In the late 1960s, a 23-year-old high-school dropout founded a theatre troupe in Pittsburgh's Hill District, the predominantly black neighbourhood where he had grown up. He took to writing. One of his earliest works was a play set in a ramshackle gypsy-cab office in which little happened: a bunch of guys trade stories, swap insults, talk about the world. At some point, however, it became plain that all this was not really the playwright's characters talking about the world so much as he, August Wilson, doing what great writers do: building a world through his characters' words.
Revised and polished over two decades, that work became “Jitney”, part of an ambitious series of ten plays, each set in a different decade of the 20th century and all save one in the Hill District. These, known as the Pittsburgh Cycle, earned Wilson almost every award a playwright can win. To describe the plays as telling the story of the American black experience is true, but it sounds too high-minded. Wilson had a golden ear for the cadence and humour of everyday speech, and the way his characters reveal themselves through language provides a pleasure unmatched on the American stage.
Radio Golf is the cycle's final chapter in two senses: it is set in the century's last decade, and Wilson died soon after completing it. Its protagonist, Harmond Wilks, is anomalous among Wilson characters: he is middle-class, politically ambitious and a true believer in the American legal and political systems. The play is a battle for his soul.
On one side are his flashy business partner, Roosevelt Hicks, and Wilks's savvy wife, Mame. Hicks and Wilks want to “bring the Hill back” by building an apartment and retail complex on the site of some abandoned row houses. On the other side are two older neighbourhood guys: Old Joe, who has a claim on one of the houses Wilks wants to pull down, and who has a claim on one of the houses Wilks wants to pull down, and Sterling Johnson, a street-smart handyman. Metaphorically, this is a battle for the black community in the late 20th century: a struggle to maintain black cohesion in the face of economic incentives and a sort of spiritual gentrification.
Dramatically, this play may be Wilson's thinnest: the lines between good and evil are too starkly drawn, and the claim that redevelopment has been uniformly regrettable for black Americans is simply untrue. But the plot is almost beside the point. Wilson has turned the Hill into a place as richly peopled and mythologically deep as Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha county: the house that Old Joe believes he owns belonged to Aunt Ester, who died at the great age of 349. Ester was the spiritual centre of Wilson's Hill neighbourhood. Though she appeared in only one play, she is spoken of in all of them. Sterling Johnson was a young hot-head in “Two Trains Running”, Wilson's 1960s play. In this one John Jelks gives him depth, toughness and wonderful comic timing. The outstanding performance, though, belongs to Anthony Chisholm, who invests Old Joe with a heartbreaking humanity. His recollection of having a flag torn off his army uniform mixes sadness, outrage and poetry in a manner that is quintessentially Wilsonian.
注（1）：本文选自Economist, 05/17/2007
注（2）：本文习题命题模仿对象为2003年真题Text 3。
1． According to the author, one of the reasons for Wilson’s winning lots of awards is _______.
[A] Wilson writes about the black communities.
[B] Wilson works hard on revising and polishing his works.
[C] Wilson’s works captures everyday humor and language.
[D] Wilson expresses his own views through his characters’ words.
2． What is the public’s attitude towards Wilson’s work?
[A] indifferent
[B] detached
[C] negative
[D] enthusiastic
3． It can be inferred from paragraph 3 that _______.
[A] Wilson died before he finished Radio Golf.
[B] Radio Golf is about how Wilks becomes a politician.
[C] Radio Golf sets in the 1990s.
[D] Radio Golf is the best of all the ten series of plays.
4． The term “protagonist” (Line 2, Paragraph 3) probably means _______.
[A] actor
[B] the main character
[C] fictitious man
[D] political activist
5． From the text we can see the author’s attitude towards Radio Golf is _______.
[A] negative
[B] supportive
[C] indifferent
[D] indignant
篇章剖析
本文主要在于介绍奥古斯特·威尔逊的最后一部剧作《高尔夫电波》。文章第一、二段先介绍了该部作品所属的系列戏剧的背景、作者的写作风格和特点等；第三、四段对《高尔夫电波》的主要人物和情节进行了概述；最后一段则是作者对于这部作品的评价。
词汇注释
troupe [tru:p] n. 剧团 handyman [`hAndimAn] n. 做零活的人
predominant [pri`dCminEnt] adj. 支配的, 主要的 metaphorical [7metE`f`rikEl] adj. 隐喻的
ramshackle [`rAm7FAkl] adj. 摇摇欲坠的 cohesion [kEu`hi:VEn] n. 结合, 凝聚
swap [swCp] v. 易物交易 incentive [in`sentiv] n. 动机
cadence [`keidEns] n. 节奏, 韵律 gentrification [dVen7tifi`keiFEn] n. 贵族化
protagonist [prEu`tAgEnist] n. 主角, 领导者 stark [stB:k] adj. 刻板的,荒凉的
anomalous [E`nRmElEs] adj. 不规则的, 反常的 outrage [`autreidV] n. 暴行, 侮辱