Interview: Ensemble Artistic Director Eileen Morris On Staging August Wilson

Per usual, The Ensemble Theatre honors Black history every month of the year. Less usual: The theater company commemorates August Wilson and Black American history with its continued staged readings of Wilson's AMERICAN CENTURY CYCLE and currently staged production of Wilson's play FENCES.

BUILDING FENCES

The Ensemble Artistic Director Eileen J. Morris sums up FENCES as a "life gets in the way" story. "That's what happens to all of us," says Morris. "We're moseying along and then-bam!-life happens."

Once a baseball star in the Negro league, Troy Maxson was kept out of the major leagues by racism. He is now a garbage man in 1957 Pittsburgh. His bitterness leads him to fight with his son Cory, himself a talented football player, daily and strains his relationship with his ever patient and kind wife, Rose.

This is Morris' third time directing FENCES and she is nowhere near tired of the material. "There's always a certain element of excitement and freshness that I'm coming to a project with."

In the case of FENCES (and the AMERICAN CENTURY CYCLE at large), Morris is even more impassioned. "The work is so rich. It's filled with such beautiful language and rhythms," she says. "The human dynamic - the synergy - that happens between his characters, I'm enamored by it."

Still, the veteran director still had to roll up her sleeves to produce a successful show. It has been over 10 years since she has directed the show, and "every time you do a play, you learn something else, you take another journey with it."

"As a director, I want the actors, first of all, to be true to the language, to have an understanding of what we're saying and why we're saying it and what their character's journey is," says Morris. "If we can do that, which we're doing, if we can make those discoveries individually and together as a cast, then we're reaching the goal of what it takes to make the art happen."

I ask Morris if she can explain how Wilson has created characters that are grounded yet layered in meaning. Morris concedes that not all humans say "nothin'" or "ain't" but, she explains, Wilson writes the structure of the human language." He writes like we speak. "People talk in broken sentences. People talk with several thoughts going on at once."

But he makes us speak more beautifully. "The way that he has carved the language is such that it's identifiable and rhythmic."

"That to me is what makes it real and meaningful."

FENCES performances continue through February 28. The Ensemble Theatre, 3535 Main Street. For more information, please call 713-520-0055 or visit ensemblehouston.com.

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CYCLING THROUGH THE CENTURY CYCLE

The Ensemble Theatre is staging each play from Wilson's 10-play cycle in chronological order. Each play represents one decade of the 20th century.

In March, the theater company reprises FENCES for an evening. And in April, Ensemble presents something new in TWO TRAINS RUNNING, a play that delves into the turbulence and discord during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

In May is JITNEY (1982), a slice-of-life play--what Wilson does best--set in the 1970s. The play follows the ebb and flow of the lives and language of the Jitney cab drivers, otherwise known as gypsy cab drivers, in Pittsburgh's Hill District. [Editor's Note: See FENCES. Really, see FENCES.]

In June, KING HEDLEY II is the eight play in the AMERICAN CENTURY CYCLE. It is an uncharacteristically grim play from the legendary playwright. Set in the 1980s, King, an ex-convict, tries to rebuild his life by building his own business. His plan for raising capital? Hocking stolen refrigerators.

The final reading is RADIO GOLF in July. RADIO GOLF, set in 1997, tells of a Cornell-educated real estate developer with ambitions to be Pittsburgh's first black mayor - but at what cost? It is the last of Wilson's AMERICAN CENTURY CYCLE and the last play he wrote before he died.

"[Wilson's] work helps us grow as artists and people in the world," says the director. The characters are well thought out and poignant. Wilson fills his characters with fortitude.

Previous productions were GEM OF THE OCEAN, set in the 1900s; JOE TURNER'S COME AND GONE, set in the 1910s; MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM, set in the 1920s; THE PIANO LESSON, set in the 1930s; and SEVEN GUITARS, set in the 1940s.

As of our conversation, Morris has directed 8 of the 10 plays that comprise August Wilson's magnum opus-the only woman in the country to have done so-and she has designs on the remaining two.

"When I think about the breadth of August's work, and how we're able to find things in his work that strengthens who we are, not only as African Americans but as human beings, that's why I want to do the work."

AMERICAN CENTURY CYCLE staged readings continue through July 27. The Ensemble Theatre, 3535 Main Street. For more information, please call 713-520-0055 or visit ensemblehouston.com.