A History Lesson: The American Century Cycle of August Wilson

August Wilson described his cycle of 10 plays as his effort to craft a 400-year autobiography of the African American experience. When Wilson began his playwriting career, he did not initially set out to write 10 plays that chronicle the African American experience. However, after the third or fourth play, Wilson realized that each of the plays he’d written thus far was set in a different decade of the twentieth century. Accordingly, Wilson set out to chart the joys and complexities of Black life in America. The plays are as follows: The 1900s - Gem of the Ocean (2003) The 1910s - Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (1986) The 1920s - Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1984) The 1930s - The Piano Lesson (1987) The 1940s - Seven Guitars (1995) The 1950s - Fences (1985) The 1960s - Two Trains Running (1990) The 1970s - Jitney (1982) The 1980s - King Hedley II (1999) The 1990s - Radio Golf (2005)

Undeniably, August Wilson was fascinated with the history of Black Americans. Yet, the lack of being formally educated about Black history piqued his curiosity. Wilson once stated that he was “encouraged by the fact that in all [his] reading of history, seldom, if ever, was the black experience in America given any weight, seldom were they admitted to the larger playing field of cause and effect.” (August Wilson, “Characters Behind History Teach Wilson About Plays,” The New York

MTC’s Gem of the Ocean (2016). (L-R): Juney Smith, Namir Smallwood, David Everett Moore, and Margo Hall. (Photo by Kevin Berne) MTC’s Fences (2014). (L-R): Carl Lumbly, Margo Hall, and Steven Anthony Jones. (Photo by Ed Smith) MTC’s Seven Guitars (2011). (L-R): Tobie Windham, Omoze Idehenre, Margo Hall, L. Peter Callender, Marc Damon Johnson, and Shinelle Azoroh. (Photo by Kevin Berne)

Times, April 12, 1992.) August Wilson committed himself to use the theatrical stage as a repository for Black American history. Wilson says, “Since I was not a historian but a writer of fiction, I saw as my task the invention of characters.” Accordingly, through his characters, Wilson laid claim to a past this is too often forgotten, thus filling the gaps in historical records by using his artistic license to mesh facts with a fictional imagination.

Wilson’s engagement with history is prominent in Two Trains Running – the 1960s play. However, Wilson does not directly address the historical events of the 1960s. Instead, these events hover over the play as a backdrop, thus informing the actions and motivations of the characters. The history that hovers over the play includes the legacies of leaders of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, namely Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. It also hints at the death of Robert Kennedy, the beginning of gentrification and displacement within Black communities, and the fallout from the Vietnam War. When asked why he kept these historical events of the 1960s off the stage, Wilson responded with the following:

The play does not speak to the so-called red-lettered events of the sixties, because at the time all of that was going on – the assassination of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy and all the anti-war administrations, go to work every day, you still had to pay your rent, you still had to put food on the table . And those events, while they may have somehow affected the character of society as a whole, didn’t reach the average person who was concerned with simply living . And so in Two Trains I was more concerned with those people and what they were doing and how they were dealing with it, than I was writing a

“sixties” play . (Quoted in, “The Historical Perspective: An Interview with

August Wilson,” Richard Pettengill, August Wilson: A Casebook, edited by Marilyn Elkins.)

Wilson peoples his plays with everyday folks – those whose lives fluctuate between what is happening nationally and regionally. Although Wilson puts fictional stories on the stage, as in Two Trains Running, it is evident that these stories are inspired – and perhaps haunted – by real history.