Tomorrow I’ll be connecting by Zoom with an old friend and colleague, Dr. Florence Marfo of Morley College, UK, to do a podcast on Jitney, which played last year in the UK. I wanted to jot down some notes to share with her to somewhat guide our conversation.
Jitney is the first play in the August Wilson Cycle. But at the time of its first writing Wilson had no idea he’d be writing a series of ten plays, one for every decade. He only came upon that idea some five plays and eleven years later. So revising the first play in the 90’s, that had not been performed since the early 80’s, required some thought. By that time a much better playwright, Wilson added dialogue and scenes that presented his characters and themes in a much better, much improved way. One other thought. Before, Jitney was a stand-alone play. In its revision it would need to represent its breadth of place as the first in a series. Work was required. I think Wilson pulled it off quite well.
There a lot of tough issues that we engage our minds in when we do a deep reading of Jitney. There is the impact on the family of long-term and mass incarceration that we see playing out between father, Becker and son, Booster. There are all those unwritten cross-generational expectations. There is the social dynamic of veterans returning home that we see with Youngblood, coming back from Vietnam, and Doub, mentoring him, having experienced his return home a generation previously from the Korean Conflict. There are relationships in the play between workers, lateral relationships and vertical relationships that must be taken into account. There is one man-woman relationship, Youngblood and Rena, that cuts across a couple of categories. And overhanging all, there is urban renewal, forcing black businesses and black residents out of the center of America’s cities, which occurred nation-wide in the 70’s. And there is the ever-present thought that no matter how bleak things seem, there is still a reason for gratitude, for rejoicing.
When we deep read, which is what a careful analysis of literature requires, we enter a process that involves inference, critical analysis, and empathy. Ultimately, as Maryanne Wolf presents in both Proust and the Squid and more recently in Reader, Come Home, we as readers literally enter the perspective of others, and a contemplation, a “passing over” takes place.
Here is what I want to get to in this blog post today. Reading Wilson’s plays can undoubtedly be a transformative experience. Reading the complete series can be so transformative that it actually “rewires” our brains, altering the neuroplasticity of the reading brain function, much like they say listening to great music or contemplating classical art and sculpture can. I know I have never been the same since seeing those Bernini sculptures in Rome, or since being introduced to jazz and blues as a young 8th grader. Or reading all the plays in the American Century Cycle.
I’ll miss the biennial August Wilson Colloquium in Pittsburgh this year. Zora Neale Hurston book club groups begin in early March. But I will be here engrossed in making the next reading of the American Century Cycle as relevant and as transformative as humanly possible.
August Wilson's American Century Cycle 