| Seven Guitars |
|
|
| Written by |
August Wilson |
| Characters |
Louise
Canewell
Red Carter
Vera
Hedley
Floyd Barton
Ruby |
| Setting |
The backyard of a house in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. |
Seven Guitars is a 1995 play by August Wilson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright. It focuses on seven African American characters in the year 1948. The play begins and ends after
the funeral of one of the main characters, showing events leading to the funeral in flashbacks. Seven Guitars represents
the 1940s entry in Wilson's "Pittsburgh Cycle", a decade-by-decade anthology of African-American life in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania during the 20th century; Wilson
would revisit the stories of some of these characters in King Hedley II, set in
the 1980s.
Plot summary
A song Floyd "Schoolboy" Barton recorded, called "That's All Right", in the prior year has become a radio hit. Record
executives have asked him to return to Chicago to record more albums. Since the recording of the first album, Floyd has
squandered the flat fee he received for recording, left his girlfriend (Vera) for another woman, was then left by the other
woman, pawned his guitar, and spent ninety days in jail after being arrested while walking home from his mother's funeral. After
a year of trials and tribulations, Floyd is ready to right the past year's wrongs and return to Chicago with a new understanding
of what's important in his life. Unfortunately his means of righting wrongs are inherently flawed.
The play's recurring theme is the African-American male's fight for his own humanity, self-understanding and self-acceptance
in the face of personal and societal ills. The rooster is a recurring symbol of black man throughout the play, and provides a
violent and shocking foreshadowing affect when Hedley delivers a fiery monologue and ritualistically slaughters one in front of
the other characters.
Jazz References
Funky Butt, a song by New Orleans Jazz musician Buddy Bolden is referenced
several times throughout the play; characters banter back and forth:
I thought I heard Buddy Bolden say...
What he say?"
He say, 'Wake up and give me the money.'
Naw, naw, he say, 'Come here, here go the money.'
Quotations
"Vera: Here, Red, I got you a flower for Mother's Day. What color you need?
"Red Carter: I need a red flower. My mother still living, and even as I know it got to come to the day I wear a white flower
... I hope it ain't no time soon." (Act II, Scene 7.)
"Hedley: You are like a king! They look at you and they say, 'This one ... this one is the pick of the litter. This one we have
to watch. We gonna put a mark on this one. This one we have to crush down like the elephant crush the lion.!' You watch your
back! The white man got a big plan against you. Don't help him with his plan. He look to knock you down. He say, 'That one!' Then
they all go after you. You best be careful." (Act II, Scene 1.)
"Canewell: For your information, in case you ain't figured it out yourself, this here is called the Hill District. That one of
two things a woman coming into Pittsburgh need to know. The other is how to find me. My name is Canewell, and you can find me
right down there on Clark Street. That's the same Clark like the candy bar. That's down in what the people call Little Haiti.
Just ask anybody where Canewell lives and they will tell you." (Act I, Scene 5.)
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