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The Century Cycle #10
Radio Golf
“The concluding work in one of the most ambitious dramatic projects ever undertaken . . . a play that could well be Mr. Wilson’s most provocative.”—Ben Brantley, The New York Times
“Radio Golf is a rich, carefully wrought human tapestry that is colorful, playful, thoughtful and compelling.”—Ed Kaufman, The Hollywood Reporter
Radio Golf is August Wilson’s final play. Set in 1990 Pittsburgh, it is the conclusion of his Century Cycle—Wilson’s ten-play chronicle of the African American experience throughout the twentieth century—and is the last play he completed before his death. With Radio Golf Wilson’s lifework comes full circle as Aunt Ester’s onetime home at 1839 Wylie Avenue (the setting of the cycle’s first play) is slated for demolition to make way for a slick new real estate venture aimed to boost both the depressed Hill District and Harmond Wilks’ chance of becoming the city’s first black mayor. A play in which history, memory, and legacy challenge notions of progress and country club ideals, Radio Golf has been produced throughout the country and will come to Broadway this season.
August Wilson’s plays include Gem of the Ocean, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars, Fences, Two Trains Running, Jitney, King Hedley II, and Radio Golf. They have been produced at theaters across the country, on Broadway, and throughout the world.
“Radio Golf is a rich, carefully wrought human tapestry that is colorful, playful, thoughtful and compelling.”—Ed Kaufman, The Hollywood Reporter
Radio Golf is August Wilson’s final play. Set in 1990 Pittsburgh, it is the conclusion of his Century Cycle—Wilson’s ten-play chronicle of the African American experience throughout the twentieth century—and is the last play he completed before his death. With Radio Golf Wilson’s lifework comes full circle as Aunt Ester’s onetime home at 1839 Wylie Avenue (the setting of the cycle’s first play) is slated for demolition to make way for a slick new real estate venture aimed to boost both the depressed Hill District and Harmond Wilks’ chance of becoming the city’s first black mayor. A play in which history, memory, and legacy challenge notions of progress and country club ideals, Radio Golf has been produced throughout the country and will come to Broadway this season.
August Wilson’s plays include Gem of the Ocean, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars, Fences, Two Trains Running, Jitney, King Hedley II, and Radio Golf. They have been produced at theaters across the country, on Broadway, and throughout the world.
81 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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968 people want to read
About the author
August Wilson
66 books570 followersAmerican playwright August Wilson won a Pulitzer Prize for
Fences
in 1985 and for
The Piano Lesson
in 1987.
His literary legacy embraces the ten series and received twice for drama for The Pittsburgh Cycle . Each depicted the comic and tragic aspects of the African-American experience, set in different decade of the 20th century.
Daisy Wilson, an African American cleaning woman from North Carolina, in the hill district of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, bore Frederick August Kittel, Junior, the fourth of six children, to Frederick August Kittel, Senior, a German immigrant baker. From North Carolina, maternal grandmother of Wilson earlier sought a better life and walked to Pennsylvania. After his fifth year, his mother raised the children alone in a two-room apartment above a grocery store at 1727 Bedford Avenue.
After death of Frederick August Kittel, Senior, in 1965, his son changed his name to August Wilson to honor his mother.
In 1968, Wilson co-founded the black horizon theater in the hill district of Pittsburgh alongside Rob Penny, his friend. People first performed his Recycling for audiences in small theaters and public housing community centers. Among these early efforts, he revised Jitney more than two decades later as part of his ten-cycle on 20th-century Pittsburgh.
Wilson married three times. His first marriage to Brenda Burton lasted from 1969 to 1972. She bore him Sakina Ansari, a daughter, in 1970.
Vernell Lillie founded of the Kuntu repertory theatre at the University of Pittsburgh in 1974 and, two years later, directed The Homecoming of Wilson in 1976.
Wilson also co-founded the workshop of Kuntu to bring African-Americans together and to assist them in publication and production. Both organizations still act.
Claude Purdy, friend and director, suggested to Wilson to move to Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1978 and helped him secure a job with educational scripts for the science museum. In 1980, he received a fellowship for the center in Minneapolis. Wilson long associated with the penumbra theatre company, which gave the premieres, of Saint Paul.
In 1981, he married to Judy Oliver, a social worker, and they divorced in 1990.
Wilson received many honorary degrees, including an honorary doctor of humanities from the University of Pittsburgh, where he served as a member of the board of trustees from 1992 until 1995.
Wilson got a best known Tony award and the New York circle of drama critics; he authored Ma Rainey's Black Bottom , and Joe Turner's Come and Gone .
In 1994, Wilson left Saint Paul and developed a relationship with Seattle repertory theatre. Ultimately, only Seattle repertory theater in the country produced all works in his ten-cycle and his one-man show How I Learned What I Learned .
Constanza Romero, his costume designer and third wife from 1994, bore Azula Carmen, his second daughter.
In 2005, August Wilson received the Anisfield-Wolf lifetime achievement award.
Wilson reported diagnosis with liver cancer in June 2005 with three to five months to live. He passed away at Swedish medical center in Seattle, and people interred his body at Greenwood cemetery, Pittsburgh on 8 October 2005.
His literary legacy embraces the ten series and received twice for drama for The Pittsburgh Cycle . Each depicted the comic and tragic aspects of the African-American experience, set in different decade of the 20th century.
Daisy Wilson, an African American cleaning woman from North Carolina, in the hill district of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, bore Frederick August Kittel, Junior, the fourth of six children, to Frederick August Kittel, Senior, a German immigrant baker. From North Carolina, maternal grandmother of Wilson earlier sought a better life and walked to Pennsylvania. After his fifth year, his mother raised the children alone in a two-room apartment above a grocery store at 1727 Bedford Avenue.
After death of Frederick August Kittel, Senior, in 1965, his son changed his name to August Wilson to honor his mother.
In 1968, Wilson co-founded the black horizon theater in the hill district of Pittsburgh alongside Rob Penny, his friend. People first performed his Recycling for audiences in small theaters and public housing community centers. Among these early efforts, he revised Jitney more than two decades later as part of his ten-cycle on 20th-century Pittsburgh.
Wilson married three times. His first marriage to Brenda Burton lasted from 1969 to 1972. She bore him Sakina Ansari, a daughter, in 1970.
