Reviews
BWW Review: JITNEY at The Black Rep at the Edison Theatre on the Washington University Campus
The St. Louis Black Rep opens Jitney on May 13, 2022
by James Lindhorst, May 12, 2022
The St. Louis Black Rep continued its 45th season tonight with the first preview performance of August Wilson's JITNEY at the Edison Theater on the Washington University Campus. JITNEY is the eighth play in Wilson's ten play Century Cycle that examines every decade in the 20th Century. His goal in creating his masterful series of ten dramas was to portray both the joys and struggles of the African American experience in the twentieth century.
Set in the Hill District of Pittsburgh in 1977, JITNEY examines the impacts of rapid urban renewal. During this time, licensed taxi companies refused to transport riders to the Hill District, so unlicensed cabs called jitneys served a crucial role in this neighborhood. In JITNEY, the focus is on relationships. Booster, an estranged son, attempts to reconcile with his father Becker following his return from prison. The five cab drivers explore the issues facing African American men in the 1970s, familial relationships, work issues, alcoholism, past experiences, and mentoring optimism for the youngest jitney driver's future. Proud business owner Becker is facing the destruction of the worn-down building where the Becker's Car Service is housed and is troubled by the return of his son who had been incarcerated for 20-years, convicted for killing a woman.
Jitney justly done by The Black Rep
Kenya Vaughn | The St. Louis American, May 19, 2022
Twenty years have come and gone since The St. Louis Black Repertory Company last presented August Wilson’s acclaimed 1982 masterpiece Jitney on its main stage. The unforgettable 2002 production, which took place the year of the play’s 20th anniversary, featured Black Rep Founder and Producing Director Ron Himes in the role of Booster.
Jitney represents the 1970s in Wilson’s cycle of 10 plays that depict Black life in each decade of the 20th century.
For that show, director Ron OJ Parson magnificently conducted the orchestra of rhythm within the dialogue. Staying on tempo with words is as important to an effective and intentional presentation of an August Wilson play as it is for singers, dancers and band members to stay on beat during a musical.
The Black Rep’s “Jitney” Takes Audiences on a Vivid, Emotional Journey
May 19, 2022 by Michelle Kenyon ("Snoop")
August Wilson is one of the great American playwrights of the 20th and early 21st Centuries. His Pittsburgh Cycle (also called the “Century Cycle”) is a celebrated series of works, mostly centering on Pittsburgh’s Hill District, with each play set in a different decade of the 20th Century and focusing on the life experiences of various characters in this historically Black neighborhood. The Black Rep here in St. Louis has been duly lauded for its well-regarded productions of Wilson’s plays, with its latest production, Jitney, continuing this tradition of excellence.
The Black Rep's Jitney Takes Us Where We Need to Go
A review of August Wilson's play set in a late-1970s Pittsburgh taxi station
By Eileen G'Sell , Riverfront Times, May 23, 2022 at 10:00 am
In a timeworn taxi station, its walls trimmed parakeet green, two men argue over a game of checkers. A rotary telephone hangs on the left wall; to the right of the door hangs a blackboard with a list of drivers’ names. Milk crates serve as tables or stools, and next to a poster of Muhammad Ali appears a placard of “Becker’s Rules”: “1. No overcharging; 2. Keep car clean; 3. No drinking; 4. Be courteous; 5. Replace and clean tools.”
Set in late-1970s Pittsburgh, Jitney is the latest production from the Black Rep, both directed by and featuring founder Ron Himes. Written in 1977 by August Wilson — perhaps best known for Fences and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, both made into Oscar-winning films in the last few years — Jitney is the first play of the late playwright’s Pittsburgh Cycle, a collection of 10 plays that span the 20th century to document Black life. Jitney takes place within a series of days preceding the impending demolition of a gypsy cab station in the Hill District, an African American neighborhood to which, inferably, official taxis will not travel.
The Black Rep’s Lyrical ‘Jitney’ Is Acting And Storytelling At Its Finest
Lynn Venhaus, PopLifeSTL.com, May 26, 2022
As the gap between the haves and the have-nots keeps widening in America, August Wilson’s “Jitney,” the first play of his 10-play cycle in 10 decades of history, couldn’t be timelier.
The play, which is set in the 1970s in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, has lost none of its bite, and in the loving hands of The Black Rep, it is spellbinding. A richly textured tale of economic struggles, racial tensions, fathers, sons, hope, dreams, loss, strength, and the need for and meaning of community.
A jitney refers to an independently owned unlicensed car for hire. Because regular cab drivers did not service the Hill District, Wilson presented this urban renewal scenario for a makeshift gypsy cab service.