How I Learned What I Learned

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HOW I LEARNED WHAT I LEARNED

Photo: Joan Marcus

Cititour.com Review
While there have been some excellent revivals of August Wilson’s great works since his untimely death in 2005, Gothamites finally have the chance to hear this master storyteller’s voice in a whole new way, thanks to the New York premiere of his compelling, autobiographical solo piece “How I Learned What I Learned” at the Pershing Square Signature Center.

Wisely, Signature has entrusted this brief journey through Wilson’s formative years to one of his greatest interpreters, Tony Award-winning actor Ruben Santiago-Hudson. Unsurprisingly, this consummate actor, under the direction of co-conceiver Todd Kreidler, brings Wilson’s prose magnificently to life, giving us both a greater understanding of the playwright and providing audiences with a dynamite 80 minutes of entertainment.

The piece -- told in a non-linear fashion -- focuses on Wilson’s childhood, adolescence, and, most notably, young adulthood in Pittsburgh’s Hill District (which would later become the locale of his famed “American Century” cycle of plays). We discover so many facets of his personality, from his hair-trigger temper to his deep-seated morality, not to mention his youthful lust for women. Equally important, we learn how much Wilson valued his friends and early mentors, whether or not they turned out to be illiterate, drug-addicted, or merely ill-informed. And we come to understand, if we hadn’t already, just how much being a person of color in pre-Civil Rights America informed Wilson’s world view.

While told with brutal honesty, the story is also laced with copious amounts of humor, all of which is captured brilliantly by Santiago-Hudson. Intriguingly, the actor neither makes an attempt to sound like Wilson, nor to do vocal imitations of most of the people he talks about. And yet we feel like we’re watching a multitude of characters waft in and out of David Gallo’s clever raft-like set, which floats in a sea of notepaper.

Of course, it would have been a special treat to actually see Wilson tell us his own life story, but there can be little doubt that Santiago-Hudson is the next best thing!
By Brian Scott Lipton


Visit the Site
http://www.signaturetheatre.org/tickets/production.aspx?pid=3093

Cast
Ruben Santiago-Hudson

Open/Close Dates
Opening 11/5/2013
Closing 12/29/2013

Box Office
212-244-7529

Theatre Info
Pershing Square Signature Center
480 West 42nd Street
New York, NY 10036
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