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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us October 3, 2005 Playwright Wilson dies of cancer 10-play canon considered among best of the century Staff and wire reports Around the world, August Wilson was known as a master storyteller, a playwright who fashioned his tales of the black struggle in 20th-century America into a monumental 10-play cycle, one of the most ambitious in modern drama. In Ashland, Wilson has been compared to William Shakespeare, for his use of language that chronicled and perserved the rich history of black America in the 20th century. “He’s our society’s Shakespeare,” says Abdul Salaam El Razzac, who is playing in the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s current production of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “because of language, strength and exclusivity of the work. Just like everybody can’t do Shakespeare, everybody can’t do August.” Wilson died Sunday at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, less than two months after he announced he had inoperable liver cancer. He was 60. Among his plays were “Fences,” the writer’s biggest Broadway hit; “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”; and “The Piano Lesson.” At the time of his death, Wilson was still working on the last play in the cycle, “Radio Golf,” which recently closed in Los Angeles and will have productions next year in Seattle, Baltimore and several other cities. His death reverberated through the artistic community across the nation Sunday. Here in Ashland, where production of Wilson’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” has been performed all season at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the news was met with profound sadness. Festival actor Abdul Salaam El Razzac broke into theater with Wilson in Minnesota during the 1970s. He believes that Wilson’s plays document the unique voice of blacks through the 20th century. That rich culture, language and community is often lost in modern America, El Razzac said. But as long as Wilson’s plays are performed, that history is maintained. OSF celebration of Wilson goes back more than a decade. In addition to this year’s production of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” the festival performed “The Piano Lesson” in 2002, “Seven Guitars” in 1999 and “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” in 1993. “Fences,” OSF’s first Wilson production, was performed in Portland in 1991. Epic plays Wilson thought big. His plays were often epic, filled with rich, idiosyncratic language and memorable characters, steeped in the past, trying to survive in the present and wondering about the future. It took Wilson more than 20 years to complete his cycle, one play for each decade. He grapples with major themes — from the effects of slavery on those who could still remember the Civil War to a burgeoning middle class on the cusp of the 21st century. “The goal was to get them down on paper,” he told The Associated Press during an interview in April as he was completing “Radio Golf.” “It was fortunate when I looked up and found I had the two bookends to go. I didn’t plan it that way. I was able to connect the two plays.” Those plays, “Gem of the Ocean” and “Radio Golf,” took place at the beginning and end of the century. Both were directed by Kenny Leon. “We’ve lost a great writer — I think the greatest writer that our generation has seen — and I’ve lost a dear, dear friend and collaborator,” said Leon, adding that Wilson’s work “encompasses all the strength and power that theater has to offer. I feel an incredible sense of responsibility on walking how he would want us to walk and delivering his work.” Actors, too, found extraordinary satisfaction in Wilson’s plays — diverse, fully developed characters who attracted such accomplished performers as James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad, Laurence Fishburne, Angela Bassett, Brian Stokes Mitchell, S. Epatha Merkerson and Leslie Uggams. “He’s a real poet,” OSF Artistic Director Libby Appel said of Wilson earlier this year. “He writes these long poetic monologues that are like arias in an opera.” Appel believed the style and feel of a Wilson play is very much like a Shakespeare classic, both built on stunning use of language that infuses scenes as an artist brushes colorful strokes on a canvas. “They belong together perfectly,” Appel says of Shakes-peare and Wilson. “They are a perfect union.” DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Generic Viagra Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Sportsbook Absinthe Supply Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations African Safari Hammocks Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino King of Spirits ink cartridges Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. 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