Vernell Lillie founded of the Kuntu repertory theatre at the University of Pittsburgh in 1974 and, two years later, directed The Homecoming of Wilson in 1976.
Wilson also co-founded the workshop of Kuntu to bring African-Americans together and to assist them in publication and production. Both organizations still act.
Claude Purdy, friend and director, suggested to Wilson to move to Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1978 and helped him secure a job with educational scripts for the science museum. In 1980, he received a fellowship for the center in Minneapolis. Wilson long associated with the penumbra theatre company, which gave the premieres, of Saint Paul.
In 1981, he married to Judy Oliver, a social worker, and they divorced in 1990.
Wilson received many honorary degrees, including an honorary doctor of humanities from the University of Pittsburgh, where he served as a member of the board of trustees from 1992 until 1995.
Wilson got a best known Tony award and the New York circle of drama critics; he authored Ma Rainey's Black Bottom , and Joe Turner's Come and Gone .
In 1994, Wilson left Saint Paul and developed a relationship with Seattle repertory theatre. Ultimately, only Seattle repertory theater in the country produced all works in his ten-cycle and his one-man show How I Learned What I Learned .
Constanza Romero, his costume designer and third wife from 1994, bore Azula Carmen, his second daughter.
In 2005, August Wilson received the Anisfield-Wolf lifetime achievement award.
Wilson reported diagnosis with liver cancer in June 2005 with three to five months to live. He passed away at Swedish medical center in Seattle, and people interred his body at Greenwood cemetery, Pittsburgh on 8 October 2005.
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February 25, 2024
All good things must come to an end, cliched yet true. All of us have a lifetime reading bucket list with tasks big and small. I can check off one of my goals by completing August Wilson’s Century Series of plays, each depicting a decade of the African American experience in the 20th century. Radio Golf takes us to 1997 Pittsburgh. Tiger Woods has risen to the top of American sports; however, most African Americans still cannot join prestigious country clubs much yet golf at them unless they are the guests of their white friends. Society is at a crossroads, not as multicultural in appearance as present time, with whites dominating much of upper class society. As the century draws toward a finish, how is life going to be for African Americans and other minorities as the calendar turns to the year 2000.
This is the world that Wilson addresses in Radio Golf, with his protagonists Hardman Wilks running for mayor and longtime friend Roosevelt Hicks taking a long look at himself, deciding to align with white businessmen in order to move ahead in life. Hardman Wilks is stuck in the past, doing right by the black community, but his ethics will not get him elected by a majority white electorate. Wilks would rather save a historical relic, Aunt Ester’s home, which has been depicted in many other plays in the series. Aunt Ester is where anyone in the Hill community went when in need of anything, and she could usually provide, for a small fee. With her home scheduled for demolition as Wilks and Hicks construction company plan a new development, the new men must address what is right for them versus what is right for the neighborhood, not an easy decision. It is a luxury to be able to shop at Whole Foods, Barnes and Nobles, and Starbucks, shops planned in the new development. It is also a luxury to have a gem of a person like Aunt Ester living in one’s midst. This is the life changing decision the two protagonists must grapple with, looking toward either the past or future and how this decision will effect their entire neighborhood. Again, not an easy choice.
Tiger Woods was king of the golf world for decades. Sadly, his emergence as a star did not lead to an abundance of people of color joining golf’s ranks. This is what Roosevelt Hicks envisioned when forming an alliance with white leaders and promoting golf on the radio. Most inner city kids cannot afford to take up the game of golf. They and their families are in need of affordable housing and food, not luxury condos a stone’s throw from Whole Foods. Wilson often depicts one character, in this case Hardman Wilks, who is stuck in the past. He has a poster of Martin Luther King in his office and speaks for his neighborhood. People accuse him of being a black mayor, and that won’t get him elected because he needs the white vote. Hicks knows this and dissolves the partnership, viewing people like Tiger Woods as the black leaders of the future. Both men are correct in their own way, and it appears as though Wilson had come to an understanding by this point that in order for minorities to advance, culture has to be preserved but alliances with whites should be promoted as well. If both criteria are met, life in the 21st century should not be as tough as the one they left behind.
August Wilson did not live to see his Fences made into an award winning film starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. Wilson passed on only three years after completing this century cycle, a bright light in the playwrighting community extinguished. His work is lauded and studied at length, and Washington has plans to develop the entire series as made for television movies. I will be watching once that happens because my time with the century series is now otherwise over. These ten plays might not be as long as War and Peace, a book that might be on my bucket list for many years ; yet, the century cycle is just as beneficial. I savored my time with Aunt Ester, the Piano Teacher, the musicians in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and many other memorable characters. I look forward to seeing who takes up the reigns as a leader in African American playwrighting. Once that happens, I will be sure to add it to my lifetime bucket list.
4+ stars
This is the world that Wilson addresses in Radio Golf, with his protagonists Hardman Wilks running for mayor and longtime friend Roosevelt Hicks taking a long look at himself, deciding to align with white businessmen in order to move ahead in life. Hardman Wilks is stuck in the past, doing right by the black community, but his ethics will not get him elected by a majority white electorate. Wilks would rather save a historical relic, Aunt Ester’s home, which has been depicted in many other plays in the series. Aunt Ester is where anyone in the Hill community went when in need of anything, and she could usually provide, for a small fee. With her home scheduled for demolition as Wilks and Hicks construction company plan a new development, the new men must address what is right for them versus what is right for the neighborhood, not an easy decision. It is a luxury to be able to shop at Whole Foods, Barnes and Nobles, and Starbucks, shops planned in the new development. It is also a luxury to have a gem of a person like Aunt Ester living in one’s midst. This is the life changing decision the two protagonists must grapple with, looking toward either the past or future and how this decision will effect their entire neighborhood. Again, not an easy choice.
