I have come here today… to talk about the ground on which I stand and all the many grounds on which I and my ancestors have toiled, and the ground of theater on which my fellow artists and I have labored to bring forth its fruits, its daring and its sometimes lacerating, and often healing, truths. – August Wilson, The Ground on Which I Stand speech, 1996
By SHARON EBERSON
August Wilson’s Radio Golf takes place as the millennium approaches, summing up a century of African-American experiences from the inside of a Hill District construction office, where two young men appear to be on the verge of achieving their fondest dreams.
Wilson died in 2005, soon after inaugural productions of the final installment of his American Century Cycle, all but one featuring Hill District denizens, their aspirations and the forces at work against them.
You can’t help but wonder how the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer would have taken in the current Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company production that exudes and exalts his carefully crafted themes, within steps of places he name-drops in the play.
Radio Golf is splitting time between two venues: the backyard stage at the August Wilson House (as weather allows) in the Lower Hill, and indoors at PPTCO’s Madison Arts Center, on the Carter Redwood Theatre stage in the Upper Hill.
Saturday’s torrential rains forced an indoor performance for opening night, after a week of previews at both sites.
(Images: Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company)
The August Wilson House, aside from being the landmark childhood home of the playwright, is situated steps from the Bedford Dwellings, built by the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh and a direct link to the play’s fictional but prescient Bedford Hills Redevelopment Plan.
Wilson’s play looks back and forward – to ancestral struggles and wisdom, and the perils of gentrification – all of which roil within the heart of upwardly mobile Harmond Wilks, who is on a trajectory to becoming Pittsburgh’s first Black mayor.
As Wilks, Arizona-based actor Roosevelt Watts Jr. continues on a roll with Pittsburgh Playwrights. Radio Golf is his third Wilsonian role with the company, and he follows his fierce, haunting performance as Herold in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone with another powerful portrayal. When called for, he radiates confidence and bravado, uncertainty and desperation.
His characterization of Wilks, facing life-altering choices, brims with intelligence, empathy and resolve.
As Radio Golf opens, Wilks has co-engineered a development project to revitalize the Hill District, a prelude to his campaign to become mayor. Government funding for the project is contingent on the Hill District being declared “blighted,” so that their planned high-rise apartments, Whole Foods, a Starbucks and a medical center will replace rundown homes and boarded businesses.
Wilks is working in partnership with his longtime pal, the previously mentioned Roosevelt Hicks (Rich Dickson), a mountain of self-esteem who values money, glory and golf above all else.
The duo’s plan requires knocking down what is thought to be an abandoned house, purchased by their company for the site on which it stands. Wilson devotees will recognize1839 Wylie Avenue as the address of Aunt Ester, the seemingly ancient sage and towering presence in Wilson’s American Century Cycle, including in Two Trains Running and Gem of the Ocean.
The friends’ euphoria is bolstered by Wilks’ wife, Mame (Dominique Briggs), an up-and-comer in local and state politics, and the light of his life. She wants to put her husband’s campaign headquarters in Shadyside, and has the Post-Gazette poised to print her husband’s declaration speech for mayor.
While his friend’s life is on the upswing, Hicks’ promotion at Mellon Bank and his growing reputation as a golfer – he hangs a poster of Tiger Woods for inspiration – has him crowing and being courted by some high-rolling new friends.
To say the least, Harmond Wilks is riding high, when the grizzled Elder Joseph Barlow – also known as Old Joe – shows up, claiming the house on Wylie is his, and that he doesn’t want to sell it.
Michael Traylor plays befuddled so believably, you can’t blame the partners for dismissing Old Joe Barlow, at least at first.
Wilks, ever polite, tries to engage and help Old Joe, who among other things tells him that white Pittsburghers will never allow a Black man to be mayor, because the mayor holds too many keys.
“And if you do win mayor, they gonna change the rules and give you only half the keys,” Old Joe explains. “You do know that, don’t you?”
Barlow’s history on the Hill, intertwined with so many others’, will prove a turning point in the lives of everyone involved.
Another visitor to the Bedford Hills Redevelopment Office is Sterling Johnson, who arrives looking for work on the construction site.
As the play progresses, familiar names such as Barlow’s and Sterling’s (a character in Two Trains Running) continue to be woven into the narrative, as Wilson works his way, poignantly, in retrospect, toward completing his 20th-century cycle.
Maurice Redwood is a terrific match for Sterling’s volatile temperament, philosophical one moment and righteously hostile the next. He also brings a dimension to the play that was recognized by most everyone in an opening-night audience that included his parents, in a theater named for his brother.
Redwood’s grandfather, Carl Redwood Sr., is the “Mr. Redwood” name-dropped by Sterling in Radio Golf.
The production is directed by Homestead native Montae Russell, a stage and screen actor who has performed in all 10 of Wilson’s cycle of plays, including as Sterling for Pittsburgh Public Theater, in 2008.
Russell’s understanding and appreciation of the work is evident in the current PPTCO production, which I saw in the first preview outdoors at the August Wilson House, and again Saturday, at Madison Arts Center.
No doubt, the locale of the AWH on Bedford Avenue is hard to beat, and includes a Radio Golf display, created by students, from the August Wilson Archives at the University of Pittsburgh.
However, the intimacy of the indoor venue, without the noise of planes, cars and barking dogs to contend with, has plus sides as well.
The former Madison Elementary School, now a theater, is a tribute to Wilson’s lasting influence on its owner, Mark Clayton Southers, and a way Southers & Company are building on a legacy that emanates from his own Hill District roots.
To have two stages ready to go at a moment’s notice is helped by Wilson, whose plays rarely require set changes.
The key is in the words, of course, and the details, which are meticulously tended to here.
As for that oxymoronic title, Radio Golf, it derives from a program hosted by Dickson’s Roosevelt Hicks, in which he offers golfing advice on the air.
It may bring a smile to your face just to say it, but it is in keeping with the looming showdown of aspirations vs. values, the key to Harmond Wilks’ stirring evolution, and the key to the ground on which he is willing to stand.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company’s production of Radio Golf will be outdoors at the August Wilson House, 1727 Bedford Street, Lower Hill, Thursday-Sunday, through September 14, 2024, with the exception of 2 p.m. matinee performances, which will be inside Madison Arts Center, 3401 Milwaukee Street in the Upper Hill. Watch for weather-related annoucements as well. Visit: https://www.pghplaywrights.org/season-info/radio/ .
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