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1Scene: A college student is sitting in his dorm room, thinking about his writing assignment. A small room with two of everything, twin beds, desks, and some shelves. The room, like most small dorm rooms, is divided in half. The student is on his side of the room, working at his desk (pacing anxiously).

(To himself) Damn it! I can’t think of anything that will make this paper special. Anyone can relay the facts of August Wilson’s life. I want to do something different. I want my paper to stand out. O.K., let’s start from the beginning. Wilson wrote: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Fences, Seven Guitars, The Piano Lesson, Joe Turners Come and Gone, Two Trains Running… and that monologue about the janitor. What do these plays have in common? They’re all about the black experience. History and identity. He explores the lives of different black characters and how they cope with their personal histories. Maybe it’ll help if I went to the library and watched that documentary about him again. (Blackout)




Scene: The student, Joe, is at his desk, working on his paper, when his roommate, portrayed by the audience, walks in.

Oh, hey. How are you? I’m working on a paper for theatre class. I have to write a research paper on a favorite playwright. I chose August Wilson. There’s something about his plays that captures the Black Experience in America. But what I really like is that his major themes are universal. That’s why I chose him. I think there are lessons in his plays that everyone, regardless of race, can benefit from. See, that’s the thing. I’m stuck. I don’t know how to approach this. Universal themes? History… identity… character. He writes about the human spirit. He uses various characters to portray the universality of the human spirit. What did he do? Hmmm… yeah. That’s a good idea. I’ll try that. But, do you think he’ll really respond? Yeah, yeah… try and try again. You’re right. I’ll never know until I try.




Scene: same as before.

It’s coming along great, thanks. I sent an e-mail to Mr. Wilson’s agent, asking him to find out the name of someone Mr. Wilson researched while he was writing Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and August Wilson himself wrote back. I chose that one because it was his first acclaimed published play. He introduces themes that he explores in his later plays. Anyway, Mr. Wilson gave me the name and number of the man whom he modeled his character Levee. His name is Malik Walker. I’m going to call him tomorrow. I’m excited about this. Thanks for the idea.




Voice-over during scene change.

So, the next day I called him and explained that I was a college student writing a paper about August Wilson, and would like to interview him. He was weary at first, but once I told him that I had gotten his number from Mr. Wilson himself, he readily agreed.

On Thursday of that week, I went to his house. It was on the South side of town, so I had to take two buses to get there. I took two hours. I’d never been to this side of town. It was like a whole different state. There were actually trees with brown leaves… and grass. There was green grass everywhere. I hadn’t seen green grass since I moved to Pittsburgh to go to college three years ago. I walked along the main highway until I came to a row of rusty, old mailboxes. And turned onto the dirt road, towards Mr. Walker’s house. After what seemed like days, I came upon the Walker shack. It was small and worn. One could hardly tell that it was once painted green with black trim. On the porch, sitting in a rocking chair, was a healthy- looking black man. He looked to be about forty. And by the size of his body, I guessed that he had been working for most of his life. It was Mr. Walker, and after I introduced myself, he invited me to sit with him and commenced to talk about old times.




Me an’ August grew up together. He lived a few blocks over yonder. We went to the same school. We was the two musketeers. “All for one, and one for all.” We did everything together. He was always the smart one, though. I always knew he was gonna make something of himself. He always had that desire. He used to tell me about how he was gonna be someone big.

It didn’t start that way, though. August was never very bold. He never thought he fit in. One time he was walking along downtown – course this was about 1960, so there wasn’t much of a downtown at that time. And what there was was segregated. Even the music was segregated back then. The white people had their Big Band dance music, and we had the Blues. Wasn’t nobody but a black person could sing the blues. An’ it wasn’t about the rhythm. Even if the white men had rhythm, they still couldn’t do the Blues justice. The Blues is about a feelin’. It’s about bein’ stepped on, and kept down… an’ having your dignity an’ everything you own stole from you. It’s about havin’ nothing left but a broken spirit. White folks couldn’t sing the Blues. Back in those days, white folks had the power.

