- Liz Lauren
- A scene from the Goodman’s production of Two Trains Running
This spring, the Goodman Theatre is paying tribute to the playwright August Wilson, who died ten years ago when he was just 60, with a citywide celebration, including discussions, symposia, readings of his poetry, and, most of all, performances or staged readings of all ten plays in his 20th Century Cycle, one for each decade of the century.
Two Trains is my favorite, because of the time period. I’m a kid of the 60s. But there were three I hadn’t seen, Radio Golf, Gem of the Ocean, and King Hedley II. Last night I saw Radio Golf at the Court Theatre. That’s the one from the 90s. It was hard to believe he wrote the play 20-some years ago, in ’97. But it’s about what’s going on now, this election. Chuy’s a man of the people, he wants to be the mayor for the people. Rahm is from a very different kind of community. The rhetoric around them, that’s exactly what’s going on in Radio Golf.
- AP Photo/ Michelle McLoughlin, file
- Wilson
In the totality of the Century Cycle, Wilson covered some of the most turbulent times in American history. It’s history through the lens of the Middle Passage through slavery and reconstruction through post-World War II through civil rights and the aftermath of civil rights. That’s a significant amount of history. But it’s not part of the drama or literary canon.
