When I spoke to Timothy Bond, Richard Brooks and G. Valmont Thomas, the director and actors (respectively) of "Radio Golf" at Syracuse Stage, I asked them: "Why do you think that the original production was not as successful?"Brooks answered with "Because we didn't do it."
And indeed, it's obvious this production of "Radio Golf" is rendered with love and reverence for the late August Wilson, who died in 2005. "Radio Golf" was his last play and he had died before it opened. It is also the last play in his "20th Century Cycle" and thus contains refrains of the prior works.
"Radio Golf" details the conflict between the African-American middle class and the lower class, of the tragic sundering of ties. Wilson believed, as it says in the program for "Radio Golf," that those who were able to rise up from poverty should try to help the community they came from. This viewpoint is apparent through the main character, Harmond, who is in conflict over this very issue, in his attempts to become the first Black mayor of Pittsburgh.
