Though I noted it in the news about two weeks ago, I missed mentioning here the passing of August Wilson. At a time when the political pressures on black playwrights writing about black characters were to produce very narrow art that, at best, is only accessible to a certain type of person at a certain period of time, or, at worst, uses blackness as a gimmick to pass off inferior works -- at that time, Wilson produced some work that was remarkable in both its particularness and its transcendance. Wilson understood the importance of the WORD, and refused to allow either posturing or pandering to overwhelm his art.
As a result, I suspect that in 2105, somewhere in the world August Wilson will still be playing (probably Fences), and deservedly so.
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