Tiger Woods was king of the golf world for decades. Sadly, his emergence as a star did not lead to an abundance of people of color joining golf’s ranks. This is what Roosevelt Hicks envisioned when forming an alliance with white leaders and promoting golf on the radio. Most inner city kids cannot afford to take up the game of golf. They and their families are in need of affordable housing and food, not luxury condos a stone’s throw from Whole Foods. Wilson often depicts one character, in this case Hardman Wilks, who is stuck in the past. He has a poster of Martin Luther King in his office and speaks for his neighborhood. People accuse him of being a black mayor, and that won’t get him elected because he needs the white vote. Hicks knows this and dissolves the partnership, viewing people like Tiger Woods as the black leaders of the future. Both men are correct in their own way, and it appears as though Wilson had come to an understanding by this point that in order for minorities to advance, culture has to be preserved but alliances with whites should be promoted as well. If both criteria are met, life in the 21st century should not be as tough as the one they left behind.
August Wilson did not live to see his Fences made into an award winning film starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. Wilson passed on only three years after completing this century cycle, a bright light in the playwrighting community extinguished. His work is lauded and studied at length, and Washington has plans to develop the entire series as made for television movies. I will be watching once that happens because my time with the century series is now otherwise over. These ten plays might not be as long as War and Peace, a book that might be on my bucket list for many years ; yet, the century cycle is just as beneficial. I savored my time with Aunt Ester, the Piano Teacher, the musicians in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and many other memorable characters. I look forward to seeing who takes up the reigns as a leader in African American playwrighting. Once that happens, I will be sure to add it to my lifetime bucket list.
4+ stars
February 12, 2024
Radio Golf is a quietly brilliant play. It is a fitting culmination to Wilson’s ten play Century Cycle, which itself is the most ambitious and impressive achievement in the history of American theatre.
The concluding play of the cycle, Radio Golf takes place near century’s close, in 1997. Elements of the play are significantly different than those that proceeded it. Here, Wilson focused on the Black middle class, with the action set in an office for a successful, real estate development company. Consequently, Wilson’s signature snappy dialogue, with its flowing musicality of Black American speech is mostly absent. The principle characters in this drama converse in the standard American that is part of the cost of doing business. Wilson’s subtle brilliance here is that the very absence of this element that had been so significant in his work becomes a huge presence, making a point without words.
Radio Golf closed Wilson’s magnificent cycle of plays by addressing such issues as class differences within the Black community, and what the future owes the past. It poses the question of what is the cost of success in America — how much of one’s soul most be surrendered to be accepted? This is expressed brilliantly in the symbolism of the play’s central conflict revolving around the demolition of 1839 Wylie Ave (the long time home of the mystical Aunt Ester, the spiritual heart of the cycle) to be replaced with a major business and housing project.
The concluding play of the cycle, Radio Golf takes place near century’s close, in 1997. Elements of the play are significantly different than those that proceeded it. Here, Wilson focused on the Black middle class, with the action set in an office for a successful, real estate development company. Consequently, Wilson’s signature snappy dialogue, with its flowing musicality of Black American speech is mostly absent. The principle characters in this drama converse in the standard American that is part of the cost of doing business. Wilson’s subtle brilliance here is that the very absence of this element that had been so significant in his work becomes a huge presence, making a point without words.
Radio Golf closed Wilson’s magnificent cycle of plays by addressing such issues as class differences within the Black community, and what the future owes the past. It poses the question of what is the cost of success in America — how much of one’s soul most be surrendered to be accepted? This is expressed brilliantly in the symbolism of the play’s central conflict revolving around the demolition of 1839 Wylie Ave (the long time home of the mystical Aunt Ester, the spiritual heart of the cycle) to be replaced with a major business and housing project.
October 8, 2019
Radio Golf, the tenth and final entry in August Wilson’s “Pittsburgh Cycle,” and Wilson’s final plays, marks a fitting ending both to an award-winning cycle and an illustrious career. Although it lacks the expressionist daring, the resonant music, and the larger-than-life characters that grace many of the other nine plays, it benefits from a tight dramatic structure, a keen sense of the ironies of city politics, shrewd observations of the black middle class, and—as always, with Wilson—superb realistic dialog and a profound grasp of heritage and history.
It tells the story of Harmond Wilks, a successful real estate developer and aspiring candidate for mayor. He is putting the finishing touches on a grand building project he hopes will revitalize Pittsburgh’s black Hill District—two upscale high-rise apartment buildings, with room for a Whole Foods, a Barnes and Noble, and a Starbucks—but he has to wait for two things: 1) for the area to be designated as “blighted” (which will free up some government money), and 2) for the demolition of the only remaining old house, 1839 Wylie Street (the home of the spiritual mother of the district, Aunt Ester, well known to those familiar with the Pittsburgh Cycle). Although the “blighted” designation is almost certain to come through, there is a problem with the demolition. Old Joe Barlow has started to paint the rundown house on Wylie; he claims old Ester’s house is his.
I liked this play very much. True, the dialog isn’t as lyrical as in many other Wilson plays, but that is because Wilson wishes us to see that the black middle class characters who dominate—or attempt to dominate—the action have lost much of the music and poetry and once filled the souls of their fathers and mothers. Radio Golf is a successful—though somewhat melancholy—conclusion to the Cycle, yet it leaves its audience with much to think about.
I’ll leave you with a taste of the dialogue. Here Old Joe Barlow is discussing with Harmond Wilks the nature of the American Dream:
HARMOND: This is America. This is the land of opportunity. I can be mayor. I can be anything I want.
OLD JOE: But you got to have the right quarter. America is a giant slot machine. You walk up and put in your coin and it spits it back out. You look at your coin. You think maybe it’s a Canadian quarter. It’s the only coin you got. If this coin ain’t no good then you out of luck. You look at it and sure enough it’s an American quarter. But it don’t spend for you. It spend for everybody else but it don’t spend for you. The machine spits it right back out. Is the problem with the quarter or with the machine? Do you know? Somebody running for mayor ought to know that.
HARMOND: If it don’t take all the quarters you fix it. Anybody with common sense will agree to that. What they don’t agree on is how to fix it. Some people say you got to tear it down to fix it. Some people say you got to build it up to fix it. Some people say they don’t know how to fix it. Some people say they don’t want to be bothered with fixing it. You mix them all into a pot and stir it up and you get America. That’s what makes this country great.
OLD JOE: I say get a new machine. What you say?
May 29, 2024
August Wilson's last play in the Century Cycle is set in the late 1990s in Pittsburgh. While the black characters in the other nine plays were working class or lower middle class, this play features two men who are upper middle class.
