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Studio Theatre Extends its Run of August Wilson's RADIO GOLF
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Radio Golf asks how much of the past we should preserve.
Pulitzer prize-winning playwright August Wilson set out to write a cycle of 10 plays dealing with the African-American experience in the 20th century. There is a play for each decade and nine of the ten plays are set in Wilson's hometown of Pittsburgh. Wilson died not long after completing the final play, Radio Golf. This season, Studio Theatre staged Radio Golf , Wilson's look at the 1990s, and has now extended the play's run until July 12.
Successful real estate man Harmond Wilks is really seeing things come together--he and his business partner Roosevelt Hicks are close to finalizing a deal to bring redevelopment to Pittsburgh's blighted Hill district and his mayoral campaign looks promising. Wilks is in the business of making money, but he does have affection for the area and wants to see it prosper. Hicks and Wilks' wife, Mame, do not feel the same way, and this difference in motive will divide them.
Just as in real life, the complications arrive in unexpected forms. In this case these forms are "Elder" Joseph Barlow, a seemingly dotty man from the old neighborhood, and Sterling Johnson, an ex-con and handyman. The play illustrates the tension between African Americans who have "made it" and those who have not. After they think they are getting their way, Wilks and Hicks burst into a song--their old college cheer about how everyone is in it together. This is clearly ironic because as the disparities between the business partners and the surrounding neighboorhood show, we are not in it together, at least not voluntarily.
The main thread running through the play is one of regentrification and lost heritage, but just as in life the central theme is tied to many other issues. As in other Wilson plays like Jitney and Fences, the sins of the father are visited upon the son. And similar to The Piano Lesson, an inanimate object becomes symbolic of the struggle over how African Americans should move forward and what they should leave behind. Wilson tends to insert wisdom into the ramblings of people that the rest of the world considers to be fools and Radio Golf is no exception.
Although his plays give a lot of time to the struggles of African-American men, to his credit Wilson never forgets that the African American women who stand beside them have difficult decisions to make. Wilks's actions spill over and jeopardize Mame's longheld aspirations and she must figure how to preserve her career and their relationship.
Wilson also looks at the larger American landscape. In the tension over who owns what in a rundown African-American neighborhood, he doesn't forget the imbalance in America's beginnings. He references the losses of Native Americans as his characters recall playing 'Cowboys and Indians.' Those childhood games take a decidedly adult turn and the stakes are raised in Radio Golf. There are no easy answers and althogh you can see who Wilson is rooting for, he sees to it that that everyone has a bit of the hero and the villain. Wilks is overly dependent on the law to see him through, even though Barlow and Johnson keep reminding him that the rules always change. Instead of letting the action reach a high point and start to fall, Wilson keeps his characters hurtling towards collision.
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