Within a run-down station of an unlicensed taxi service in 1970s Pittsburgh, Tinuke Craig’s beautifully realised production creates a microcosm of defiance and dashed dreams. Part of August Wilson’s American Century Cycle, Jitney is an exquisite character study of Black men trying to get by as best they can, in a US set firmly against them.
In big collars and even bigger flares, our motley crew of cab drivers fight, joke and dance. As they’re called away to pick up a passenger, each character who storms in and out feels vividly real. There’s the hungry Youngblood (Solomon Israel), who alters his voice to talk to a white man on the phone in the hope that it will get him closer to securing a house. There’s Turnbo (Sule Rimi), a defensive, childish meddler who can’t sit still for a second without getting involved in everyone’s business. And there is the sweet but curmudgeonly Doub (Geoff Aymer) who wants everyone to get along so he can read his book in peace.
