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JitneyPart of The August Wilson Century CycleDateline: 20th May, 2008By the time that this epic trawl through African-American life during the 20th century reaches its eighth episode in 1977, it is hardly surprising to find that patterns are emerging. In fact, one could reasonably suggest that in terms of construction, several of the plays are formulaic with for example great similarities between Jitney and its predecessor, Two Trains Running. However, the genius of August Wilson lies in his ability to make the familiar both interesting and unusual, primarily through insightful characterisation, which he uses to shed light on not just those viewed but also the experience of their people at any particular moment in time. Jitney is set in a Pittsburgh cab office belonging to Becker, a highly respectable and decent man approaching retirement, as his business is threatened with closure to make way for a housing development. The drivers are a typical Wilson mix, every one of them flawed in some way but each also immediately recognizable as the kind of person into whose private hire vehicle you might easily step. The provocatively nicknamed Youngblood appears to be running two women simultaneously, although he has a secret that ultimately makes him appear far more worthy than had ever seemed likely. Like the other cabbies, he is constantly wound up by the irritating Turnbro, who knows everybody else's business and thinks that he could do better, although his own life suggests otherwise. Fielding is a hopeful drinker and Doub a wise man, while to add colour and a little symbolic demonstration of the randomness of life, Shealy uses the office as a home for his numbers business. There are three major sources of dramatic tension. First, Becker's son Booster is returning from the state penitentiary having served 20 years for murdering his white girlfriend in what might almost be seen as an honour killing. Initially, he had been condemned to the electric chair and this killed his mother, a death for which father and son can never forgive each other. Next, Youngblood's secrecy and Turnbro's meddling leads to friction involving the younger man's girlfriend Rena and an explosive, almost fatal confrontation between the two men. Finally, the potential closure of the business, marking a change in fortunes for all of these men and, more widely their compatriots, puts stresses on every one of them. Ultimately though, this persuades the group to resist in a way that their predecessors never would or could have; but ultimately with tragic results. By the mid-1970s, there is a marked change in the way that August Wilson's Pittsburgh residents think and behave. They are finally beginning to develop a self-belief that promises a brighter future and there are at least the seeds of an upward mobility that could by the beginning of next year see a Black man in the White House, something that even thirty years ago would have seemed as likely to the drivers as finding life on Mars. Jitney is introduced by the writer Ishmael Reed who might not go into the play in any great depth but offers great food for thought with his analysis of a fiery 1997 debate between August Wilson and the journalist Robert Brustein about the place of the African-American in literature and drama. Philip Fisher Philip reviewed the National Theatre production of "Jitney" in 2001
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