Roosevelt Hicks has a minority interest in a radio station which allows his white business partner to buy the radio station at a discount with an FCC Minority Tax Certificate. Harmond Wilkes, grandson of Caesar Wilkes from "Gem of the Ocean," inherited the family real estate business, and is now running for political office. The two men are planning a big real estate development, but the old house of spiritual advisor Aunt Ester is standing in the way, and the demolition crew is ready. Elder Joe Barlow, who claims ownership of the house, and Sterling act as a contrast to the financially upwardly mobile men. Harmond's wife, Mame, is a public relations specialist who advises her husband how to play the game of politics, but he's reluctant. Mame's star is hitched to Harmond's, so his success or failure will affect her career.
This play, showing some black economic upward mobility and multi-generational transfer of wealth, is a fitting end to Wilson's Century Cycle. The black dialect, African music, references to black history, and the help of spiritual advisor Aunt Ester from the earlier nine plays have a less prominent place in this last play and in the lives of those climbing the economic ladder. The play is well-written, and has a more contemporary feel to it since it's set close to the start of the 21st Century.
Roosevelt Hicks has a minority interest in a radio station which allows his white business partner to buy the radio station at a discount with an FCC Minority Tax Certificate. Harmond Wilkes, grandson of Caesar Wilkes from "Gem of the Ocean," inherited the family real estate business, and is now running for political office. The two men are planning a big real estate development, but the old house of spiritual advisor Aunt Ester is standing in the way, and the demolition crew is ready. Elder Joe Barlow, who claims ownership of the house, and Sterling act as a contrast to the financially upwardly mobile men. Harmond's wife, Mame, is a public relations specialist who advises her husband how to play the game of politics, but he's reluctant. Mame's star is hitched to Harmond's, so his success or failure will affect her career.
This play, showing some black economic upward mobility and multi-generational transfer of wealth, is a fitting end to Wilson's Century Cycle. The black dialect, African music, references to black history, and the help of spiritual advisor Aunt Ester from the earlier nine plays have a less prominent place in this last play and in the lives of those climbing the economic ladder. The play is well-written, and has a more contemporary feel to it since it's set close to the start of the 21st Century.
April 11, 2024
Mr. Wilson has done it again! I felt as if I was knocked out of my comfy reading chair as I finished this play this morning.
From Suzan-Lori Parks interview with August Wilson conducted in 2005 for American Theatre magazine:
Harmond Wilks is doing well. He's got the real estate business from his father. He is running for mayor of Pittsburgh. His lovely wife Mame is at his side, managing his election campaign and furthering her career with the governor's office. Their future is looking bright. Then, Elder Joe Barlow walks in to the real estate office and declares that the old house at 1839 Wylie Avenue is his and that Mr. Wilks cannot have it demolished for an apartment complex. Who rightfully has rights to Aunt Esther's house?
This play stretched and challenged my conventions of what is right and who is right and why it matters.
From Suzan-Lori Parks interview with August Wilson conducted in 2005 for American Theatre magazine:
One of the things with Radio Golf is that I realized I had to in some way deal with the black middle class, which for the most part is not in the nine other plays. My idea was that the black middle class seems to be divorcing themselves from that community, making their fortune on their own without recognizing or acknowledging their connection to the larger community. And I thought: We have gained a lot of sophistication and expertise and resources, and we should be helping that community, which is completely devastated by drugs and crime and the social practices of the past hundred years of the country. I thought: How do I show that you can go back and that you can't--
Harmond Wilks is doing well. He's got the real estate business from his father. He is running for mayor of Pittsburgh. His lovely wife Mame is at his side, managing his election campaign and furthering her career with the governor's office. Their future is looking bright. Then, Elder Joe Barlow walks in to the real estate office and declares that the old house at 1839 Wylie Avenue is his and that Mr. Wilks cannot have it demolished for an apartment complex. Who rightfully has rights to Aunt Esther's house?
STERLING: It's got to matter. If it don't matter then nothing don't work. If nothing don't work then life ain't worth living. See, you living in a world where it don't matter. But that's not the world I live in. The world I live in right is right and right don't wrong nobody.
This play stretched and challenged my conventions of what is right and who is right and why it matters.
August 12, 2017
A fitting conclusion to August Wilson's Century Cycle. Radio Golf was the 10th and last play of the series. I really liked how it harkened back to Gem of the Ocean, Two Trains Running, and King Hedley II. Aunt Ester's presence still lives on in this play. This play focuses on topics such as black political leadership, respectability politics, and gentrification. Lastly I enjoyed how the dialogue was different compared to the previous plays. The diction was a mix of slang from the past to more everyday talk which more or less speaks to issues of class between some of the characters in this play. The conclusion is left up to the reader's interpretation which I usually don't like but I think Wilson gives us a taste for how he wants it to end.
The Century Cycle overall review: all 10 plays were good but I think Fences and Radio Golf were the best. Fences is the best as a stand alone play and Radio Golf because of how it pulls from the other plays to conclude the series. I highly recommend that you read Wilson's Century Cycle.
The Century Cycle overall review: all 10 plays were good but I think Fences and Radio Golf were the best. Fences is the best as a stand alone play and Radio Golf because of how it pulls from the other plays to conclude the series. I highly recommend that you read Wilson's Century Cycle.
October 18, 2013
Finally getting to my review of the last play in the Cycle. And as usual it isn't so much a review as a musings. Apologies if it isn't helpful, but anyone looking up reviews of the play must know by now that the Century Cycle must be read, right?
Radio Golf serves as the second half of a two-parter, begun one book before and nine decades earlier. Like the Seven Guitars/HedleyII two-parter, it involves the battle for a soul: King Hedley II and Harmond Wilks—where Wilks’ battle stands in for the battle for the soul of Wilson’s Pittsburgh—fought without Ester, the general most capable of helping them. And each is about the very real costs of soul saving. The play is set against a backdrop of gentrification efforts in Pittsburgh and seems simpler than most of Wilson’s plays. But in another way, the journey of Wilks in particular, but also of Sterling, Barlow, and Mame (who I think is fascinating, if somewhat stereotypical in her blind ambitiousness. Through her, more than Wilks, I think we can understand the suffocating, enveloping fear of being on the precipice of losing hard-fought-for power. It is a fear that perhaps she as a black woman can understand more than her male or white counterparts. She knows and fears the real, true reality of disempowerment and forces us to see why choosing to hold on to power, even if it means subsuming identity, history, even morality, is more understandable than we as readers from our cushy, outside, moral position, want it to be), are anything but simple. While reading Brideshead Revisited, I thought a lot about the ugly and sometimes disheartening nature of grace and redemption; and I thought about it a lot here. In part because of the spiritual and physical stakes here (which I do not want to say too much about, for fear of giving away the pivotal moments of the story), and in part because of the role the play has in the Cycle itself.
