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Stage Review: Wilson polishes 'Jitney' in richer, longer production
Sunday, November 22, 1998 By Christopher Rawson, Post-Gazette Drama Critic
BOSTON -- Playwriting remains a solo feat, practiced in the conjunction of heart, mind, memory and imagination. You can do it anywhere; all you need is a pencil and paper - even paper napkins in the coffee shops where August Wilson is famous for liking to write, out on the streets whose speech rhythms he captures and molds.
But after a point, this private art must turn communal. It takes a lot of people to perfect an August Wilson play - maybe not a whole village, but actors, designers, producing institutions and, in the deliberate, incremental play-making mode Wilson's success allows him to practice, different cities.
The most recent stop for Wilsonian collaborative play-making is Boston's Huntington Theatre Company, where he has made pre-Broadway stops with other plays. The play now extending its journey of development is "Jitney," the '70s play in Wilson's decade-by-decade dramatic map of 20th-century black America.
Wilson's substantial additions make "Jitney" a fuller, more accessible play - and that's from a critic with nostalgic fondness for the earlier versions.
Written in 1979, soon after the then 33-year-old Wilson left Pittsburgh for St. Paul, "Jitney" was his first play to deal realistically with life in the Hill District. Out of a welter of plot-lines involving six men based in a storefront jitney stop, it emerges that the central drama is that of the station boss, Becker, and his son, Booster, just released after 20 years in prison.
"Jitney" was first given a 1980 reading at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, which awarded Wilson a fellowship that made it possible for him to persevere as a playwright. It premiered at Pittsburgh's small Allegheny Repertory Theater in 1982 and was staged at St. Paul's Penumbra Theatre in 1985, but Wilson left it untouched as his later plays stormed Broadway.
Its true professional premiere came at the Pittsburgh Public Theater in June 1996, directed by Marion McClinton (who had acted in it at Penumbra). Wilson added a new scene and expanded a terse text from 90 minutes to two hours.
In April 1997, "Jitney" was restaged at the Crossroads Theatre in New Brunswick, N.J. Working with a new director, Walter Dallas, Wilson added a scene, pointed the dialogue and changed the time from 1971 to 1977. The cast was mainly as in Pittsburgh. On balance, the Pittsburgh staging had more seamless intensity than at Crossroads, where Dallas set a sunnier tone. Even Paul Butler's powerful Becker felt softer, partly because of a new, sensitive speech about marriage and a new scene in which he decides to fight city hall.
In March 1998, Wilson told the PG he was going to rewrite extensively for the Boston production, "particularly the Becker-Booster scenes. I want to rethink the whole character of Booster and their relationship. I wrote that 18, 19 years ago, and I think maybe if I reimagine it, now that I'm more mature, they'll say different things."
They do! The play now runs 21/2 hours.
But first, the people. Wilson went back to McClinton to direct, a matter of import to those who read tea leaves to see who will direct the next Wilson play on Broadway, replacing the elderly Lloyd Richards, who directed the first six.
Along with Butler as Becker, three central roles remain as at Public and Crossroads: Stephen McKinley Henderson (gossipy Turnbo), Anthony Chisholm (alcoholic Fielding) and Willis Burks II (numbers man Shealy). Barry Shabaka Henley replaces Cortez Nance Jr. as Doub (the most stable driver) and Michole Briana White replaces Yvette Ganier as Rena (the young mother).
The other roles have been cast differently in all three versions. Russell Hornsby now plays Youngblood (youngest driver) and Leo Finnie III plays Philmore -the unnamed, comic jitney rider of earlier versions, but now with a name and specific place in the community. Gone completely is Becker's girlfriend who cradled him, Piéta-like, in his grief. Now, he writhes on the floor alone.
The Huntington performs in an 800-seat Broadway-style house, closer than the Public or Crossroads to the New York theater possibly in its future. New York designer David Gallo's set is surprisingly expressionistic, a realistic forestage with a piece of realistic rear wall, but also a soaring shop window and transparent rear wall looking out on a steep city street (complete with three parked cars) backed with what looks like a decrepit mill - a more industrial scene than we associate with the residential Hill.
Overall, the play has a more confrontational feel. It doesn't ramble as much (I miss that) and plays moments at a higher pitch. Doub criticizes Becker's accommodating style, for example, and Fielding snarls at ... well, I don't remember, I was so surprised.
Mainly, the generational battle between father and son is much fuller, as promised. In their first meeting, they detail their mutual grievances. Booster accuses his father and some in the audience cheered; Becker argues back, regaining sympathetic ground. There is a far more circumstantial confrontation over their mother's/wife's death. I was in tears.
In their second meeting, Booster has much to say about growing up. He recalls what a big man his father had once seemed, then how small. His crime "was my chance to make the Beckers big again. ... I was wrong. It made me small." He accuses Becker of guilt in his mother's death: "You turned your back on her, turning your back on me."
The result is more sympathy for Booster, more clarity for the struggle. Others, too, talk about the arbitrariness of "Becker's rules." This is a gain, though I miss the greater mystery I recall. The clarity of the father-son standoff diminishes the relative importance of the other men. I liked discovering father-son more slowly, but I like the new detail, too.
This Rena feels more stylish, perhaps because of Susan Mickey's costumes. But hers and Youngblood's big confrontation is much richer, with both of them more articulate, their story fuller than before. The meeting about the closing of the jitney station is also clearer and punchier. Some smaller details: Becker no longer has a special table and chair, which I feel is a loss; the wealthy girl Booster murdered in understandable revenge now has a name (McKnight); Youngblood moonlights driving for UPS; Turnbo has lost the funny tag line to his Betty Sue routine.
Finally, a less slick Booster, with no fancy woman at his side, learns of Becker's death. I didn't find Smith as mysterious or personable as I did Gantt at the Public, but at the climax to both acts, he made me cry. The seemingly impassive matinee audience jumped to a standing ovation.
"Jitney" is clearly about pride, about deciding who you are and how to be in the world.
As to what it will be itself, it closes in Boston today after a 41/2-week run. This same director and cast will do it next at Centre Stage, Baltimore, beginning Jan. 8, with Wilson planning more changes. The next step should be up to a Broadway producer.
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