I returned to The Carnegie Public Library on Monday to dig around a little bit. I’m always impressed by the amount of media that libraries (especially a library like The Carnegie) make available to the public. The amount of information about August Wilson and his plays one could mine from the stacks seem endless.
With this in mind, I decided to limit my investigation to Wilson’s impact on Pittsburgh, and the greater arts community, around the time he wrote Seven Guitars. One of the benefits of living in a city that is home to such a prolific playwright is that his story was documented in real time by the newspapers and magazines of the area. As I flipped through newspaper and magazine clippings, Wilson’s chronology began to piece together for me.
One of the things that really caught my attention was a short article from a 1988 publication of The Courier (which librarian Marilyn Holt told me was African-American newspaper published in Pittsburgh) titled, “Wilson Receives Honorary CMU Degree.” It was nice to discover a small nugget of history that was connected to my own life.
The other articles that I was drawn to included titles like “Childhood in Hill Leads to a Pulitzer for August Wilson” and “A Voice From the Streets: August Wilson’s Plays Portray the Sound and Feel of Black Poverty.” It’s fascinating to read reports of Wilson’s genius written from a time when the world was first discovering it.
I also found some articles specific to Seven Guitars. One was subtitled “Seven Guitars Hits Eloquent Notes of Despair,” which I find to be an amusing turn of phrase when considered out of context. Seven Guitars had significantly less press than plays like Fences and Two Trains Running.
I can see circumstances in which all of the information I found could be valuable to a production of Seven Guitars. However, I think this kind of research is usually more relevant to discussions about subjects like August Wilson himself, Pittsburgh, Black American artists, etc. When a production puts a lot of emphasis on the history of the play or playwright, I sometimes think the performance loses some of its contemporary relevance. Theatre is a balancing act of tradition and innovation.
Pia Marchetti is a sophomore scenic designer at Carnegie Mellon School of Drama, currently taking Special Topics: Contemporary American Theatre.
2 comments:
Since working on a production of 'Fences' myself, I have been intrigued by Wilson's ability to convey such relevance to human experiences and history that is local to a specific place. Now living in Pittsburgh, I am anxious to expose myself to more Wilson works and tap into the resources that are so available to me. I like what Pia had to say about finding a balance between historical context contemporary relevance. While I think it's very important to get a design historically accurate, this historical accuracy shouldn' t take over the show. Be historically accurate but don't forget the message the playwright wanted to convert.
Although I have never read Wilson's plays (I have been meaning to ever sense I got to Pittsburgh) I do really love the idea that Pia presents with balancing contemporary and historically relevance in plays. During foundations of drama there were a lot of debates about whether we should set a play historically or change it in a sense so a more contemporary audience would find it more enjoyable. I think is a constant problem that every production faces and it is never truly clear which is a better answer.
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