Peter Viney's Blog

By August Wilson

A Headlong / Leeds Playhouse / Old Vic co-production
Directed by Tinuke Craig
Set and costume: Alex Lowde
Lighting: Elliot Griggs
Sound and composer: Max Perryment
Video: Ravi Deepres

Theatre Royal, Bath

Wednesday 27th July 2022, 14.30

CAST

(With added notes fromAugust Wilson’s play text)

Wil Johnson – Becker. A well-respected man who runs the jitney station. In his sixties.
Tony Marshall- Fielding. Driver and former tailor with a dependency on alcohol
Geoff Aymer- Doub, longtime driver and Korean War veteran.
Nnabiko Ejimofor – Shealy. Numbers taker who often uses the station as his base.
Blair Gyabaah – Booster. Becker’s son. Recently released from prison. In his early forties.
Leanne Henlon – Rena. Youngblood’s girlfriend and mother of their young son.
Solomon Israel – Youngblood, Driver. Vietnam veteran. Late 20s
Dayo Koleosho – Philmore. Local hotel doorman and recurring jitney passenger.
Sule Rimu – Turnbo. Driver. Always interested in the affairs of others.

Jitney was written in 1979, and first staged in 1982. It’s one of August Wilson’s ‘Century Cycle’ aka ‘Pittsburgh Cycle’ which covers 100 years in ten plays. Jitney was the first one written, and others include Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (film reviewed here) and Fences (stage play reviewed here). This production started out in Leeds at the end of 2021. It’s in Bath for a week after a month at the Old Vic in London, and the tour continues. I bought the play text at The National Theatre in London two weeks earlier in their ‘Currently playing’ section for the Old Vic run. Chichester sells play texts. The National Theatre does. It hasn’t occurred to Bath to do so.

First the set. It’s a trapezium box set within a wide sloping backward frame, which outer frame is used for projection throughout, sometimes stills of Pittsburgh or sections of maps, then towards the end, it’s a moving projection of Pittsburgh landmarks.

The trapezium shape means that when a road is projected at the bottom it has the sense of perspective. After the Tempest the night before it confirms that continual projection rather than odd interludes is the standard thing now. The video projection designer takes their place next to the set, costume, light and sound designers in the list of creatives. I did not envy the sound operator … there are just so many phone ringing sounds to place, and all have to be perfectly timed live.

This is the station for jitneys … the waiting room for cab drivers, though we’d call this ‘private hire’ in the UK. People phone in for cars. Merriam-Webster defines ‘jitney’ as an unlicensed taxicab. So not cabs you can hail in the street. In Wilson’s play text it’s called a ‘gypsy cab station.’

Wilson has a play per decade for the century and Jitney is in the 1970s, flared trousers, Afros. I had Becker’s suede jacket in the mid-70s (I bought mine in Istanbul).Some cool 70s modern jazz in projected interludes, a little 70s soul near the end. The play text states 1977. Pittsburgh was the latest in line for urban regeneration in the era, which leads to gentrification. Karen’s great grandmother lived in Pittsburgh from the 1920s to 1940s which added to our interest. In the play, Youngblood is trying to buy a house in Penn Hill in Pittsburgh. We used to rent a flat in Penn Hill Avenue in Poole, a fifteen minute stroll from where we live now. That was 1973 to 1975. The same era.

It’s all played in fairly strong African-American accents (well done, too, which is not always the case). I’m not sure that Bath was its natural home – the Theatre Royal matinee was only about half full, if that. On the other hand, we saw August Wilson’s Fences in the same theatre, though that had the draw of Lenny Henry.

It’s American. So of course it has just one set, though a cast of nine is a pleasant change from the usual modern American two major star parts for the famous, plus two others in support. It’s American. So it has lots of long speeches.

The essence of the play is creating this diverse bunch of clearly defined well-observed characters.Mainly people have to wait around, pass the time waiting for a phone call, then action. It’s not a hard role to imagine for actors … film and TV acting involves much time sitting around, shooting the breeze (and in the UK doing the Guardian crossword), then it’s action with twenty or more people watching you, and if you get it wrong, everyone has to repeat.

