Jitney By August Wilson Script Seven Guitars Pdf
Dwaine Hawke
During a return visit to Pittsburgh to visit relatives, he had occasions to catch jitneys going to and fro. Inspired by the experience, upon his return to St. Paul he wrote his first full length play, Jitney! Legend has it that he wrote it over several lunches and dinners at Arthur Treacher\u2019s, a fish and chips restaurant, completing it in ten days. His first attempt at a full play, though he had written several shorter pieces, proved to be short on monologues and scarce on character development. Nonetheless, the play\u2019s script won him a fellowship from the Playwrights Center in St. Paul.
In revising the script, Wilson beefed up the dialog between Booster and Becker, the relationship that forms the central plot of the play. In the original, the Youngblood/Rena relationship was a bit flat and underdeveloped. In the revised version, Wilson added seven monologues, producing characters with more fully developed personalities. He relied on the characters in the play to assist him with fleshing out the roles they played in the play\u2019s script. For example, Anthony Chisholm, who played Fielding (the former tailor), was he himself in real life the son of a Pittsburgh tailor who made suits for Count Basie. Wilson listened to Chisholm\u2019s stories about his father and incorporated them into the story line, in the process strengthening the character development of the Fielding role.
Pope, who runs the closing restaurant down the street, is mentioned. He is also mentioned in the 1960\u2019s play, Two Trains Running. Stool Pigeon is mentioned, who we meet in seven Guitars and in King Hedley II. Jim Bono, from 1950\u2019s play Fences gets a passing mention as being sick with cancer. Turbo hopes to take his place at a different jitney company. Memphis Lee is mentioned. He ran the diner in Two Trains Running. Finally Reverend Flowers, who preaches the funeral, also preached Floyd Barton\u2019s funeral in Seven Guitar.
Postscript. 1977. The seventies were considered by many the post-Civil Rights era. The seventies witnessed a local push back against urban renewal and opposition to 50\u2019s and 60\u2019s redevelopment projects in America\u2019s urban areas. -american-history-timeline-1970-1979-45445