Wilson's widow is awed by Penumbra production

By ROHAN PRESTON, Star Tribune

Last update: March 7, 2008 - 7:18 PM

"Riveting!" That was how Constanza Romero Wilson, widow of playwright August Wilson, characterized "The Piano Lesson" at Penumbra Theatre, in which actors Greta Oglesby and Ansa Akyea play siblings who fight over a family heirloom.

"They really capture the urgency, the power of the play," she said. "And [director Lou Bellamy's] stage business brings out the richness of August's work."

A theater costume designer and executor of her husband's works, Romero Wilson came to town Thursday to see the staging of Wilson's ghost-filled play.

On Friday, she flew to Washington to see Bellamy, who is directing Wilson's "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" in a staged reading at the Kennedy Center. All 10 works in Wilson's epic cycle will be given staged readings there through April 6. (Twin Cities actor James A. Williams has been cast in three of the D.C. productions.)

Romero Wilson said that she and her 10-year-old daughter, Azula, miss Wilson terribly. "He had a great moral compass, and was able to size up situations very quickly into black and white," she said. "I have to work through the grays."

Still, he remains present in his works. "I see August up there when Boy Willie [in "Piano Lesson"] stares at his hands and wonders what he can do with them," she said, "That is just August."

Romero Wilson said that she will return in the spring when Penumbra stages "Gem of the Ocean" at the Guthrie. Over the next five years, Penumbra will present all 10 plays in Wilson's cycle.

The production of "Piano Lesson" has been extended through March 30.

Rohan Preston • 612-673-4390