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PLAYBILL ON OPENING NIGHT: Radio Golf — A Full Ten
By Harry Haun
09 May 2007
The depth he brings to this character, Williams said, is just the result of reading Wilson's road map. "When you have a great playwright, he gives you everything you need," he contended. "There are actors who cut their teeth on Shakespeare. I cut my teeth on August
Wilson. I had the privilege of doing his first professional production in St. Paul,
Minnesota. Then I was in the first big production of Jitney in 1986. This means so much to me, to be able to be a part of the completion of the cycle. It's a dream come true."
Tonya Pinkins, in the lone female slot (Wilks' politically savvy wife), is not without her Wilson chops, either. "My very first play that I ever got was an August Wilson," she recalled. "It was the original Piano Lesson at Yale Rep and at the Goodman and at the Old Globe. Then, I got to do Joe Turner's Come and Gone in Pittsburgh, directed by
August. I never got to do one of his plays on Broadway, until now. In fact, this is my first Broadway play, but it's my seventh Broadway experience. The other six were musicals."
Did Pinkins, a Tony winner for Jelly's Last Jam, mind being songless? "At first, I thought I would — especially coming off Caroline, Or Change. It was hard to pick a project because Caroline was so huge, but this felt like the perfect thing. I had nothing to
compare it with. It was a completely different world with completely different
requirements."
Acting August Wilson, she proffered, is almost like singing, in a sense. His big speeches ebb and flow like arias. "The rhythms of the writing just work," she contended. "It's almost like you don't have to act at all. You just speak his words, and they do the work."
Radio Golf was one of the last plays that Gordon Davidson booked into the Mark Taper during his long reign as an L.A. theatre titan — and he continued with the play as one of its
lead producers, touring it to Broadway.
"There were seven different city stops in all — " he said, "Yale, Los Angeles, Seattle, Baltimore, the Huntington in Boston, the Goodman in Chicago and the McCarter at Princeton. I booked Seattle because August was living there, and I thought maybe he might get to see it. We'd sneak him in the back or something,
but he was not feeling well enough to do it. Two weeks after we closed there, he died."
Davidson did not know about Wilson's illness until it was time to prepare the play for L.A. "Just as we were going into rehearsal, August called up from Seattle, and he said, 'Gordon, I won't be coming down for rehearsals. I have inoperable liver cancer, and I'm
not going to take chemo because I want to work on the show.' Having seen it at Yale, he knew he didn't really have a second act. That's what he wanted to do, and he did it. He sent pages of scripts down all during our rehearsals. And he did bring in the rest of the act.
"What our goal was was to deepen the characterizations, give the actors time with the roles, working toward another level of playing that you don't get to do often. And that's
what we've been doing. This whole thing has been a remarkable, amazing experience."
Wilson picked Kenny Leon to direct his last play because they had collaborated well bringing Gem of the Ocean to Broadway. "We got into a chemistry and an energy of working with each other on Gem," remembered the director. "We even cut off an hour of
that show between Boston and New York. He said he was in his 'minimalist phase' so,
with Radio Golf, he wanted to continue that. He also wanted his cycle to have a hopeful ending, and I think we accomplished that. I think there's a triumph feel at the play's end."
The odd title of the play was a contribution of Wilson's young daughter, Azula, said
Leon. "This is his first play dealing with the middle class, and this middle class has the
opportunity to buy radio stations and to play on any golf course in America. But there are
things more valuable than buying radio stations and playing golf, such as preserving your
past and honoring your culture which was symbolized by the house Aunt Ester lived in."
Christopher Rawson covered the play's opening for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which is mentioned in the play. "I'm not a real evaluator of August's work," said Rawson, taking the fifth. "I'm sort of an explicator. I love the way Radio Golf is different from the
other plays — dealing with the middle class and the fact that it doesn't have the primal
forces the others do. Everything here is refined, but the struggle is just under the surface.
"Also it's all about what's happening in Pittsburgh right now. There are actual arguments going on about the development of the Hill District. The play is prophetic. He wrote it two and a half years ago, and it's set in '97, but we're having these battles this year."
Wilson's widow, Constanza Romero, and daughter Azula were present for the opening,
as were B. Smith, B. D. Wong (bound for Williamstown in Herringbone this summer),
Joanna Gleason and Chris Sarandon, lyricist Steven Sater, lighting designer Natasha
Katz (who will illuminate The Little Mermaid), Keith David (who'll play Oberon in the
park this summer to Jay O. Sanders' Bottom) and "Law and Order: SVU" actress Tamara
Tunie, enjoying her second outing as a theatre producer (her first got the New York Drama Critics' nod for Best Musical: Spring Awakening — that's two-for-two, girl!).
In spring of 2000, when August Wilson collected his eighth and last plaque from the New York Drama Critics, he said, "Sixteen years ago, when I first stood here, I made a simple
pledge. I have renewed it each time that I have stood here, and I want to renew it again. It
goes just simply to continue to write for the theatre and to continue to do the best possible
work that I can do."
Amen to that, August.
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The cast of Radio Golf takes its opening night bows.
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| photo by Aubrey Reuben |
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