As a single play, Radio Golf was not my favorite. While it boasts classic Wilson styles—great monologues, 300 pages worth of work in a slim play, incisive and witty dialogue—it lacks the deftness of some of his other plays. I think it is individually outshined by many others in the cycle. But I also think that Wilson did not intend Radio Golf to stand alone. It is the last he wrote and the last in the Cycle. It is almost an epilogue that gathers up the pieces of the stories came before and shows a way forward. And yet it does not feel like a conclusion. Wilson very specifically wrote a play that feels like the chapter in the middle of a bigger story.
I mentioned that King Hedley II could have served as a denoument of Wilson’s Cycle. I think it did, in a way. Radio Golf serves a different purpose. It ends the century as Wilson began it: it goes on. In Gem of the Ocean, Joe Turner, and Piano Lesson especially, the legacy of slavery bleeds into the characters' lives, all of whom are tied to a history that extends well before 1904, when the cycle opens. King Hedley II closes sharply, definitely, tragically. But Radio Golf keeps going in both directions, weaving its world into the world of the nine previous plays even as the characters are propelled forward into a new century. In the play, we as readers and Wilks as a character discover that Wilkes is bound up with 1839 Wylie, with a history extending back at least three generations, to the events of Gem of the Ocean and therefore with the even longer history that brought Ester and Two Kings and the others to 1839 Wylie in 1904. There is something hopeful and fitting and difficult and cynical about the open-ended nature of Radio Golf. The 1900s will bleed into the next as the 1800s bled into the 1900s. The ugliness, racism, injustice, oppression got pulled through the decades even as Ester’s legacy was pulled through the decades. It is a pitched battle that tumbles onward. And while sometimes it comes with great climaxes and the defeat of ghosts, sometimes it is quiet and unremarkable. Sometimes it is no more than the piecing together of redemption through loss, or no more than a person’s ability to take a step forward. There’s Gem and Piano Lesson and Ma Rainey and Hedley, and then there is Jitney and Radio Golf.
This play might not be my favorite, but my favorites wouldn't work as the final in the Cycle. Radio Golf belongs here, as the last of the ten.
Radio Golf serves as the second half of a two-parter, begun one book before and nine decades earlier. Like the Seven Guitars/HedleyII two-parter, it involves the battle for a soul: King Hedley II and Harmond Wilks—where Wilks’ battle stands in for the battle for the soul of Wilson’s Pittsburgh—fought without Ester, the general most capable of helping them. And each is about the very real costs of soul saving. The play is set against a backdrop of gentrification efforts in Pittsburgh and seems simpler than most of Wilson’s plays. But in another way, the journey of Wilks in particular, but also of Sterling, Barlow, and Mame (who I think is fascinating, if somewhat stereotypical in her blind ambitiousness. Through her, more than Wilks, I think we can understand the suffocating, enveloping fear of being on the precipice of losing hard-fought-for power. It is a fear that perhaps she as a black woman can understand more than her male or white counterparts. She knows and fears the real, true reality of disempowerment and forces us to see why choosing to hold on to power, even if it means subsuming identity, history, even morality, is more understandable than we as readers from our cushy, outside, moral position, want it to be), are anything but simple. While reading Brideshead Revisited, I thought a lot about the ugly and sometimes disheartening nature of grace and redemption; and I thought about it a lot here. In part because of the spiritual and physical stakes here (which I do not want to say too much about, for fear of giving away the pivotal moments of the story), and in part because of the role the play has in the Cycle itself.
As a single play, Radio Golf was not my favorite. While it boasts classic Wilson styles—great monologues, 300 pages worth of work in a slim play, incisive and witty dialogue—it lacks the deftness of some of his other plays. I think it is individually outshined by many others in the cycle. But I also think that Wilson did not intend Radio Golf to stand alone. It is the last he wrote and the last in the Cycle. It is almost an epilogue that gathers up the pieces of the stories came before and shows a way forward. And yet it does not feel like a conclusion. Wilson very specifically wrote a play that feels like the chapter in the middle of a bigger story.
I mentioned that King Hedley II could have served as a denoument of Wilson’s Cycle. I think it did, in a way. Radio Golf serves a different purpose. It ends the century as Wilson began it: it goes on. In Gem of the Ocean, Joe Turner, and Piano Lesson especially, the legacy of slavery bleeds into the characters' lives, all of whom are tied to a history that extends well before 1904, when the cycle opens. King Hedley II closes sharply, definitely, tragically. But Radio Golf keeps going in both directions, weaving its world into the world of the nine previous plays even as the characters are propelled forward into a new century. In the play, we as readers and Wilks as a character discover that Wilkes is bound up with 1839 Wylie, with a history extending back at least three generations, to the events of Gem of the Ocean and therefore with the even longer history that brought Ester and Two Kings and the others to 1839 Wylie in 1904. There is something hopeful and fitting and difficult and cynical about the open-ended nature of Radio Golf. The 1900s will bleed into the next as the 1800s bled into the 1900s. The ugliness, racism, injustice, oppression got pulled through the decades even as Ester’s legacy was pulled through the decades. It is a pitched battle that tumbles onward. And while sometimes it comes with great climaxes and the defeat of ghosts, sometimes it is quiet and unremarkable. Sometimes it is no more than the piecing together of redemption through loss, or no more than a person’s ability to take a step forward. There’s Gem and Piano Lesson and Ma Rainey and Hedley, and then there is Jitney and Radio Golf.
This play might not be my favorite, but my favorites wouldn't work as the final in the Cycle. Radio Golf belongs here, as the last of the ten.
October 29, 2022
I really liked the message in this play and imagine on stage it’d be more dynamic. Off the page it felt a little monologue heavy and theoretical.
