A Complete Life

I was recently re-reading Joe Orton's Loot. I think it's his masterpiece--one of the wittiest plays of the 20th century. (What The Butler Saw, his last major work, was a step back.) It made me think of Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest, perhaps the wittiest of all.

Both were written by gay men who found great success on the stage in their 30s. Both men's careers ended tragically in early death. I don't know how Wilde would have topped Earnest, and I don't know if Orton would have topped Loot, but we were robbed of two great writers who had just hit their stride. It's as if, say, Shaw had died after his first several plays. We'd still have Arms And The Man, Candida and You Never Can Tell, but we'd be denied Man And Superman, Major Barbara, Heartbreak House, Saint Joan and many others.

Anyway, that's what I'd been thinking when I read that one of our most respected playwrights, August Wilson, died at the age of 60. My reaction to his death was the exact opposite. Sure, Wilson was still relatively young, but here was a man who successfully dedicated his last twenty years to writing ten interconnected plays about the black experience in 20th century America, one set in each decade.

These plays, individually and as a cycle, brought him fame and considerable money. They won almost every conceivable award and have had--and will continue to have--numerous high-profile productions. I'd like to think, even as he was fighting his final illness, that Wilson was able to derive some satisfastion from knowing he left something big behind, and was able to complete what he set out to do.