Don’t miss this ride
A revival of August Wilson’s early play ‘Jitney’ drives it expertly
Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s Tony-winning revival of August Wilson’s “Jitney,” a triumphant melding of acting and drama, puts the audience in the unique position of eavesdroppers on the colloquial music of life.
This early Wilson play, the first to be written in his 10-play cycle exploring the 20th century African American experience, takes place in the 1970s. Although “Jitney” was first produced in 1982, it had to wait until 2000 for its New York premiere off-Broadway at Second Stage Theater in a version that was revised by the author.
That production, directed by Marion McClinton, remains for me a glowing memory, as I’m sure it does for many who saw it at the Mark Taper Forum earlier that same year. “Jitney” may not have the same stature as Wilson’s masterpiece “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” or esteemed favorite “Fences,” but in performance it casts an ensemble spell of revelatory humanity.
Respect for “Jitney,” the last in Wilson’s cycle to make it to Broadway, has been growing since Santiago-Hudson, a Tonywinning acting veteran of Wilson’s plays, directed this production at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in 2017. What was once dismissed as minor is now considered major. And it’s not because our standards have plummeted. Rather, it’s that the play, when fully realized by a company of actors working in communal concord, satisfies our growing hunger for complex and compassionate character truth.