May 29, 2024
A great finish to August Wilson's "Century Cycle."
May 12, 2012
Interesting. I don't think that anyone besides Mr. Wilson would have written this story. I could easily see it being paired with Two Trains Running due to the similar redevelopment theme, but there seems to be something unfinished or lacking about it--some things that are too cliched. But maybe that's what he was trying to say, that this is the cycle and thus, cliched or not, it goes on and on--what's more important, the law and your family or your future and progress? What would you risk to do the right thing--and why?
Favorite/Memorable Quotes:
"You know what you are? It took me a while to figure it out. You a Negro. White people will get confused and call you a nigger but they don't know like I know. I know the truth of it. I'm a nigger. Negroes are the worst thing in God's creation. Niggers got style. Negroes got blindyitis. A dog knows it's a dog. A cat knows it's a cat. But a Negro don't know he's a Negro. He thinks he's a white man. It's Negroes like you who hold us back."
Favorite/Memorable Quotes:
"You know what you are? It took me a while to figure it out. You a Negro. White people will get confused and call you a nigger but they don't know like I know. I know the truth of it. I'm a nigger. Negroes are the worst thing in God's creation. Niggers got style. Negroes got blindyitis. A dog knows it's a dog. A cat knows it's a cat. But a Negro don't know he's a Negro. He thinks he's a white man. It's Negroes like you who hold us back."
April 10, 2017
(Read for school.)
I really enjoyed how Harmond's battle over the house was a subtle parallel for his battle over his own heritage. This play was very interesting and provided an insightful look into racial culture clashes.
I really enjoyed how Harmond's battle over the house was a subtle parallel for his battle over his own heritage. This play was very interesting and provided an insightful look into racial culture clashes.
January 16, 2025
This ends the ten play cycle of August Wilson's century cycle, which depicts the 20th century of American life for the African American living in the Pittsburgh area, with one play set during each decade. Radio Golf is set in 1997, and is unique in Wilson's plays as showing how affluence impacted some black families. Like all the plays in his cycle, Wilson incorporates themes of spirituality, economic exploitation, and concern for familial heritage throughout his story.
The play centers around two friends Harmond Wilks and Roosevelt Hicks who are real estate developers that want to rebuild the Hill district in Pittsburgh. Harmond is also planning a run for the mayor's office. The fly in the ointment comes from a visitor to Harmond's office, Joseph Barlow, who says that he owns the property at 1839 Wylie, which would prevent the redevelopment plan to proceed. As always, Wilson manages to bring a lot of intellectual heft to his plays and produces well rounded characters. While the plays are all uniformly strong across the century cycle, I preferred the earlier plays in the cycle, with Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Fences, and Seven Guitars being my favorites. Towards the end of the cycle, some of the themes and situations started to repeat themselves a bit, which is kind of the point, I suppose. A great chance to expand my reading and understand the African American experience in America much better. Glad I was able to complete them all.
The play centers around two friends Harmond Wilks and Roosevelt Hicks who are real estate developers that want to rebuild the Hill district in Pittsburgh. Harmond is also planning a run for the mayor's office. The fly in the ointment comes from a visitor to Harmond's office, Joseph Barlow, who says that he owns the property at 1839 Wylie, which would prevent the redevelopment plan to proceed. As always, Wilson manages to bring a lot of intellectual heft to his plays and produces well rounded characters. While the plays are all uniformly strong across the century cycle, I preferred the earlier plays in the cycle, with Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Fences, and Seven Guitars being my favorites. Towards the end of the cycle, some of the themes and situations started to repeat themselves a bit, which is kind of the point, I suppose. A great chance to expand my reading and understand the African American experience in America much better. Glad I was able to complete them all.
February 28, 2024
I did it, I finished August Wilson's Century Cycle!! I honestly feel so accomplished. It took me two years, but it's finally done! Also, this final play is amazing and ties everything together beautifully.
February 28, 2020
When Harmond put that war paint on, I cried. Distracting and unnecessary that Harmond and Old Joe were cousins, though. Trinity Rep production: incredible actors, all cried so powerfully on stage, elevating even some of the more heavy-handed writing to new heights.
November 6, 2016
AMAZING. This touched me so many times. There is so much truth in this text. It's amazing. Heartfelt. Relatable. Wilson outdid himself here. Beautiful, beautiful play.
February 18, 2017
This is the last play in the Century Cycle. I enjoyed it, but Fences is my favorite.
November 19, 2019
I’ve done it. I’ve read all the Pittsburgh cycle plays. yay!!! Now I can start on that list of book recommendations...
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September 18, 2024funny, bitter, and almost cloyingly sentimental. didn't wow me as much as the previous few of wilson's plays did, but a lot to love here. and now, i've finished a read-through of the whole century cycle! really enjoyed myself. "the piano lesson" and "king hedley ii" were the real standouts. on a larger level you gotta hand it to the guy for raking in a couple of pulitzers and using the clout and subsequent funding to go completely left-field with it. like yeah the famous stuff is great but wow the whole cosmic/spiritual/mystic worldbuilding that goes on in the last five plays he wrote whoooooooo what a ride.
April 10, 2023
I can’t decide if this is optimistic or pessimistic. Reading it just after Gem of the Ocean (Wilson’s first in the Century Cycle) and not having read any of the 8 plays in between (although I’ve seen Fences), this really seems like a defeat rather than a victory for the struggle Aunt Esther and Citizen and everybody took up a hundred years earlier. I guess that’s the 90s.
But the fight doesn’t end. A luta continua. I’m willing to take that as a message of hope.
But the fight doesn’t end. A luta continua. I’m willing to take that as a message of hope.
May 16, 2024
Wilson wrote the final two plays of the American Century Cycle back to back, 'Gem of the Ocean' set in the early 1900s, and this one, set in 1997. He ties them together masterfully. The two Black yuppies don't seem to bear any relation to his earlier hardscrabble characters - until they do. Well done, sir.
April 10, 2020
An excellent conclusion to the Pittsburgh Cycle.
January 10, 2024
I had to read this for class. The writing of some of the dialog is fantastic such as on page 72 where Mame says "You jumped but I'm falling too" and "I tied myself so tight to you that there is no me"
This play is about right and wrong and the system.
This play is about right and wrong and the system.
