Harry Lennix, one of Chicago’s finest actors, is having quite a moment. Taking a brief hiatus from his outstanding performance as a Civil Rights leader inspired by the Rev. Jesse Jackson in the world-premiere production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Purpose at Steppenwolf, Lennix now brings a passionate, personable portrayal of August Wilson to the Chicago-premiere production of the playwright’s autobiographical one-man show, How I Learned What I Learned. This limited-run Congo Square Theatre production is presented by Broadway in Chicago at Broadway Playhouse and produced in association with the Goodman Theatre.
It’s hard to imagine a better actor to bring the late Wilson back to life. At Sunday’s opening performance, Lennix donned the playwright’s persona like a favorite blazer and delivered a potent mix of history, humor and wisdom won hard from the streets of the Hill District of Wilson’s native Pittsburgh.
Wilson learned from his mother how important it is to stand on principle to fight racism wherever it rears its ugly head, and to immediately cut loose and cut to the quick anyone who practices it or even tolerates its expression.
This moral clarity and deep sense of purpose cost Wilson many jobs when he was a young man, but he emerged with his dignity fully intact as he wrote a highly regarded 10-play cycle rooted in the Black experience in 20th-century America, with all but the Chicago-based Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom set in Pittsburgh.
These harsh episodes are leavened with a great deal of knowing humor in this well-paced production from director Ken-Mat Martin. Lennix’s Wilson gives us well-sketched portraits of a junkie poet confidant, his murderous wife, various girlfriends (including one still-married woman who set Wilson up to meet her and her heartbroken, potentially homicidal husband in a bar) and a rogue’s gallery of racist bosses, clients, bartenders and bank tellers. He stands up to all of them. Well, all except the bartender who pointed a double-barreled shotgun at him. There were several instances in Wilson’s young adulthood when he calculated that he was willing to die rather than abandon his principles, but he wasn’t suicidal.
It seems that fellow Pittsburgher Fred Rogers, who told Wilson he was always welcome in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, was one of the few decent white people the playwright encountered in those years. It’s no wonder that such sentiments were so rare, Wilson reflects, given how profoundly and catastrophically slavery poisoned the minds of white America, steeping them in racist perceptions that persist to this day.
Wilson repeats his clarion call for everyone to understand that the birth of every Black person is no unfortunate mistake, but rather a profound expression of humanity and creativity, joy and hope.
Through this lively, though seldom light, memoir, Lennix channels Wilson fully and convincingly, doing the great playwright justice while delivering 90 minutes of profound insight with engaging humanity and a palpable zest for sharing memorable anecdotes. In describing how he learned what he learned in this manner, Wilson teaches many important lessons himself.
How I Learned What I Learned runs through May 5 at Broadway Playhouse.
For a full roundup of reviews of this show, visit Theatre in Chicago.
