Pgh Playwright 'August Wilson: A Life' By Patti Hartigan, Fences, Ma Rainey, Two Trains Running: NYT
August Wilson, a Theater Titan Who Spun Gold in Diners, New York Times, Aug. 7, 2023.
🎭 The first major biography of the playwright recounts his life and boundless vision. AUGUST WILSON: A Life, by Patti Hartigan
In 1986, David Mamet published his best book, a slim and semi-hardboiled treatise on theater and life titled “Writing in Restaurants.” This was decades before he became “the Kanye West of American letters,” as The Forward put it last year. Alas, the book was only vaguely about restaurants.
Mamet’s title came back to me while I was reading Patti Hartigan’s biography of another essential American playwright, August Wilson. Wilson, who died in 2005, spent so much time lingering in diners that “Writing in Restaurants” is a plausible alternative subtitle for Hartigan’s “August Wilson: A Life.”
Wilson was a large, bearded man, often in tweeds and a pageboy cap. He’d sit in the back with a cup of coffee and an overflowing ashtray. (He smoked five packs a day and didn’t pause while in the shower.) He’d write on napkins or receipts, whatever was handy.
He wrote one early play, “Jitney,” in an Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips. As his fame grew, he’d find a place in each city where his plays were staged. He’d call this joint “the Spot.” In New York City, he liked the seedy charm of the Hotel Edison’s coffee shop, known to regulars as the Polish Tea Room. In Boston, it was Ann’s Cafeteria. In Seattle, Caffe Ladro. He’d bring newspapers, and sometimes a friend. Over breakfast he’d hold court for four or five hours at a time. It was his daily slice of experimental theater...
- More,
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/07/books/review/august-wilson-patti-hartigan.html
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- The Guardian, ‘One of the great American stories’: the incredible life of playwright August Wilson, Aug. 10, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/aug/10/august-wilson-playwright-biography-film