Well, one day, August was walking by some saloon, and he heard some of that Blues music. So, he went inside to listen. He didn’t know it was one of them white only saloons. The bartender chased him out and threw a bottle at him. It hit him right square in the head. He had to get nine stitches.

I asked him that, too. He went in there ‘cuz he heard the Blues, and he thought only black people listen to music like that.

At first, he didn’t tell me about this. He jus tole me he was sick. But I finally made him tell me what happened. And I’m glad I did too, ‘cuz there was so much hate built up in him I had to do everything I know to stop him from going back to that bar to shoot someone. I ain’t never seen him that angry before. If I didn’t stop him, he mighta end up dead.

That’s when I told him about how to deal with the white man. See, I was eight years old when I watched a gang of white men come into my daddy’s house and have to do with my mama any way they wanted. We was living in Jefferson County, about eighty miles outside of Natchez. My dad had him near fifty acres of farming land. Folks called him an uppity nigger ‘cause he done saved and borrowed to where he could buy this land and be independent. It was coming on planting time and my daddy went into Natchez to get him some seed and fertilizer. Called me, say, “Levee you the man of the house now. Take care of your mama while I’m gone.” I wasn’t but a little boy eight years old.

My mama was frying up some chicken when them white mens come in that house. Must have been eight or nine of them. She standing there frying that chicken and them mens come and took hold of her just like you take hold of a mule and make him do what you want.

There was my mama with a gang of white mens. She tried to fight them off, but I could see where it wasn’t gonna do her any good, I didn’t know what they were doing to her… but I figured whatever it was they may as well do to me too. My daddy had a knife that he kept around here for hunting and working and whatnot. I knew where he kept it and I went and got it.

I tried my damndest to cut one of them white mans throat! I hit him on the shoulder with it. He reached back and grabbed hold of that knife and whacked me across the chest with it. That’s what made them stop. They was scared I was gonna bleed to death. My mama wrapped a sheet around me and carried me two miles down to the Furlow place and they drove e up to Doc Albans. He was waiting on a calf to be born, and say he ain’t had time to see me. They carried me up to Miss Etta, the midwife, and she fixed me up.

My daddy came back and acted like he done accepted the facts of what happened. But he got the names of the mens from mama. He found out who they was and then we announced we was moving out of that county. Said goodbye to everybody… all the neighbors. My daddy went and smiled in the face of one of those crackers who had been with my mama. Smiled in his face and sold him our land. We moved over with relations in Cauldwell. He got us settled in and then took off one day. I ain’t never seen him since. He sneaked back, hiding in the woods, laying to get them eight or nine men. He got four of them before they got him. They tracked him down in the woods. Caught up with him and hung him and set him afire.

My daddy wasn’t spooked by the white man. Nosir! And that taught me how to handle them. I seen my daddy go up and grin in the crackers face… smile in his face and sell him his land. All the while he’s planning how he’s gonna get him and what he’s gonna do to him. That taught me how to handle them.

(Unheard question)

People kill me talking about black people is lazy. We is the most hard working people in the world. Worked three hundred years for free. And didn’t take no lunch hour. See, the thing is, the white man don’t want us to have too much. They need us to get ahead in this life. If it wasn’t for you the white man would be poor. Every little bit he got he got standing on top of you. That’s why he could reach so high. And if we had enough…if we didn’t have to depend on the white man, we could make our own life. My mama told me that I got to make my own way. I can’t be waitin’ for someone else to give me somethin’. ‘Cuz I’ll be waitin’ and I might end up without. I never wanted to live my life without. Everybody I knew lived without. I ain’t ever wanted that. I want to live with. I don’t know what you [all] think of yourself, but I think I’m supposed to have. Whatever it is. Have something. Have anything. My mama lived and died and she ain’t had nothing. If it ain’t nothing but peace of mind, let me have that. Ever since I left my mama, I’ve been searching for something I could call my own. Something that nobody could take away from me. See, for a long time, I figured if I had my own land, like my daddy, I could make my own money. And people would respect me. I’d be better than jus’ an ol’ cotton-picking house nigger.

