America's Shakespeare: Playing playwright August Wilson in Texas

A reasonable argument can be made that August Wilson is America's Shakespeare.

The breadth, vision, poetry and humanity of his 10 major plays, "The American Century Cycle," also known as "The Pittsburgh Cycle," has rarely been matched by any other American writer.

Add to the list of Wilson's triumphs, which includes "Fences," "The Piano Lesson," "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" and "Joe Turner's Come and Gone," a 90-minute autobiographical monologue, "How I Learned What I Learned."

Originally performed by Wilson before his death in 2005, it now can be seen at Texas State University in San Marcos starring superlative Texas actor and playwright Eugene Lee. The director is Todd Kreidler, Wilson's theatrical protégé who conceived this one-man play in tandem with Wilson.

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This revival arrives as part of the 20th-anniversary Texas State Black and Latino Playwrights Celebration. Artist-in-residence Lee, a distinguished Texas State alumnus who performs across the country, serves as artistic director of this annual festival, which this year introduced plays by Kwik Jones and Leonard Madrid in workshop.

Director Kreidler and actor Lee had already presented this version of "How I Learned What I Learned" at four major regional theaters, so it is a fully formed show, not an early workshop. It runs at various times through Sept. 23 at the Evans Auditorium.

The setting is simple: Two platforms placed at sharp angles. A desk and a banquette. A hat rack and a stool.

Behind this, one sees designer Cheri Prough Devol's collage of buildings, people and street scenes that evoke Wilson's Pittsburgh, especially the distinctive Hill District, where the poet and playwright grew up and set many of his plays. Even more crucial are Devol's projected words, which not only help set up each scene's physical location, but also underline Wilson's thematic principles.

Wilson starts with a blazing history of the Black experience in this country, then particularizes those racial dynamics to the geography of the Hill District. Mostly an autodidact who hung out at the local library but also engaged with the street life around him, Wilson as a young man discovers comrades among the neighborhood's writers, musicians and other denizens of Black bohemia.

The poet must also work for a living in order to afford his $25-a-month basement apartment. In among the play's most searing scenes, Wilson recounts how and why he quit job after job because employers shocked his sense of dignity and respect. He rightly and fervently ascribes their words and actions to their racist belief that African Americans are virtually subhuman.

Wilson next follows his young self through a series romantic and sexual entanglements, as well as encounters with the police, drug addicts and violent antagonists. All along, he parses the power structures that inform and intensify some of the worst outcomes. He reaches dizzying heights of cultural analysis as he describes how jazz saxophonist John Coltrane appealed to different segments of his audience.

Currently, I am reading University of Texas historian Peniel E. Joseph's incisive "The Third Reconstruction: America's Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century." Joseph, who teaches at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, breaks down three periods of racial reconstruction: one following the Civil War, another during the late 20th-century civil rights movement, and a third age ushered in by Barack Obama's election to the presidency in 2008 and the Black Lives Matter campaign that intensified after Trayvon Martin's killing in 2012.

Wilson did not live long enough to see this third reconstruction, still in the making, but his reading of Black history mirrors Joseph's arguments and personal reflections closely.

To perform the life of America's Shakespeare, an actor must take the stage with Shakespearean stature. Lee does so. He doesn't so much impersonate Wilson as fiercely embody him.

"I honestly, working with Todd, didn’t have in mind doing the Daniel Day-Lewis version," Lee says of the retired actor famous for getting deep — sometimes too deep — into character, "but to simply capture and channel the essence of his spirit and passion best I can."

Lee's enormous vocal range keeps the listener attuned to Wilson's words. He handles Wilson's unexpected comic patter as well as the almost biblical furor of his moral outrage.

"A good portion of the play is akin to stand-up," Lee says, "and serves as a rare reveal of that side of August. It’s not difficult switching back and forth."

Like Wilson, Lee is a born storyteller, which is critical, because, while parts of "How I Learned What I Learned" are polemical, most of it is anecdotal. Wilson's stories are as rich and varied as the world that he observed around him.

Anyone remotely interested in August Wilson should head to the Evans Auditorium, which is located in the "Quad" at 627 N. LBJ Drive. The closest parking will be at Pleasant Street Garage, 101 Pleasant St. If you are unfamiliar with the Texas State campus, arrive early to reach this out-of-the-way venue.

As noted in the printed program, in 1972, while in college at Southwest Texas State — now Texas State — Lee acted in a command performance of "A Raisin in the Sun" for President Lyndon Johnson at his Hill Country ranch. Since then, Lee has appeared in hundreds of plays, movies and TV series.

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His own script, "East Texas Hot Links," is among the state's best plays and has been performed from Los Angeles to London.

Yet Lee's take on Wilson is among his finest achievements.

The audience, mostly young, who saw it with me at Evans Auditorium, appeared transfixed for the full 90 minutes.

"I do think the characters and conflicts in the play resonate for younger generations," Lee says, "who have come to know recent history and Black Lives Matter movements."

I choked up when, in the final scene, the titles of Wilson's major plays were projected one at a time above Lee's frame. It does not take much courage to predict that they will be revived long into the future.

Clearly, this San Marcos run is not the end of Kreidler and Lee's revival either. The show can — and should — be performed anywhere Wilson's plays are treasured, meaning just about anywhere in the country.

"August Wilson and his work inspired, encouraged and impacted my life and work," Lee says. "As a Black man in America — with my personal history with racism — and as a playwright and an actor with the experience I have had with August’s work, I’m a good fit for every challenge inherent in this play.

"And I have the luxury of singing his own poetic words to work with. I’m also most excited to share this truly inspiring American success story with the students and the Texas community."

If you go to 'How I Learned What I Learned'

When: Various show times through Sept. 23

Where: Evans Auditorium in the Quad, 628 N. LBJ St. on the Texas State University campus in San Marcos

Tickets: $15-$20

Info: txstatepresents.universitytickets.com

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: A play about August Wilson transfixes Texas audiences