Two Trains Running

This play is set in 1969 in a restaurant owned by Memphis in Pittsburgh. The restaurant is small with three booths and a counter with four stools. The characters are; Memphis and his cook Risa, Wolf, the local numbers runner; West, who owns the funeral parlor across the street; Sterling, a young man one week out of prison; Hollaway, a restaurant customer from the neighborhood; and Hambone, a man of few words.
The title refers to the fact that there are always two choices in life, two trains running. There are references to Malcolm X, Black Power and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. but civil rights is not a prominent topic in the play.
Like most of Wilson's plays this is a slice of life of African-Americans. Wolf and Memphis are always quarreling about Wolf using the restaurant phone for his numbers business. Memphis' restaurant is going to be bought by the city and West is trying to buy it from him first at a very low price. Risa scarred her legs with a razor because she was tired of getting hit on by men for her looks. Sterling is on the hustle and is attracted to Risa. Hambone still wants the ham he was promised for painting a fence.
Memphis tells his story of changing his life when he bought the restaurant and quit carrying his .44. Aunt Ester is an unseen character who is over three hundred years old and whose advice for success in life is to throw twenty dollars in the river. Memphis took her advice and West didn't.
Memphis is a strong character and I enjoyed watching the romance grow between Risa and Sterling. I did not feel the emotional power that is present in Wilson's better plays. Looking back at my review of King Hedley II this play didn't give me as much to write about. Still if this is the worst play August Wilson ever wrote he did real well. ( )

Not terribly impressed overall. However the character who mutilates her legs as a means of filtering out the raff in her suitors is pretty impressive. Nice way of succinctly addressing a range of issues in one fell swoop. People do this constantly in more subtle ways- tattoos, piercings, wearing pearl earrings on the other extreme etc. Keep people who are uncomfortable with such things at bay.

When she "made her legs ugly" to try to get people to see something other than her legs, all people could think about were her legs. ( )