FAREWELL AUGUST WILSON

From the AP via the New York Times courtesy of Eschaton:

Playwright August Wilson, whose epic 10-play cycle chronicling the black experience in 20th-century America included such landmark dramas as ''Fences'' and ''Ma Rainey's Black Bottom,'' died Sunday of liver cancer, a family spokeswoman said. He was 60.

Wilson died at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, surrounded by his family, said Dena Levitin, Wilson's personal assistant. The playwright had disclosed in late August that his illness was inoperable and he had only a few months to live.

''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 Kenny Leon, who directed the Broadway production of ''Gem of the Ocean'' as well as Wilson's most recent play, ''Radio Golf,'' which just concluded a run in Los Angeles.

Leon said 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.''

Wilson's plays were big, often sprawling and poetic, dealing primarily with the effects of slavery on succeeding generations of black Americans: from turn-of-century characters who could remember the Civil War to a prosperous middle class at the end of the century who had forgotten the past.

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I've never seen or read any of Wilson's work. But I do know his influence, and how widely revered he was in the American theater community. I think it's time for me to get to know him better, especially because of the way that he was able to merge art, politics, and culture with everyday human reality. Indeed, he was one of the greats in practicing what I believe to be Real Art.

Farewell, August Wilson.

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