Monday, July 3, 2017

Theater Arts: August Wilson's "How I Learned What I Learned"

August Wilson may be most famous for Fences, the play that was adapted for the big-screen last year. I have yet to see Fences (the film or the play), but I got to see Wilson's autobiographical one-man show "How I Learned What I Learned" on its last day at the Round House Theater in Bethesda, Maryland. As a perk of serving as a substitute usher (my parents are regular theater ushers), I got to see the show for free, but it would have been well worth seeing for pay.

How I Learned What I Learned is basically the coming-of-age story of Wilson, who was born Frederick August Kittel Jr. in Pittsburgh in 1945. But through telling tales of his life as a young man in the poor Hill District, Wilson also tells a story about the African American struggle for justice and respect. And he does so in a funny, rather than preachy, way. Narrator Eugene Lee nails this tone, opening the show with a quip about how his ancestors had been in America since the 17th century and for years "never had trouble finding work." Toward the end of the show, he outlines a list of hypothetical sins that a bank teller had committed, including "f--king her brother-in-law," before condemning her to hell...for lying to him about not having envelopes. This was one of many scenes provoking out-loud laughter among the all-adult audience.

 What was it about the bank teller's lie that had Wilson so enraged? As he tells it, it was about "P-R-I-D-E" and "P-R-I-N-C-I-P-L-E-S." It was the same principles that led him to quit odd jobs when a shopkeeper suspected him, without evidence, of stealing, or when the man who ran the lawn mowing service he was working for told him to move to the next lawn after a woman complained. While Wilson's behavior as a young man was at times pridefully stubborn, it was the principled fight for his human dignity that ultimately shined through.

 But How I Learned What I Learned is not just about Wilson't experiences with racial discrimination. He also depicts his first kiss, early relationships and friendships with artists and musicians. He talks about his ambitions as a young poet and his discoveries of the music of John Coltrane. All of these experiences were how "[he] learned what [he] learned."

I knew very little about August Wilson before watching this show. How I Learned What I Learned conveys his young life in a way that a written autobiography can't. I am eager to watch the film version of Fences with this background on the screenplay's author.

No comments:

Post a Comment