays are almost exclusively centered in black life as it is lived in the neighborhood the various trials and tribulations of blacks elsewhere are woven into his story line. The white world, for the most part, except as represented by amorphous outside forces that have the access and control of the resources that blacks need to survive and break out of racial isolation are on the sidelines here. And that is as it should be in these plays on the black experience. Moreover, this truly reflects how it has been (and how it still is, notwithstanding the Obamaid) in that outer world.

I labelled this entry with the headline "Better Days Are Coming?" purposefully including the question mark. Surely, some progress toward the goal of racial equality, if not nearly enough, has been made over the last half century since the time period of this play. That is not the question. The real question is posed by the main character, Troy Maxton, who in his time was something of an exceptional baseball player, but who "came too early" to have it change the fortunes of his life. His reply: "ain't nothing should have ever been too early". Wilson hits the nail on the head here. After that remark nothing else really needs to be said.

Wilson's conceptual framework, as I have mentioned previously in a review of his "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom", is impeccable. Placing the scene in 1950's Pittsburgh permits him to give a bird's eye view of that great migration of blacks out of the South in the post-World War II period at a time when they are shaking off those old subservient southern roots. Wilson is also able to succinctly draw in the questions of white racism (obliquely here), black self-help (as in building that damn fence) , black hatred of whites, black self-hatred, black illusion (that the `lifting' of the white boats was going to end, for blacks, the seemingly permanent Great Depression), black pride (through the link with past black historical figures and with the then current hero, Jackie Robinson, although Troy has some cutting remarks on the status of that figure), the influence of the black church (good or bad), black folk wisdom (as portrayed by Jim Bono, who is more grounded in his memories of his southern roots than the others) and, in the end, the rage just below the surface of black existence (as portrayed here by Troy's mentally ill brother Gabriel, a character who epitomizes one of the tragic aspects of black male existence) resulting from a world that not was not made by the characters in this play but took no notice of their long suppressed rage that turned in on itself.

Unlike some of the earlier play, however, there is a little ray of hope in the character of Troy's son (by his wife Rose) Cory whose struggle for his own identity with his father and the world is a sub-theme here. As always, if you get a chance go see this play but, please, at least read it. Read the whole cycle.

*The Struggle Continues- Playwright August Wilson's "Two Trains Coming"

Click On Title To Link To August Wilson Homepage.

Play Review

Two Trains Running (1969), August Wilson, Theater Communications Group, New York, 2007

By the time that this review appears I will have already reviewed five of the ten plays in August Wilson’s Century cycle. On the first five I believe that I ran out of fulsome praise for his work and particularly for his tightly woven story and dialogue. Rather than keep following that path for the next five plays I would prefer to concentrate on some of the dialogue that makes Brother Wilson’s work so compelling. For those who want to peek at my general observations you can look at my review of “Gem Of The Ocean” (the first play chronologically in the cycle).

In all previously reviewed plays I noticed some piece of dialogue that seemed to me to sum up the essence of the play. Sometimes that is done by the lead character as was the case with Troy Maxton in “Fences” when he (correctly) stated that there should have been “no too early” in regard to the possibilities of black achievement and prospects in America. Other times it is by a secondary character in the form of some handed down black folk wisdom to be followed in order to survive in racially-hardened America. In “Two Trains Running” this task falls to Holloway when he cuts through all the basic white assumptions about blacks being lazy. His retort: blacks are the most hard working people in the world. They worked for free for over three hundred years. And, to add a little dry humor to the situation, he stated that they didn’t take a lunch break.

That says more in a couple of sentences about a central aspect of black experience in America than many manifestos, treatises or sociological/psychological studies. That Wilson can weave that home truth into a play of less than one hundred pages and drive the plot line of a story that deals with the contradiction between black aspirations as a result of the promise of the militant civil rights movement down South in the early 1960’s and the reality of black segregation when the struggle headed North later to get hit, and get hit hard, with the ugly face of white racism in housing, jobs and education. That, my friends, is still something to consider in the “post-racial” Obamiad. We shall see.


Here is a song that tells the tale that Wilson presents. Markin

Two Trains Running

Lyrics: Traditional

Music: Traditional

So far as is known, the Dead did this only once, on 15 December 1971. It's a fragment Pigpen inserted in Lovelight.

Well there's two trains a-coming
Two trains coming
One comes around midnight
Other one comes by day

The best-known recording under this title is probably that by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, credited on the album to "Davis". But it seems that the originas go back to early Muddy Waters and probably before that.

The lyrics of the Paul Butterfield version are:
Well there's two trains running
But there's not one going my way
Yeah one runs at midnight
Other's just for day
Other's just for day
Other's just for day

I went down to my baby's house
And I sat down on her steps
She said come on in here baby
My old man just left
Yeah just now left
My old man just left

Yes I wish I was a catfish
Swimming in the deep blue sea
I'd have all you pretty women
Fishing after me
Fishing after me
Fishing after me

Well she's long and she's tall
And she shakes just like a willow tree
You say she's no good
But she's all right with me
She's all right with me
She's all right with me
She's all right with me

Little girl's all right, all right with me
She give me loving in the morning
[etc]

The Muddy Waters version was originally recorded in 1951 under the title "Still A Fool". Thanks to Anita Cantor for alerting me to this, and pointing me to a Rob Quinn transcription of the lyrics. According to Anita, Muddy Waters also recorded it with different lyrics under the title "She's All Right"

