During the deliberations that led to August Wilson's being awarded a second Pulitzer Prize for drama last week, members of the Pulitzer board likened him to the playwright generally regarded as America's greatest: Eugene O'Neill. If that comparison seems overly generous -- Wilson has not yet produced a masterpiece to rank with Long Day's Journey into Night, nor does his body of work yet rival the four-decade outpouring that won O'Neill the Pulitzer four times and the Nobel Prize to boot -- the praise may merely be premature. In just over five years, since his first professionally produced play, Ma Rainey's...
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