Playwright August Wilson takes to the stage himself for the first time in his new play in Seattle. “The 100-minute play, ‘How I Learned What I Learned,’ is brightened by sudden flashes of poetry and unfolds like a meeting between Dylan Thomas and Malcolm X. The dramatic high point comes when Mr. Wilson leaps into the character of a man in one of his stories who fatally knifes an acquaintance in a bar. He jumps around the stage, curses wildly, slashes the air and brutally kicks his imagined victim.”