Review: Top talent ensures ‘Jitney’ is great show
By Bob Fischbach WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Published Thursday February 18, 2010
It’s one of the most unforgettable dramatic moments of the year on local stages.
John and Tyrone Beasley, a father and son in real life, play an estranged father and son to electric, lacerating, heartbreaking results in August Wilson’s “Jitney.” The show is quite simply the best drama yet seen this season.
Not that they do it by themselves. “Jitney,” set in a 1977 taxicab station in a run-down part of Pittsburgh, focuses on nine characters popping in and out of the station over the course of several days.
There’s not a weak link in director John Beasley’s superb cast, which on opening weekend included stellar turns from guest artists Eugene Lee as longtime driver Doub and Anthony Chisholm, who originated the role of alcoholic driver Fielding. Both are veterans of New York productions of Wilson’s plays. Lee has moved on, replaced by local actor Charles Galloway, but Chisholm remains for the show’s run.
John and Tyrone Beasley, too, have been performing for years in Wilson’s 10 plays, each of which is set in a different decade of the 20th century and chronicle the life experiences of black Americans. The John Beasley Theater has become expert at catching the rhythms of speech and naturalistic style of Wilson’s stories. Last season’s “Fences” and “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” are but two recent examples.
Listening to a bunch of cabdrivers and their cohorts shoot the breeze may not sound like the stuff great drama is made of. But even as Wilson weaves generous doses of humor into each scene, what they talk about is not always light and breezy.
The beauty of Wilson’s plays is that, even as each is a carefully shaped slice of black history, all tap into the common struggles of life.
So, when Youngblood (Andre McGraw) takes a second job to afford a house for his girlfriend (Autumn Lewis) and young child, we can relate. And when she gets angry over secrets he’s keeping, it’s familiar territory.
When Doub describes his experiences as a veteran on the front lines in Korea, or when Fielding wordlessly talks a friend into sharing a drink, we shake our heads in recognition.
We know characters like Shealy (Carl Brooks), the womanizing bet-taker; or Philmore (Dayton Rogers), the hotel doorman who likes the nightlife; or Turnbo (L. James Wright), who has his nose in everybody else’s business.
We even know the bitterness of a father, Becker (John Beasley), whose once-promising son, Booster (Tyrone Beasley), has just been released from prison and whom he blames for the death of his wife.
The show’s drama and its steady humor flow naturally from the lives of these characters, how they rub up against each other, and what they will do about the city’s plan to tear down the jitney station for urban development.
But among so many fine moments in this show, it’s the one when Becker and Booster square off, firing point blank at each other over long-held hurts, that will stay in your memory long after the applause and accolades have died away.
Great writing. Great acting. Great theater.
Contact the writer: 444-1269, bob.fischbach@owh.com
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