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The Ground on Which I Stand: August Wilson’s Perspective on African American Women
- University of Iowa Press
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SANDRA G. SHANNON The Ground on Which I Stand: August Wilson's Perspective on Mrican American Women In 1979 August Wilson wrote Jitney!, a play about a black-owned transportation service located in a section of Pittsburgh slated for demolition . Set in 1971, this work not only enjoys the distinction of being the first of the playwright's ongoing chronicles of the black experience in America, but it also began a so-far-uninterrupted pattern of works that revolve exclusively around black men. Two women-one named Rena, another simply Woman-make brief appearances, but their importance to the play is made obvious by the respective labels given them: "Youngblood's woman" and "Booster's woman." 1 Wilson is forthright in acknowledging his intentional focus upon the motivations of black men in this particular play: "I simply wanted to show how the station worked, how these guys created jobs for themselves and how it was organized.... The important thing was for me to show these five guys working and creating something out of nothing." 2 In fact, Wilson seems neither apologetic nor actually concerned about his tendency toward stocking Jitney! (1979), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1984), Fences (1986), Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1988), The Piano Lesson (1988), and Two Trains Running (1990) with a healthy supply of black men who have plenty to talk about. Although he acknowledges that the women in his plays are neither as visible nor as vocal as his men, he does not feel compelled to make any changes. He explains, I doubt seriously if I would make a woman the focus of my work simply because of the fact that I am a man, and I guess because of the ground on which I stand and the viewpoint from which I perceive the world. I can't do that although I try to be honest in the instances in which I do have THE G R 0 U N DON W Hie HIS T Ii. N D 151 women. I try to portray them from their own viewpoint as opposed to my viewpoint. I try to-to the extent that I am able-to step around on the other side of the table, ifyou will, and try to look at things from their viewpoint and have been satisfied that I have been able to do that to some extent. The ground on which August Wilson stands has yielded a number of intriguing male characters, from the reluctant murderer Levee to the talkative tyrant Troy Maxson to the raging vagrant Herald Loomis. Yet this very same ground has produced the Mrican American woman-the manifestation of a playwright whose sensibilities are admittedly and understandably masculine. Despite Wilson's grounding in a decidedly male frame of reference, his portrayals of Mrican American women cover as wide a range as do those of his men. Although individually his feminine portrayals tend to slip into comfort zones ofwhat seem to be male-fantasized roles, collectively they show Wilson coming to grips with the depth and diversity of Mrican American womanhood . It is important to note that Daisy Wilson, the playwright's mother, is the model on which he bases the majority ofhis women: "My mother's a very strong, principled woman. My female characters like Rose come in large part from my mother."3 Thus they regularly reflect some degree of his mother's indomitable spirit, her maternal warmth, and her fierce independence. In each of the five chronicles following Jitney!, Wilson continues to focus on male protagonists, but another pattern also emerges. In each playa singular Mrican American woman manages to wrestle free from prevailing social restraints or domestic concerns to, in some way, affirm a separate identity. Although their motives are not always made clear and each of their victories amounts to a compromise, in Gertrude "Ma" Rainey (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom ), Rose Maxson (Fences), Martha Pentecost Loomis (Joe Turner's Come and Gone), Berniece Charles (The Piano Lesson), and Risa (Two Trains Running ), Wilson has created an array of powerful Mrican American women. Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, the title character in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, seems most unlike the fond images Wilson retains of his late mother. On the surface she appears capable of taking on (or taking out) any man-black or white-who dares to take advantage of her because of her gender. Far from a paragon of virtue and femininity, Ma Rainey is a sassy-talking, demanding prima donna...