Review: August Wilson on the Making of an Artist in HOW I LEARNED WHAT I LEARNED, at Portland Playhouse

If you'd like to know how August Wilson went from humble beginnings to a beloved (and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning) playwright, then make your way over to Portland Playhouse for HOW I LEARNED WHAT I LEARNED, a one-man show originally written as a memoir and performed by the playwright himself.

The play is a 90-minute journey through the most formative bits of Wilson's life, mostly from his growing up in the Hill District, a historically African American neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Wilson tells stories of being a young man and aspiring poet -- of the people, places, and events that shaped him as a person and as a writer.

Wilson's oeuvre includes 10 plays, known as the Pittsburgh Cycle, or the American Century Cycle, that chronicle African American life in the mid-20th century. At the forefront of the plays are the racism and discrimination that many African Americans experienced in the United States during that time, and continue to experience today. Several of the stories in HOW I LEARNED WHAT I LEARNED explore his early encounters with racism, which formed a basis for his later writings.

Wilson's stories are also about art, and how he found his. As a young man, he read writers the likes of Guy de Maupassant and joined a local arts society. One of the stories he relates is of standing outside a nightclub in a crowd of a couple hundred people to listen to John Coltrane play inside -- an experience that reinforced for him the power of art to speak to a people.

Inhabiting the world of August Wilson for the show is Victor Mack, who has, throughout his career, starred in all of Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle except for one. In the playbill, Mack notes that many of of Wilson's experiences hit pretty close to home, and his intimate knowledge and understanding of the material is apparent in his easy delivery. He knows just when to pause and let the poetry sink in.

Mack's performance is elevated by the awesome set and lighting design. The wall of the stage is covered with pieces of paper, presumably to symbolize the paper on which Wilson wrote. Using just brilliant lighting effects, director Kevin Jones and lighting designer Daniel Meeker create a variety of emotional settings.

If you don't know August Wilson or his work, don't worry, you'll be fine. This isn't one of those shows where you need to know the story beforehand. I've only seen one of Wilson's plays, and I don't think I missed any important points because of it.

Overall, if you're into history, or poetry, or theatre, or the experience of people in America, I highly recommend this show.

HOW I LEARNED WHAT I LEARNED plays at Portland Playhouse through October 23. Details and tickets here.

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