I just finished the last three plays in August Wilson’s cycle, and I’m glad that I put this collection of plays on my reading list. I’ve seen some of them performed, and I know that I’ll be looking for the opportunity to see those shows that I haven’t had a chance to watch on stage.
Jitney—the eighth play in the cycle but the first play that Wilson wrote—revolves around the men who work for a car service in 1970s Pittsburgh. As in Two Trains Running, the central business is threatened by the decline of the Hill District, and the men face potential unemployment if the city takes over the property. This is the only play in the cycle that didn’t receive a Broadway production, but it certainly isn’t an inferior work.
King Hedley II, which represents the 1980s in Wilson’s cycle, connects to Seven Guitars through the titular character, who believes himself to be the son of that play’s King Hedley. (Hedley learns from the boyfriend of his mother, an aging blues singer, that he is not truly a descendant of the original King Hedley.) King Hedley II also tells of the death of Aunt Ester. It is the longest of Wilson’s plays, and it just didn’t hold my interest in the way that the others have.
The last play in the cycle—and the final play that Wilson wrote—is the 1990s-set Radio Golf. Harmond Wilkes and Roosevelt Hicks are business partners involved in a project to revitalize the Hill District. When Wilkes learns that he purchased one of the blighted houses in the neighborhood illegally (and that the house belonged to the fabled Aunt Ester), he begins to believe that history and morality are more important than commerce. The play features two characters who are descendants of characters from Gem of the Ocean, bringing the cycle full circle with Radio Golf.
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