Then, one day, I was walkin’ down the road, and I met a man said if I follow him he gonna show me the Secret of Life. He’s just a man I seen out on the road. He ain’t had no special look. Just a man walking toward me on the road. He come up and asked me which way the road went. I told him everything I knew about the road, where it went and all, and he asked me did I have anything to eat ‘cause he was hungry. Say he ain’t had nothing to eat in three days. Well, I never be out there on the road without a piece of dried meat. Or an orange or an apple. So I give this fellow an orange. He take and eat that orange and told me to come and go along the road a little ways with him, that he had something he wanted to show me. He had a look about him made me wanna go with him, see what he gonna show me. We walked on a bit and it’s getting kind of far from where I met him when it come up to me all of a sudden, we wasn’t going the way he had come from, we was going back my way. Since he said he ain’t knew nothing about the road, I asked him about this. He say he had a voice inside him telling him which way to go and if I come and go along with him he was gonna show me the Secret of Life. Quite naturally I followed him. A fellow that’s gonna show you the Secret of Life ain’t to be taken lightly. We get near this bend in the road and he told me to hold out my hands. Then he rubbed them together with his and I looked down to see they got blood on them. Told me to take and rub it all over me… say that was a way of cleaning myself. Then we went around the bend in that road. Got around that bend and it seem all of a sudden we ain’t in the same place. Turn around that bend and everything look like it was twice as big as it was. The trees and everything bigger than life! Sparrows big as eagles! I turned around to look at this fellow and he had this light coming out of him. I had to cover up my eyes to keep from being blinded. He shining like new money with that light. He shined until all the light seemed like it seeped out of him and then he was gone and I was by myself in this strange place where everything was bigger than life.

I wandered around there looking for that road, trying to find my way back from this big place… and I looked over and seen my daddy standing over there. He was the same size he always was, except for his hands and his mouth. He had that great big old mouth tha look like it take up his whole face and his hands were as big as hams. Look like they was too big to carry around. My daddy called me to him. Said he had been thinking about me and it grieved him to see me in the world carrying other people’s songs and not having one of my own. Told me he was gonna show me how to find my song. Then he carried me further into this big place until we come to this ocean. Then he showed me something I ain’t got no words to tell you. But if you stand to witness it, you done seen something there. I stayed in that place awhile and my daddy taught me the meaning of this thing that I seen and showed me how to find my own song. I asked him about the shiny man and he told me he was the One Who Goes Before and Shows the Way. Said there was lots of shiny men and if I ever saw one again before I died then I would know that my song had been accepted and worked its full power in the world and I could lay down and die a happy man. A man who done left his mark on life. On the way people cling to each other out of the truth they find in themselves. Then he showed me how to get back to the road. I came out to where everything was its own size and I had my song.

(So, what’s the Secret of Life?)

The Secret of Life is finding your song. A man who knows his song is a powerful man. His song gives him power. An’ when he got that power, nobody can keep him trapped. An’ if you sing your song loud enough, it gonna show you the path you’re supposed to follow through life. See, everybody’s got there own path. An’ when you on the right path, there’s no way you can get lost.

(What’s your song?)

I got the Binding Song. I chose that song because that’s what I seen most when I was traveling… people walking away and leaving one another. So I takes the power of my song and binds them together. Been binding people ever since. That’s why my friends call me Bynum. Just like glue I sticks people together.

See, August done found his song. He got the Character Song. His song done put him on the right path, an’ he takes the power of his song and he writes them plays. He’s making his mark on life. And after he gone, his mark will still be here. People still gonna read his plays. An’ when they do, if they listen hard enough, they’ll hear an echo of him singin’ his song. An’ maybe through the truth and power of his song, they gonna find their own.

(Do you think it’s important for people, especially children, to know the songs that came before them?)

Sure. We is all made up of the same thing. We all came from God. We is all connected. Sometimes the best way to find were we ought ta go is to look backwards. We need to study were we been, and that way we can see better where to go. And when we know where to go, we be able to sing our song. We’ll sing our own song, but we is gonna be able to recognize all the otha songs. And that when we gonna really be free.

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First Post! 02/02/2011
 
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