Written by August Wilson Original language English Genre Drama Playwright August Wilson | Date premiered 1982 Series The Pittsburgh Cycle First performance 1982 Place premiered Pittsburgh | |
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Setting 1977, a worn-down gypsy cab station in Pittsburgh's Hill District Characters Shealy, Doub, Rena, YoungBlood, Fielding, Turnbo, Becker, Phil, Booster Similar August Wilson plays, Dramas | ||
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Jitney is a play in two acts by August Wilson. The eighth in his "Pittsburgh Cycle", this play is set in a worn-down gypsy cab station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in early autumn 1977.
Contents
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Productions
Jitney was written in 1979 and first produced at the small Allegheny Repertory Theatre, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1982. When Wilson took his mother to see that production they arrived by jitney. That was followed by a separate production at Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota. After Wilson had a series of plays produced on Broadway, Eddie Gilbert, artistic director of the Pittsburgh Public Theater, read the 1979 script and asked to produce it.
In response, Wilson returned to Pittsburgh in 1996 re-writing it extensively for what is referred to as its professional premiere, which was directed by Marion McClinton. This was the first Pittsburgh Cycle premiere not to be directed by Lloyd Richards. Over the next four years there were up to 20 productions nationwide, many with the same core cast as in Pittsburgh, including the 1997 production at the Crossroads Theatre in New Jersey, which was directed by Walter Dallas, and the 1998 production at Boston's Huntington Theatre Company, directed by McClinton.
Wilson continued working on the script. Jitney opened Off-Broadway at the Second Stage Theatre on April 25, 2000 and closed on September 10, because another play was coming in. The play next moved to the Union Square Theatre on September 19, 2000 where it closed on January 28, 2001. Jitney ran successfully Off-Broadway, and was the only one of the 10 Pittsburgh Cycle plays not to appear on Broadway, possibly because Wilson's previous play had lost money, making investors cautious. Directed by Marion McClinton, the cast featured four actors who had been with it almost continuously since 1996: Anthony Chisholm (Fielding), Paul Butler (Becker), Willis Burks (Shealy) and Stephen McKinley Henderson (Turnbo).
Jitney went on to London, and ran at the National Theatre's Lyttelton Theatre from October 16, 2001, through November 21, 2001. It won the Olivier Award for best play of the year. Directed by McClinton, it featured much of the New York cast.
McClinton's production moved to San Francisco's Curran Theatre in early 2002.
The play has been performed often in regional theater, including at the Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C., in 2001, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts in 2002, Ford's Theatre, Washington, D.C. in 2007, and the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C. in 2008.
The Broadway premiere of Jitney began previews at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre on December 28, 2016 and opened on January 19, 2017. The play, produced by the Manhattan Theatre Club, is directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson.
Characters
Synopsis
Regular taxi cabs will not travel to the Pittsburgh Hill District of the 1970s, and so the residents turn to jitneys—unofficial, unlicensed taxi cabs—that operate in the community. This play portrays the lives of the jitney drivers at the station owned by Becker.
One of the jitney drivers, Darnell Williams and his girlfriend Rena Youngblood, have a complicated relationship. They have a son named Jesse. In the past Darnell has cheated on Rena, and now Rena thinks Darnell is again being unfaithful —this time with her sister, because he disappears at times during the day and night, and also because, without explanation, he takes the money they were saving for food. Finally it is revealed that Darnell has been going around with Rena’s sister in order to shop for a new house for himself and Rena. All is forgiven.
Becker's son, Clarence (nicknamed Booster), returns from prison. Booster has been in incarcerated because he murdered his lover, a white woman, because she lied when she claimed that she had been raped by Booster. When Booster is finally released after serving his sentence, he finds that his father, who never visited him in prison, is profoundly disappointed that his son is a murderer, and also because Booster’s conviction occurred at the time his biological mother was sick and dying. Booster has come to his father's jitney station hoping to make amends. He and his father argue, and his father disowns him. When Becker dies at the end, Booster appears to be taking his father's place as the boss of the jitney station.