It worked. We picked up who they all were with the exception of Shealey, the numbers runner and that was our fault, not his. We loved him bursting onto the set high fivin’. jive talkin’. break dancin’ but we never figured he was a numbers runner, just that everyone owed him money. We both thought he was another driver. Numbers runner is not a role in British culture. They collected bets and delivered payoffs if they won. The winning numbers were often determined by the final digits of the winning payoff results of horse races, and it was illegal so ‘the numbers racket.’ The UK had bookies runners doing a similar role but with bets on odds on races. I’m told that it was a popular sideline for British milkmen before bookmakers were legalized.

No plot spoilers. but just enough outline to assist with the plot and characters. It’s dramatic. All the actors are convincing.

Becker has been running the station for eighteen years, since he stopped working in a steel mill. Doub has been with him the longest, and Fielding has been there a long time but falls out with Becker because Fielding is an alcoholic, and the rule posted on the wall is ‘No drinking.’

Turnbo is older, and always poking his nose into everyone’s business. He’s on a short fuse, and always answers the phone thus:

Turnbo: Be right there. Brown car. You already checked out and ready to go, cause I ain’t gonna be waiting!

This breaks another one of the five rules posted on the wall, Be courteous. We start the play with Turnbo and Youngblood playing checkers (draughts), but they fall out.

Youngblood is trying to buy a house and keeping it secret from Rena, his girlfriend. He’s young and ambitious … and notably tries to speak standard white American on the phone to the mortgage advisor, though he drops into African-American at the end. Youngblood is a Vietnam vet and complains about it, until Doub tells the horrifying tale of his own service in the Korean War.

Turnbo and Youngblood fall out violently after Turnbo tells his girlfriend, Rena, that he’s chasing other women. (Falsely).

Becker’s son, Booster, has spent twenty years in prison after murdering his white girlfriend who falsely accused him of rape when they were caught making out by her father. He was sentenced to the electric chair but it was commuted to twenty years. Becker will have nothing to do with him, and never visited him in prison.

A lot of the theme is on lying. It moves between joshing around, rubbing along with plenty of humour, to sudden fierce altercations. There are long tragic tales in there, such as Fielding’s rambling exaggerated reminisces about his time as tailor to the stars. Those are monologues. Just looking at the photos here shows how many impassioned dialogues there are.

Mainly, I thought the second act dropped somewhat in propulsion, in that it was less dramatic … maybe that was after the massively dramatic Booster / Becker confrontation ending the first half. The centre pieces are Youngblood and Doub discussing their wars, and Youngblood and Renna’s long discussion. That really highlights strongly intrinsic male and female attitudes on homes. Brilliantly so, and brilliantly executed by Solomon Israel and Leanne Henlon.

It all ends on a dramatic and tragic note, then resolves it. Nuff’ said.

I thought it more involving than Fences by quite a distance. Yes, I’m in with the flow. Nearly every single review of London I found gave it four stars, and there was also a five star for the initial run in Leeds.

****

\\WHAT THE CRITICS SAID (mainly OLD VIC, LONDON. JUNE 2022)

five star

Mark Brown, The Telegraph, ***** (Leeds, October 2021)

four star
Kate Wyver, The Guardian **** (London)
Catherine Love, The Guardian **** (Leeds, October 2021)
Dominic Maxwell, The Times **** (London)
Clive Davis, The Times, **** (Leeds, October 2021)
Claire Allfree, The Telegraph, ****
Patrick Marmion, Daily Mail ****
Neil Norman, Daily Express ****
Sarah Hemming, Financial Times ****
Nick Curtis, Evening Standard ****
Anya Ryan, Time Out ****
Matt Wolf, London Theatre ****
Mike Scott-Harding, Afridiziak ****
Jonathan Marshall, The Upcoming ****
Franco Milazzo, Broadway World ****
The Stage ****

three star
Susannah Clapp, The Observer ***

AUGUST WILSON LINKS

Fences, Bath 2013 with Lenny Henry
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (film)

LINKS ON THIS BLOG

WIL JOHSON
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Old Vic 2017 (Claudius)

SOLOMON ISRAEL
Miss Littlewood, RSC 2018
The Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich RSC 2018
Duchess of Malfi, RSC 2108
The Tempest, RSC 2012
Twelfth Night, RSC 2012
Comedy of Errors, RSC 2012

GEOFF AYMER
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Young Vic 2017