Sometimes it is easy to forget that literary fiction is not limited to a novel, but played out on the theatrical stage–but we get a jarring reminder when we sit three rows back from a Roscoe Lee Browne performance in August Wilson’s masterpiece, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.”

It was way back in 1989, when I was living in California. The LA Theater Center produced “Joe Turner,” the second in Wilson’s 10 plays in his Pittsburgh Cycle. Before the curtains even opened, I was agog at the idea that Olivia Dukakis was in the seat immediately in front of me, and I resisted the strong urge to be a fan-girl. After all, this was Hollywood-writ-large, and famous stars were to be seen everywhere.

Dukakis was a major film and stage star, winning an Oscar that year for her performance in “Moonstruck.” Her cousin was former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis who had just lost a bid for the U.S. Presidency the year before. She had come to see her good friend Roscoe Browne, and he gave her a nod during curtain calls.

Once the play began, however, I was transfixed on Browne’s powerful portrayal of Bynum Walker; his deep, resonate voice; his command of the room. He was a great actor of film, stage and television, and among his many tributes was a Best Actor Award from the Los Angeles Drama Critics for the very role I saw that night.

But for a moment, put aside the stars on the stage and in the audience, because much of the magic originated with August Wilson’s script, one of the many of his long career that earned him two Pulitzers and a raft of other awards. He used the “poetic vernacular of the streets” to capture the history of black Americans and their struggle to find identity following a hundred years of slavery.

Frank Rich of the New York Times lauded Wilson’s art, noting that he “reasserted the power of drama to describe large social forces, to explore the meaning of an entire people’s experience in American history. For all the magic in his plays, he was writing in the grand tradition of Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller.”

The very core of literary expression is its effort to explicate the human condition. Rich went on to write: “In bringing to the popular American stage the gritty specifics of the lives of his poor, trouble-plagued and sometimes powerfully embittered black characters, Mr. Wilson also described universal truths about the struggle for dignity, love, security and happiness in the face of often overwhelming obstacles.”

“Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” was also considered a transition for Wilson, where he moved from social realism into metaphysical and psychological inquiry, using symbolism and archetype rather than plot alone to convey his core message.

It’s no wonder that plays by August Wilson are now included in university texts that include every literary writer of importance, from Shakespeare to Faulkner.

JONNIE MARTIN