January 30, 2024
This one took a bit to get going but once I got accustomed to the characters and the plot I really enjoyed it. Such powerful statements on capitalism and consumerism. Doing what’s right or wrong. I definitely recommend it.
April 27, 2025
so sad this is our reality.
August 16, 2025
A fitting end to the Century Cycle!
December 22, 2013
Radio Golf, the final play in August Wilson’s ambitious and very satisfying ten play Century Cycle, is set in 1997. There are masterpieces among the ten plays and taken all together the cycle itself is a masterpiece of American theater, but Radio Golf is a very good but not great play. It is the first that features characters from the African American upwardly mobile middle class. At the play’s start an entrepreneur and potential mayoral candidate, Harmond Wilks, is managing an ambitious neighborhood development project with his partner, banker Roosevelt Hicks, and his own political campaign with his wife, an in-demand political consultant, Mame Wilks. If something goes wrong with the one it could ruin the other.
The play features only two additional characters, Sterling Johnson, a handy-man, and former schoolmate of Harmond, and Joseph Barlow, a community elder who owns the house whose existence is the fly in the ointment of the community development plan. Wilks believes his development corporation has purchased the house from the city in an auction. Mr. Barlow believes the house is still his. The play raises challenging questions around economic and social progress for the individual and the community and expectations about if and how change should come. To those close to the bone of where the knife of progress cuts, it’s a moral question, particularly where the only potential damage is both individual and incidental. It still has to matter. “If it don’t matter then nothing don’t work. If nothing don’t work then life ain’t worth living. See, you living in a world where it don’t matter. The world I live in right is right and right don’t wrong nobody,” is how Sterling summarizes the problem to Harmond.
There are sub-plots about Mrs. Wilks’ career and Mr. Hicks’ ambitions to be at the table where real power and wealth is decided and Harmond Wilks' connections to both Sterling Johnson and Joseph Barlow, both of whom have to do with Harmond Wilks’s father, a successful, domineering, even controversial man who passed some years before. The house, of course, is an iconic one in Wilson’s work (it’s the house once owned by Aunt Ester, a near mythological touchstone to African-American history and culture that stretches back beyond slavery times to before the African diaspora).
Wilson’s play, which I have not seen performed, is an engrossing read. The language is vivid. “That was like a perfect day. A perfect day is the saddest day.” And: “I ain’t painting the house. That was yesterday. Today’s today. Tomorrow’s been following me for a long time. Everywhere I go it follows me. It ain’t caught me yet. Today’s faster than tomorrow.” The characters are compelling, if not always convincing in their actions. I think part of the problem is that a lot is packed into a single play with only five characters in total. There isn’t a lot of room to maneuver plot developments, shifts in relationships, or dramatic changes in character’s beliefs and understandings. It all feels a bit rushed at the end.
Still, Radio Golf is more successful than not and adds to the brilliant cycle of plays to which Wilson dedicated his life. The cycle should be on everyone’s list of essential reading.
The play features only two additional characters, Sterling Johnson, a handy-man, and former schoolmate of Harmond, and Joseph Barlow, a community elder who owns the house whose existence is the fly in the ointment of the community development plan. Wilks believes his development corporation has purchased the house from the city in an auction. Mr. Barlow believes the house is still his. The play raises challenging questions around economic and social progress for the individual and the community and expectations about if and how change should come. To those close to the bone of where the knife of progress cuts, it’s a moral question, particularly where the only potential damage is both individual and incidental. It still has to matter. “If it don’t matter then nothing don’t work. If nothing don’t work then life ain’t worth living. See, you living in a world where it don’t matter. The world I live in right is right and right don’t wrong nobody,” is how Sterling summarizes the problem to Harmond.
There are sub-plots about Mrs. Wilks’ career and Mr. Hicks’ ambitions to be at the table where real power and wealth is decided and Harmond Wilks' connections to both Sterling Johnson and Joseph Barlow, both of whom have to do with Harmond Wilks’s father, a successful, domineering, even controversial man who passed some years before. The house, of course, is an iconic one in Wilson’s work (it’s the house once owned by Aunt Ester, a near mythological touchstone to African-American history and culture that stretches back beyond slavery times to before the African diaspora).
Wilson’s play, which I have not seen performed, is an engrossing read. The language is vivid. “That was like a perfect day. A perfect day is the saddest day.” And: “I ain’t painting the house. That was yesterday. Today’s today. Tomorrow’s been following me for a long time. Everywhere I go it follows me. It ain’t caught me yet. Today’s faster than tomorrow.” The characters are compelling, if not always convincing in their actions. I think part of the problem is that a lot is packed into a single play with only five characters in total. There isn’t a lot of room to maneuver plot developments, shifts in relationships, or dramatic changes in character’s beliefs and understandings. It all feels a bit rushed at the end.
Still, Radio Golf is more successful than not and adds to the brilliant cycle of plays to which Wilson dedicated his life. The cycle should be on everyone’s list of essential reading.
March 8, 2017
Radio Golf is Wilson's last play in the Pittsburgh cycle, and never before has a African-American character he's created been so close to the top. Harmond Wilks, real estate developer, is prepping a successful run at mayor. His close friend and business partner, Roosevelt Hicks, is on the rise. And yet, events turn sharply in the play, reminding us that while the powerful white in Pittsburgh are buffered by steel floors, the up-and-coming members of the black community are on ground as shaky as a condemned house.
What makes Radio Golf additionally tragic is that it isn't even corruption or bad deed that sinks the dreams of its main characters - it's a deeply ethical act that, in a society that could discern right from wrong, should be celebrated.
As with all of Wilson's plays, there's tremendous genius here, tremendous insight into generational struggles and profound strengths of African-American communities. As with a few of Wilson's plays, the end feels a bit abrupt and rushed. Perhaps I just wanted more time with the main characters to process the stunning turn of events in the play's final act. But perhaps the way it concludes is more true to life - most folks don't get what they want or need or deserve at the end.
A Favorite Passage:
OLD JOE: Is you really running for mayor? They ain't gonna let you be mayor.
HARMOND: This is 1997. Things have changed. This is America. This is the land of opportunity. I can be mayor. I can be anything I want.
