August Wilson Interviewed

 The Paris Review opened August Wilson, The Art of Theater No. 14 to the public, and having read two of Mr. Wilson's plays, I read the interview.

INTERVIEWER

What do you see as the essential element to be established in the drama?

WILSON

I see conflict at the center. What you do is set up a character who has certain beliefs and you establish a situation where those beliefs are challenged and the character is forced to examine those beliefs and, perhaps, changes. That’s the kind of dramatic situation which engages an audience, forces them to go through the same inner struggle. When I teach my workshops I tell my students if a guy announces, “I’m going to kill Joe,” and there’s a knock on the door, the audience is going to want to know if that’s Joe and why this guy wants to kill him and whether we would also want to kill him if we were in the same situation. The audience is engaged in the question. 

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INTERVIEWER

If you had to construct an imaginary playwright, with what qualities would you endow him or her?

WILSON

Honesty. Something to say and the courage to say it. The will and daring to accomplish great art. Craft. Craft is what makes the will and dating work and allows playwrights to shout or whisper as they choose. A painter who has not mastered line and form, mass, perspective and proportion, who does not understand the values and properties of color, is not going to produce interesting paintings no matter the weight and measure of his heart, or the speed and power of his intellect. I don’t think you can ever know too much about craft. So I would give your imaginary playwright a solid understanding of craft. All that is necessary then is ambition . . . which is as valid and valuable as anything else.

sch 9/17