Ever hear the expression about beating yourself up? Well I’ve been doing that since Thursday night February 23rd when I saw August Wilson’s play ‘Jitney’ performed at the Two River Theater in Red Bank, N.J.  Here’s the deal. Early last week a friend messaged me on Facebook, that because of popular demand the play ‘Jitney’ was being extended several days and that I should see it. Well I do run around incessantly, taking in all I can find these last years and my friend imparts valuable judgment. I didn’t know August Wilson or his work. I ordered tickets and have never been to theater at Two River. Welcome to the beating up of this writer, a denizen of the magical state of New Jersey. How did I grow up, mature, absorb and celebrate new worlds of cerebral explorations without ever knowing the work of August Wilson? I’m so damned angry at myself.

On a jetty at the New Jersey shore I ponder the universe, environmentalism, trans-humanism, singularity, spirituality, parallel universes, vortex energy, and the list goes on but I never heard of August Wilson. I’ve listened countless times to the speeches from August 28, 1963 at the March on Washington and I wrote a novel about sixties urban experiences and yet I never heard of August Wilson. I aspire to be a renaissance man, dilettante and quintessential absorber of modern life so I play beer pong, do keg stands and run to the Hayden Planetarium to hear Dr. Michio Kaku or Dr.Neil Degrasse-Tyson speak but I never heard of August Wilson.

But now I have heard and what a wondrous night my wife and I had discovering Wilson’s work performed by an amazing ensemble cast at Two River Theater. Where do I begin? Well. Dinner in Red Bank; I thought we were in the Dolomites in Northeastern Italy; quaint ambience and obsessive attention to food taste. The theater experience was completely unique; it began 45 minutes before curtain with ‘Before Play,’ where actor, director and Professor Darrell Willis spoke about August Wilson in the lobby. Mine eyes were opening. It’s not within the boundaries of this article nor am I writing a term paper or a Times review but I felt the words of an amazing poet playwright rivet me to a seat; motionless and spellbound. (You might as well Google August Wilson and ‘Jitney’). The set design was so real, I wanted to drift on stage a few times to answer the phone. I love watching actors who are so precisely intense that their eyebrows even move in the middle of a scene when they’re not talking; they’re living the role. What a cast. How people in a 1970’s Pittsburgh car service (taxi) driver office depended, shared, learned from, and loved each other was movingly and exquisitely told.   Wilson writes about the African-American experience (he wrote 10 plays covering different decades and all but one take place in Pittsburgh). So now I know, appreciate and love the writings of August Wilson, and his ‘Jitney’ and Two River Theater in Red Bank and I’ll never look back; I’m done beating myself up and thanks to a friend for being an accelerant to learning more about life.