August Wilson’s ‘Jitney’ Opens
1/22/2014, 12:58 p.m.
Portland Playhouse presents its fifth production from August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle: Jitney, a masterful, tension-filled play about a group of independent taxi drivers in a well-worn livery cab station in the mid-1970s.
Regular cabs won’t travel to Pittsburgh’s Hill District, so small businessman Becker and his drivers provide taxi services for the city’s black community. Now, Becker faces the possible closure of his building, and his son has just returned from prison. Can this community’s bond to one another be enough to help them weather a series of storms? Through detailed characters and finely wrought language, Wilson turns everyday experiences into poetry.