OLD JOE: But you got to have the right quarter. America is a giant slot machine. You walk up and put in your coin and it spits it back out. You look at your coin. You think maybe it's a Canadian quarter. It's the only quarter you got. If this coin ain't no good then you out of luck. You look at it and sure enough it's an American quarter. But it don't spend for you. It spend for everybody else but it don't spend for you. The machine spit it right back out. Is the problem with the quarter or with the machine? Do you know? Somebody running for mayor ought to know that.
What makes Radio Golf additionally tragic is that it isn't even corruption or bad deed that sinks the dreams of its main characters - it's a deeply ethical act that, in a society that could discern right from wrong, should be celebrated.
As with all of Wilson's plays, there's tremendous genius here, tremendous insight into generational struggles and profound strengths of African-American communities. As with a few of Wilson's plays, the end feels a bit abrupt and rushed. Perhaps I just wanted more time with the main characters to process the stunning turn of events in the play's final act. But perhaps the way it concludes is more true to life - most folks don't get what they want or need or deserve at the end.
A Favorite Passage:
OLD JOE: Is you really running for mayor? They ain't gonna let you be mayor.
HARMOND: This is 1997. Things have changed. This is America. This is the land of opportunity. I can be mayor. I can be anything I want.
OLD JOE: But you got to have the right quarter. America is a giant slot machine. You walk up and put in your coin and it spits it back out. You look at your coin. You think maybe it's a Canadian quarter. It's the only quarter you got. If this coin ain't no good then you out of luck. You look at it and sure enough it's an American quarter. But it don't spend for you. It spend for everybody else but it don't spend for you. The machine spit it right back out. Is the problem with the quarter or with the machine? Do you know? Somebody running for mayor ought to know that.
May 14, 2014
Well, this is the last of the plays and the last one he wrote...a swan song could never have been more of a cautionary tale as this one...
I thought it was cool to see Sterling from TWO TRAINS RUNNING again, and relatives of Citizen Barlow from GEM OF THE OCEAN. I also loved the descriptions of Aunt Ester's house and how there was no way that Harmond could ever let it be tore down...
From the back cover: "Set in 1997 in a storefront redevelopment office in Pittsburgh's Hill District, RADIO GOLF is the concluding play in August Wilson's monumental ten-play cycle chronicling African American life during the twentieth century -- an unprecedented series that includes the Pulitzer Prize-winning plays FENCES and THE PIANO LESSON. Completed shortly before his death in 2005, this bittersweet drama of assimilation and alienation in nineties America traces the forces of change on a neighborhood and its people caught between history and the twenty-first century."
This play had the most dog-eared quotes, so I'm just gonna randomly choose one: "Sterling: The white mayor he be the mayor of white folks. Black folks can't get the streets cleaned. The schools don't have no textbooks. Don't have no football uniforms. The mayor be the mayor for white folks. As soon as black folks start a club or something the first thing they say is it just ain't gonna be for blacks. Why not? They got five hundred thousand things that be just for white folks. If they have fourteen hundred students out at Pitt eating lunch in the cafeteria and they have five black people eating lunch together the say, "Look, see, they segregate themselves." They ain't said nothing about them thirteen hundred and ninety-five white folks eating lunch by themselves. What's wrong with being the mayor for black folks?"
I thought it was cool to see Sterling from TWO TRAINS RUNNING again, and relatives of Citizen Barlow from GEM OF THE OCEAN. I also loved the descriptions of Aunt Ester's house and how there was no way that Harmond could ever let it be tore down...
From the back cover: "Set in 1997 in a storefront redevelopment office in Pittsburgh's Hill District, RADIO GOLF is the concluding play in August Wilson's monumental ten-play cycle chronicling African American life during the twentieth century -- an unprecedented series that includes the Pulitzer Prize-winning plays FENCES and THE PIANO LESSON. Completed shortly before his death in 2005, this bittersweet drama of assimilation and alienation in nineties America traces the forces of change on a neighborhood and its people caught between history and the twenty-first century."
This play had the most dog-eared quotes, so I'm just gonna randomly choose one: "Sterling: The white mayor he be the mayor of white folks. Black folks can't get the streets cleaned. The schools don't have no textbooks. Don't have no football uniforms. The mayor be the mayor for white folks. As soon as black folks start a club or something the first thing they say is it just ain't gonna be for blacks. Why not? They got five hundred thousand things that be just for white folks. If they have fourteen hundred students out at Pitt eating lunch in the cafeteria and they have five black people eating lunch together the say, "Look, see, they segregate themselves." They ain't said nothing about them thirteen hundred and ninety-five white folks eating lunch by themselves. What's wrong with being the mayor for black folks?"
June 14, 2015
Just my luck - I pick up my first August Wilson play, and it's the tenth in a series of ten! I went ahead and read it anyway, and enjoyed it - it definitely stood on its own, although I'll probably try to find earlier ones to flesh out some of the characters more.
Set in Pittsburgh in the 1990's, Radio Golf is the story of a man who wants to be the city's first black mayor, but gets involved in a dispute over a house marked for destruction in a neighborhood slotted for a modern shopping center. He can follow his ambition and tear it down, or follow his conscience and let it stay, even though losing the development may cost him the election.
This doesn't sound like the most exciting plot, but Wilson has a good ear for dialogue, and it held my attention all the way through. Since other reviewers say this isn't the best of his plays, I'm going to try some of the others in this series as well.
Set in Pittsburgh in the 1990's, Radio Golf is the story of a man who wants to be the city's first black mayor, but gets involved in a dispute over a house marked for destruction in a neighborhood slotted for a modern shopping center. He can follow his ambition and tear it down, or follow his conscience and let it stay, even though losing the development may cost him the election.
This doesn't sound like the most exciting plot, but Wilson has a good ear for dialogue, and it held my attention all the way through. Since other reviewers say this isn't the best of his plays, I'm going to try some of the others in this series as well.
August 22, 2016
I thought a lot of the ideas Wilson explores in this play were interesting and I loved the connections to Gem of the Ocean; it really connected the beginning and end of the Century Cycle. However, I was a little disappointed in the writing and character development. Compared to the rest of the Cycle, the characters were flat and lacked nuance; I never felt connected to them at all. Also, there was no real climax to me. Things got interesting at certain points, but largely I think Radio Golf lacked the dramatic highs and lows that defined the rest of the Cycle.
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