Friday, Dec. 17, 2004
Gem of the Ocean
If this were the first of August Wilson's 10-play cycle about 20th century black life, it might be at the top of this list. But it's the ninth (set in the first decade of the century, with a character 287 years old and a search for a mythic "City of Bones") and Wilson's mystical turns have become perhaps too familiar. Yet the poetry and power of his writing is still one of the glories of the American stage.