The Muddy Waters lyrics are:
Well now there's two
There's two trains runnin'
Well ain't not one, (ho!) goin' my way
Well now one run at midnight
And the other one runnin' just 'fore day
A runnin' just 'fore day
It's runnin' just 'fore day
Oh Lord
Sure 'nough then
Oh well

Hmm, (ho) (ho)
Somebody help me (ho) with these blues
Well now, she's the one I'm lovin'
She the one I do hate to lose
I do hate to lose
I do hate to lose
Oh Lord
Sure enough I do
Oh well

I been crazy
Yes I been a fool
I been crazy, oh all my life
Well I done fell in love with her
With another man's wife
With another man's wife
With another man's wife
Oh Lord
Sure 'nough I done
Oh well

Long, she's long and tall
'Til she weeps like a willow tree
Well now, then say she's no good
But she's all right
She's all right with me
She's all right
She's all right
She's all right
She's all right

*Ma Rainey Don't Bite Her Tongue, And Neither Does Playwright August Wilson

Click On Title To Link To August Wilson Homepage.

Commentary

February Is Black History Month

I had originally intended to review all of the late August Wilson's Century Cycle plays at the same time. On reflection this is such an important series about sketches of black cultural life in the 20th century that I decided to review each one separately. Below is a list of the ten plays to be reviewed over the next several months.

Play Reviews

The August Wilson Century Cycle

Gem Of The Ocean (1904)

Joe Turner's Come And Gone (1911)

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1927)

The Piano Lesson(1936)

Seven Guitars (1948)

Fences(1957)

Two Trains Running(1969)

Jitney(1977)

King Hedley II (1985)

Radio Golf(1997)
*************************************************

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1927), August Wilson, New American Library, New York, 1981

Readers of this space know that over the past year or so I have highlighted the musical works of various acoustic and electric black blues performers, mainly the former. The hidden question posed by those performers and subsequently by this reviewer is- "What are the blues?" The answers I have given have ranged from the perennial- "the blues is the dues" to old Lightnin' Hopkins' refrain- "the blues ain't nothing but a good woman on your mind". Playwright August Wilson posed this very question in this his first, I believe, play "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom". His answer is far more profound that mine could ever be when he has Ma say the blues are "way of understanding life". And then proceeds in his little beauty of a play to give a black version of the way that life played out.

The story line of this play is fairly straight forward, although probably an unusually theme for a serious play, about the trails and tribulations of blacks recording blues records in Chicago in the mid-1920's. And not just any blues singer off the farm, but the most famous female blues singer of her day, Ma Rainey, and her band. But that is not the half of it. In that small physical space and musical universe of the recording studio and with her motley group of band members that seemingly represented every possible black musician type that Wilson could image, Ma Rainey, the Mother of The Blues and the whites in charge of production (and who will reap the disproportionate share of the profits) has raised every timely issue for blacks in the 1920's, the 1980's when he wrote the play and, notwithstanding the Obama presidential victory, now.

Wilson's conceptual framework is impeccable. Placing the scene in 1920's Chicago permits him to work with the migration of blacks out of the south in the post-World War I period in order to show the contrasts (and similarities) between the `country boys' (Toledo) and the `assimilated' city boys (Levee). Moreover, he is able to succinctly draw in the questions of white racism (powerfully so in the story of Levee's mother's rape by white men) , black self- help (Levee's father's response to his wife's rape), black hatred of whites, black self-hatred, black illusions (that of Ma in her `queenly' relationships with the profiting whites), black pride, the influence of the black church (good and bad), black folk wisdom ( as portrayed by Cutler, the senior band member) and, in the end, the rage behind black on black violence (Levee) resulting from a world that was not made by the characters in this play but took no notice of their long suppressed rage that turned in on itself. Like I said above Wilson provides a very profound answer to the question posed in my first paragraph. So if anyone asks you what the blues are you now know what to say- read and see Mr. Wilson's play.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom- The Blues Of Gertrude “Ma” Rainey

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Ma Rainey, Yazoo Records, 1990

One of the interesting facts about the development of the blues is that in the early days the recorded music and the bulk of the live performances were done by women, at least they were the most popular exponents of the genre. That time, the early 1920's to the 1930's, was the classic age of women blues performers. Of course, when one thinks about that period the name that comes up is the legendary Bessie Smith. Beyond that, maybe some know Ethel Waters. And beyond that-a blank.

Except maybe I have to take that back a little in the case of Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, at least as to her name if not her music that has gotten more recent publicity through the work of playwright August Wilson’s Century Cycle play “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”. Notwithstanding that possibility, in the CD compilation under review we have what amounts to the best of Ma Rainey during her short but productive recording career in the 1920’s. Upon hearing her on this CD women’s blues aficionados are going to want to know how she stacks up against the heavy competition of Bessie Smith. In many ways there are comparable since they worked much the same milieu but, in the end Bessie’s wider range and more heartfelt ‘feel’ for a song wins out. A case in point is the classic “Oh Papa Blues” done by both. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Ma’s version as entertainment but Bessie’s version comes out as if she had just been shot in the heart by some two-timin’ man. That difference is reflected throughout.

As is highlighted in Wilson’s play Ma however was no fool , unlike Bessie, when it came to business and that included making sure she got her just desserts (and credit) for songs that she wrote (somewhat unusual for a singer in the days of Tin Pan Alley). Moreover, some of the best songs here have some legendary blues sidemen on them. For example, Fletcher Henderson on piano on “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”. Coleman Hawkins on “Blues Oh Blues”. And both Georgia Tom Dorsey (who later went on to a successful gospel career) and Tampa Red on “Sleep Talking Blues”. Wow.