Dear Mr. Luby,
I hereby request for an opportunity to stage the famed play Radio Golf by August Wilson. As highlighted in the previous letter, the play seeks to highlight the American history in the light of African American perspective.
The Play Radio Golf was written by August Wilson in 2005 just before his unprecedented death. It was his last play in a series of 10 plays that he had written before representing the African American historical background. The play was a form of a summary of the other plays in which Wilson attempted to trace down the history of African American from the moment they arrived in the Americas as slaves to the modern liberated African Americans. He inadvertently portrays the African American culture and the changes it has undergone due to internal changes and due to the influence from other cultures that have been present in America.
Resource Casebook
A play should be analyzed both in terms of literary devices that capture the audience and their theatrical significance. In terms of literary devices, style, use of language and form are considered important to determine the effectiveness of a play. In the play Radio Golf, there is a lot of sarcastic language that aims at opening up the mind of the audience to identify the themes being portrayed. For instance, conversation between Harmond Wilkes and his friend Roosevelt Hicks is full of sarcasm and helps portray the stupid nature in which African Americans sometimes could be the major cause of harm or destruction to other African American. It is expected that members of a given community should unite for a common cause to succeed. This according to Wilson was not the case with most African Americans.
In terms of style Radio Golf also employs a lot of reality in its presentation. This is in a bid to portray to the society the actual nature of events as they happened in the course of history and in the modern world (Sanford 434) The play being a culmination of the long list of the series depicting history and culture attempts to capture the features already portrayed in the preceding plays but in summary. The old house that develops a rife between the entrepreneurs and friends Wilkes and Hikes is an old house that is to be demolished and a modern new house developed in its place. The house is symbolical of the long standing African American heritage while the quarrel between the two is a representation of the manner in which African Americans put divisions amongst themselves thus allowing the whites to take full advantage of them.
August Wilson was born of German father and an African American woman Daisy Wilson. It is his mother that Wilson drew all his knowledge from since his father was never present in his childhood or thereafter. Wilson thus adopted an African American culture largely because of his mother’s influence and thus his interest in African American culture and history. He developed an interest in reading and writing at a very tender age and mostly read African American writers from who he drew a lot of information and knowledge regarding the race’s culture and history (Nadel 72).
Wilson asserts that despite him avoiding political and sentimental themes, it is still possible to capture reality of the society’s events (Wilson & Parks, 2008).. It is possible to present specific events that occurred at specific timeframes and incorporate in a clever manner the themes intended to be portrayed in the play.
Radio Golf after being written in 2005 was initially produced and staged in 2007 in Chicago. The play was late staged in Washington and has been in production in various other theaters. The play was produced in 2011 in New York where the whole ten series were staged. It is therefore a very essential to stage this play considering the magnitude of the play and the reception of the audience (Nadel 47). This play is significant not only for its entertainment function but the informative and educative purpose. Considering that the play traces down the chronological development though with some hitches of African American. In the history, one is able to relate the information given with the general history of America. Africans Americans though segregated were part and parcel of the white culture.
The play selects images and sensory elements that adequately create social appeal. The house to be demolished and that which belongs to an individual who was cheated out of the actual cost of the house is a good sensory element. It is sad to realize that despite the Milke, decides to pay the owner of this house the full amount but the owner, an African American refuses. This event is a little bit remorseful.
A very interesting feature or element that the audience should miss is the unique manner in which African Americans were the cause of most of their own maladies (Noggle 68). In fact, white people’s oppression was less severe as the disunity of the African Americans. This is evident with Hikes soliciting the assistance of a white man to buy his fellow African American out of business.
Kindly consider thus this play among the many plays presented considering the points highlighted and its significance.
Work cited
Nadel, Alan. August Wilson: Completing the Twentieth-Century Cycle. Iowa: University of Iowa
Press, 2010. Print.
Noggle, R. “From the Individual to the Collective: Community in August Wilson and
Tony Kushner, 2005.”
Sanford, Tim. “ The Dramaturgy of reading: Literary Management Theory.” Dramaturgy in
American Theater: A source Book. (Ed). New York: Harcourt, 1997. Print.
Wilson, A. and Parks, S. L. Radio Golf: 1997. New York: Theatre Communications
Group, 2008. Print
