REVIEW: How I Learned What I Learned

"It's not a play, it's a conversation." - D. Lynn Meyers

August Wilson is one of my favorite playwrights. I love “Fences” and “Jitney” and would like to see more of his plays. But I don’t know much about the man himself.  That’s changed now, thanks to Ensemble Theatre’s production of “How I Learned What I Learned.” This autobiographical piece is “not a play,” ETC’s Producing Artistic Director D. Lynn Meyers said in her curtain speech.  “It’s a conversation.”

“ranney,” the singularly named actor, is perfect for this show because he is nothing if not conversational.  While other performers sometimes struggle, pretending rather than acting, “ranney” lets the words flow as if they are sometimes dripping out of his mouth with ease  You’d have thought that he wrote this show himself, given his comfort with the material and his knack for storytelling.

Director Torie Wiggins guides him around the stage and oversees what could be a mind-numbingly long hour and forty-five-minute monologue. Instead, the technical elements, the luscious set, the projections, the sound cues, and the wardrobe all work to keep the audience engaged throughout.

It’s not the show I anticipated, but I’m not sure what I expected.  He doesn’t talk about plays; there’s no reference to him even being a playwright in the show.  He discusses poetry but mostly talks about surviving as a black man in Pittsburgh, trying to make his way through life with his pride intact.

I learned a lot about August Wilson and how he learned what he learned - as advertised.  I think Cincinnati audiences should learn what he learned, too.  

And since Wilson himself has left this earth, what better team to learn it from than “ranney” and Wiggins?