Saturday, March 26, 2016

August Wilson Evening with Susan

Typically, on a Friday evening, I am in jammies recovering from a scrape-me-off-the-floor physical and mental exhaustion of the teaching week. My couch is my refuge, solitude my balm. 

Thanks to a 3-day weekend reprieve, though, last night, I met up with my beloved mentor and friend, Susan, for an evening of friendship, delicious food, and August Wilson's "How I Learned What I Learned" at the Huntington Theater Company.

Susan does amazing work with the youth of Boston as the education organizer of the Learn2Teach/Teach2Learn program at the South End Technology Center at Tent City directed by none other than the venerable Mel King. In her words, she is a "community education worker & bicycler who chops vegetables, bakes pies, loves our Boston youth for their unique passions and genius!" Can you see why I love her? 

On a typical Friday evening, Susan is as likely to be hosting a group of community Makers at the Tech Lab as she is writing a grant, troubleshooting some misbehaving code or circuit, or tweaking the latest learning activity for the next workshop. Mel often tells her to leave, get a life, go do something fun (my words, but trust me, that's the essence of his meaning). 

Thus, when we solidified our plans to--GASP!--go out on a Friday night, we were both super proud of ourselves and of course looked forward to each other's company. 

We began our evening with a delicious meal at Lucy Ethiopian Cafe, a gem of a "hidden" find that nourished our bellies and warmed our souls. 

Peanut tea with 3D printed bunny, a gift from Susan, fabricated with love at the Tech Ctr:
the most heavenly concoction made from a special house recipe containing milk, honey, peanuts.

Vegetarian platter for two with injera: yum yum! We kept eating even after we were full. 

After dinner, we walked a block to the Huntington Theater Company for August Wilson's "How I Learned What I Learned," a theatrical memoir directed by Todd Kriedler, featuring Eugene Lee. Both Kreidler and Lee worked closely with AW when he was still alive, Kreidler as the dramaturg, and Lee in lead roles of several of AW's Century Cycle plays. On top of that, Constanza Romero, Wilson's widow and the executor of his estate, serves as creative consultant and costume designer for the show. In short, Wilson's spirit very much inhabits the theater and this production of his final work.

Eugene Lee gave a phenomenal performance. Charismatic and dynamic, with a stamina that blows my mind (it was a 1 hr 40 minute one-man show, no intermission--I would be toast after a single performance, if I made it all the way through, much less performance after performance, 2 on Saturdays, for an entire month), Lee breathed life into August Wilson's words, engaging the audience throughout, surprising and delighting, provoking us to confront issues of race and class that make so many people uncomfortable. Great art makes us think. It nourishes the soul. Wilson fervently believed that art could effect social change.

And for the first time in my life, I attended a theater performance whose audience was not overwhelmingly white. Wow, the audience was not all white! I couldn't play my usual game of counting how many POC because there were too many to count! As a woman noted in the post-performance audience discussion, when a theater produces material that speaks to the diverse population of the city, the people who don't usually come will come. I wanted to stand on my seat and whoop at the the top of my lungs!


The set of August Wilson's "How I Learned What I Learned": papers strung on wires to represent AW's prolific scribbles and drafts on any piece of available paper, including napkins, coasters, and scrap paper; changing video projected letters on top of the suspended papers; a deconstructed boxing ring, an arena symbolizing AW's life and journey; a desk of plywood over two filing cabinets reminiscent of an aspiring writer's modest roots; and debris strewn below the boxing ring symbolizing each of his Century Cycle plays, including a baseball mitt, bat, and a golf club.

"All you need in the world is love and laughter. That's all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the other."--August Wilson




6 comments:

  1. what a perfectly lovely evening--how wonderful!

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  2. Thanks so much for sharing your evening. Your meal looked delicious! The tea sounds heavenly! Your mentor seems like the most inspirational person: her work, her words, her presence. The play seems amazing: one-man performance with no intermission. Thank you for sharing the setting with me. The symbols of Wilson's notes on napkins and scraps of paper is amazing. Thank you again.

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  3. What a fun and inspirational night! I'm glad you were able to rouse yourself and go. We all need those moments of existing in the real world, outside our homes and our classrooms.

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  4. This sounds like a wonderful evening with a friend and mentor. This play sounds really intriguing- my sons are adopted, and are African American. Because of them, I'm keenly aware of issues of race, and am always looking for new insights.

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    1. Carol, have you read any of August Wilson's plays? He wrote 10 plays in total, each chronicling a decade of the 20th century, giving voice to the Black experience in America. They are even better when brought to life on stage.

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  5. Yay for taking time to let friendship and art nourish your soul! I felt similarly when I saw Alvin Ailey: diverse audiences taking in important art. We are not alone. We are not alone.

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