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Theater :: Radio Golf Before he died last year, August Wilson completed his grand design of 10 plays with "Radio Golf" which has just opened at the Huntington Theatre. "Radio Golf" by August Wilson. At the BU Theatre. by Ed Siegel
 Listen to review (Real Audio) Set in the 1990s, "Radio Golf" tells the story of Harmond Wilks, a real estate developer who wants to be Mayor of Pittsburgh. Wilks' two aides are his wife, a savvy mover and shaker, and his partner, Roosevelt Hicks. As they move into their realty office, Hicks tacks up a poster of his idol, Tiger Woods, while Wilks unfurls his own: Martin Luther King Jr. The Huntington Theatre Company was one of Wilson's great champions during his lifetime, producing seven of his previous nine plays. He would have been ecstatic with what they've done to his finale. "Radio Golf" had an unsatisfying world premiere last season at the Yale Repertory Theatre. Wilson liked to develop his plays in regional theaters before taking them to New York. Boston is lucky that this one comes later in the process. Since New Haven, the production has added a terrific director, Kenny Leon, and a cast that simply could not be better. Wilson also kept working at the play and it now has the energy, wit, and poetry that we've come to associate with the playwright. In New Haven, Wilson drove his points home with a sledgehammer. In Boston, those same points are drawn with far more subtlety. And what are those points? And why golf, of all things, in an August Wilson play? Well, as Roosevelt Hicks sees it, the sport is entree into the American Dream. Tiger Woods represents the triumph of the individual. Wilson's heroes are those who represent the triumph of the community. It's one's relationship to other people, and to history, that mark you. Lose that and it doesn't matter how many birdies or eagles you rack up. "Radio Golf" is still a bit heavy-handed. Blacks are victims of whites. Poor unschooled people have more wisdom than rich college graduates. In this case, an elderly man whose house faces demolition by the two realtors becomes the moral center of the play. The world that August Wilson's 10 masterful plays tell us we should all strive to live in is a world where "right don't wrong nobody." Sometimes the best way of forging a future is looking to our past. The Huntington Theatre Company's production of August Wilson's "Radio Golf" runs through Oct. 15, 2006 at the Boston University Theatre.
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