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A review by ponch22
Two Trains Running: 1969 by August Wilson
5.0
So glad to finally get back to reading through [a:August Wilson|13944|August Wilson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1321642333p2/13944.jpg]'s Century Cycle (after [b:Ma Rainey's Black Bottom|516792|Ma Rainey's Black Bottom|August Wilson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1439819148l/516792._SY75_.jpg|504726], [b:Jitney|764327|Jitney|August Wilson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348042927l/764327._SY75_.jpg|750403], [b:Fences|539282|Fences (The Century Cycle #6)|August Wilson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1481833774l/539282._SY75_.jpg|60745], [b:The Piano Lesson|4100547|The Piano Lesson|August Wilson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1451284437l/4100547._SY75_.jpg|171424], & [b:Joe Turner's Come and Gone|783918|Joe Turner's Come and Gone|August Wilson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1400863511l/783918._SX50_.jpg|60728].
[b:Two Trains Running|239396|Two Trains Running|August Wilson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388205425l/239396._SY75_.jpg|231896] is once again set in Pittsburgh, this time in a neighborhood slowly being gentrified at the end of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Memphis owns a small, simple restaurant with just three meals on the menu while West runs the local funeral home across the street. Several interesting characters populate Memphis's, from Wolf running numbers out of the pay phone to Sterling, a local who recently got out of prison & interested in Risa, the cook/waitress who's scarred her legs to try to keep men from looking at her.
This is definitely one of my favorite of Wilson's plays & I'd love to see it get a film adaptation like Fences & Ma Rainey's Black Bottom have gotten recently. The story, as written, is self-contained within the restaurant, but a lot more could be expanded & explored on screen. To see the insane crowds attending Prophet Samuel's funeral or meet Aunt Ester, the 349-year-old mystic who only requires her customers to throw $20 into the river as payment, instead of just hearing about them could be great.
But even if they're only mentioned here, the story Wilson has created (and all the stories his characters tell) are fascinating. I think this was the first play of the Cycle where I really felt the time it was set in—possibly because so many recent films have told Black stories in the 1960s, so I could imagine the world quite easily (less so the 1910s of Joe Turner's Come and Gone).
[b:Two Trains Running|239396|Two Trains Running|August Wilson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388205425l/239396._SY75_.jpg|231896] is once again set in Pittsburgh, this time in a neighborhood slowly being gentrified at the end of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Memphis owns a small, simple restaurant with just three meals on the menu while West runs the local funeral home across the street. Several interesting characters populate Memphis's, from Wolf running numbers out of the pay phone to Sterling, a local who recently got out of prison & interested in Risa, the cook/waitress who's scarred her legs to try to keep men from looking at her.
This is definitely one of my favorite of Wilson's plays & I'd love to see it get a film adaptation like Fences & Ma Rainey's Black Bottom have gotten recently. The story, as written, is self-contained within the restaurant, but a lot more could be expanded & explored on screen. To see the insane crowds attending Prophet Samuel's funeral or meet Aunt Ester, the 349-year-old mystic who only requires her customers to throw $20 into the river as payment, instead of just hearing about them could be great.
But even if they're only mentioned here, the story Wilson has created (and all the stories his characters tell) are fascinating. I think this was the first play of the Cycle where I really felt the time it was set in—possibly because so many recent films have told Black stories in the 1960s, so I could imagine the world quite easily (less so the 1910s of Joe Turner's Come and Gone).