Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival 2021 Main Stage Review: “How I Learned What I Learned” (Through Sunday July 11, 2021
By August Wilson
Co-Conceived by Todd Kreidler
Directed by Christopher V. Edwards
Reviewed by David Roberts, Theatre Reviews Limited

Looking carefully at the many windows looming upstage on Baron E. Pugh’s set for the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival 2021 Main Stage production of “How I Learned What I Learned,” one might see peering out at the audience contemporary Black playwrights and poets Donja R. Love, Mfoniso Odofia, Jeremy O. Harris, Michael R. Jackson, Aziza Barnes, Marcus Gardley, Suzan-Lori Parks, Robert O’Hara, Aleshea Harris, and others nodding affectionate approval for their predecessor August Wilson’s unfinished theatrical memoir. Much has happened in the history of Black America since Todd Kreidler put Wilson’s staged memoirs script into its present form; however, “How I Learned What I Learned” remains a significant chapter in the re-membering of Black history amid the pandemic of systemic racism and white privilege in America.

Veteran stage, film, and television actor Tony Todd portrays the young August Wilson (Frederick August Kittel, Jr.) as he navigates the racial terrain of Pittsburgh’s Hill District and comes to terms with his identity as a young Black man whose white acquaintances believe he “ought to be white.” Mr. Todd successfully characterizes Wilson’s first love Catherine Moran, his succession of jobs infested with racism, his unjust three days in jail, his lifelong friends and acquaintances Chawley Williams and Cy Morocco, his first kiss, and his fortuitous escape from Snookie’s husband’s gun. Mr. Todd also rehearses Wilson’s life lessons: from his mother, “Something is not always better than nothing;” and from Cy Morocco, “Don’t force your soul through a horn you can’t play.”

Kendra L. Johnson’s costume design, Baron E. Pugh’s set design, David M. Greenberg’s sound design, Jason Lynch’s lighting design, and the projection design by CJ Barnwell all add dimension and believability to Tony Todd’s iteration of August Wilson’s memoirs.

Christopher V. Edwards’ often frenetic staging moves the remarkable Tony Todd around the set so quickly that Mr. Todd rarely has the opportunity to settle into the space-time continuum the actor needs to successfully focus on Wilson’s cast of characters’ memories and connect to them in a way that gives them palpable authenticity: their spirits hover, but their guts remain unformed. The provenance of the important memories seems to flow more from the head than from the heart. This places the actor more in the role of narrator and less in the role of storyteller, the latter role Tony Todd is more than capable of fulfilling.

Ultimately, the poet Wilson learns his inevitable lesson: demand respect. His successors, those watching us from the panes of the onstage windows, continue to chronicle just how difficult it is for Black Americans to demand respect in the post-Trump era of Red States’ restrictive voting rights laws (Arizona’s recently upheld by the Supreme Court) and the resurgence of Jim Crow laws designed to restrict human rights, obfuscate social justice, and retract the freedoms of Black Americans and other persons of color – those Wilson identifies as the “the amalgam of the unwanted.” Those successors want to know how their history will be remembered and preserved for the future.

As powerful as “How I Learned What I Learned” continues to be, the play does not reflect the deep emotional (and physical) pain found in Jeremy O. Harris’ “Slave Play” or the fear of losing one’s history reflected in Suzan-Lori Parks’ “The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World” where Black Man With Watermelon and Black Woman With Fried Drumstick admonish one another with, “Miss me” and Re-member me.” Black Woman tearfully entreats her husband to “Re-member me. Call on me sometime. Call on me sometime. Hear? Hear?” Let the re-membering of history begin here and now. Frederick August Kittel, Jr. and his mother Daisy would wish it so. 

HOW I LEARNED WHAT I LEARNED

August Wilson’s “How I Learned What I Learned” stars Tony Todd and includes costume design by Kendra L. Johnson; set design by Baron E. Pugh; sound design by David M. Greenberg; lighting design by Jason Lynch; and projection design by CJ Barnwell. The production dramaturg is Nadia Leinhos and the production stage manager is Alex Murphy

“How I Learned What I Learned” runs at Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival’s indoor Main Stage through July 11, 2021. Single tickets for “How I Learned What I Learned” and all summer productions are available to purchase online at www.pashakespeare.org or by calling the box office at 610.282.WILL [9455].