The playwright captured an entire century of black American experience. His widow Constanza Romero explains how she shares his message, as gritty play King Hedley II returns to the stage
‘It is one of his most difficult plays,” says Constanza Romero. “It’s very gritty – death runs all through it.” Romero, the widow of August Wilson, is talking about King Hedley II, his drama about a young man trying to rebuild his life after a stretch in prison, having returned to his childhood home in a dilapidated area of 1980s Pittsburgh.
King Hedley II, which has just opened at London’s Theatre Royal Stratford East, is the penultimate instalment of an epic 10-play series Wilson wrote over the course of about 25 years, each representing a different decade of the 20th century and each focusing on the lives of African Americans. The play was first produced in 1999, and opened on Broadway two years later. Wilson died from liver cancer four years after that.
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