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...but this adaptation didn't do it for me. When I finished watching this adaptation, I had the same feeling I get when I'm excited to see a Wilson production in the theater and it falls flat. A Wilson play is, strangely, a spiritual experience. His plays are a clear, specific, unmistakable phenomenon.
--Ma Rainey didn't feel like Wilson to me. Sometimes the pace of the play started to get into a groove but it was never sustained.
--Viola's makeup and that fat suit was a bizarre choice. I refuse to believe August Wilson would've signed off on that.
The best Wilson adaptation for tv/movie I've seen is the "Piano Lesson." But Wilson himself did the screenplay. It's excellent. Fences wasn't a bad adaptation, either, and all of the performances hit the right mark.
Boseman did better than I expected. It wasn't a bad performance at all. But I think I have a thing where I feel like it's hard to find actors and actresses to enter the space Wilson is vibrating at. It's always fascinating to me, for instance, to listen to Phylicia Rashad talk about this...
I love Wilson, and there were parts of this adaption that I liked. But overall, this didn't feel like a Wilson play, but like people performing Wilson. Even when I watch Wilson plays that don't do it for me, I can always find a moment that's beautiful. For instance, in this play, I was moved to hear echoes and connections between characters in the cycle as it related to Ma Rainey, but also as it related to their own circumstance. The voices speaking in the cycle across the years was especially poignant for me in this production. I could hear Boy Willie, Doker, Troy, Aunt Esther, Gabriel....it was quite moving.
I also love the idea that people are trying to bring Wilson's entire cycle to the big screen. I hope the project will be something that introduces people with new talent and gifts...
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