N D ITI O N S , O R N E UR O DIV E R G E N CE

CHARACTERS WITH IN WILSON’S PLAYS

In several of Wilson’s plays, characters with seeming neurological disabilities or neurodivergence appear as a repeated trope: Hedley in Seven Guitars, Hambone in Two Trains Running, Gabriel in Fences, and Stool Pigeon in King Hedley II. Wilson referred to these characters as “spectacle” characters. Jim Shea characterizes the commonality of these characters thusly: “August Wilson’s spectacle characters share many of the same qualities: nonsensical dialogue, comic relief, disruption within the play, but all the while foreshadowing what is to come within the play.” Harry Elam Jr. explains their importance as, “Paradoxically, in Wilson’s works those characters who appear mentally impaired, besieged by madness, unable to grasp the reality of the world around them, represent a connection to a powerful, transgressive spirituality, to a lost African consciousness, and to a legacy of black social activism.”

Sometimes, critics or producers have not understood the importance of these characters in Wilson’s dramas. In fact, when Fences was brought to Broadway, a producer wanted to remove Gabriel from the play altogether - she insisted that she and audiences would not understand him or his role within the narrative and see him as a comical character with little significance. This insistence not only misunderstood the importance of Gabriel to the plot of the play, but also promoted an ableist and normative viewpoint of the production. Critics have sometimes highlighted these characters as being extraneous or comical, distracting from the play’s larger purpose. Indeed, in a review of the original Broadway production of Seven Guitars, a critic referred to the subplot with Hedley as “rather melodramatic,” and the other characters within this group have often been called out as incongruous to their respective stories.

Scholar Sandra Shannon points to the characters’ purpose as, “For Wilson, such characters become forceful metaphors; their significance to the play may be measured in terms of the multiple and profound interpretations they make possible.” Many of these characters fixate or highlight injustices perpetrated upon them for not only their disabilities or neurodivergence, but also their blackness - financial, institutional, incarceration, and other restrictions and repression of their agency.

While Wilson said that these characters are fully integrated into the communities in which they live, there are several cases in the plays where they are seen as “problems” to be dealt with; Gabriel in Fences is institutionalized, some characters in Two Trains Running see Hambone’s fixation as a nuisance, and several characters in Seven Guitars conspire to have Hedley tested and treated by a health system he does not trust.

Although characters such as Hedley, Gabriel, Hambone, and Stool Pigeon are not often the center of their dramas, they are essential to Wilson’s storytelling and provide powerful meaning nonetheless. Stacie McCormick highlights their importance in the plays: “Together these characters shed light on the interlocking oppressions of blackness and disability while also demonstrating the power that comes when one demands recognition in the face of erasure.”