ROBERT GORE-LANGTON

The one phone never stops ringing in this run-down taxi rank. The waiting drivers huddle around an office heater in their shabby home from home. It’s

1977 and every buck counts for the guys driving ‘jitneys’ – unlicensed cabs.

The action is set in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, where the writer August Wilson (he died in 2005) grew up and located his mighty ten-play project, The Pittsburgh Cycle, one play set in each decade of the 20th Century, chronicling the black American experience, with all its grit and pain.

Wilson wrote down what he

Jitney

The Old Vic, London

2hrs 30mins

Until Jul 9, then on tour until Aug 6 heard around him and that’s what makes this early play so compellingly authentic. Becker (Wil Johnson is the cast’s commanding presence) runs the cab rank, under threat from the city planners to redevelop the area, while being father figure to this motley crew.

His reunion with his just-outof-jail son Booster (Leemore Marrett Jr) gives the evening its explosive showdown.

But it’s essentially a play of chatty comings and goings. You wouldn’t want a ride with the alcoholic Fielding (Tony Marshall, superb), a former tailor who once made a suit for Count Basie. Youngblood (Solomon Israel) is a GI back from Vietnam, trying, so he says, to make a life for his girlfriend Rena and their child –

Leanne

Henlon is especially welcome as the only woman on stage. Turnbo (Sule Rimi) is the vicious gossip, another standout in this excellent cast.

Tinuke Craig’s production is occasionally inaudible – a cardinal sin in a theatre this size. But with scenes topped and tailed with blasts of jazz and soul, it all feels real, bleak and true. My worry is that this play is simply too static, too downbeat, to really raise the Old Vic’s rafters.

AUTHENTIC: Sule Rimi as Turnbo and Leanne Henlon as Rena in Jitney