August Wilson's Two Trains Running

This is the 1960s chapter of the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright's decade by decade saga of ordinary African Americans in this turbulent century. It takes place in Memphis Lee's coffee shop in a Pittsburgh neighborhood that is on the brink of economic development. Focus is on the characters who hang out there: a local sage, an elderly man who imparts the secrets of life as learned from a 322 year old sage, an ex con, a numbers runner, a laconic waitress who slashed her legs to keep men away, and a retarded man who was once cheated out of a ham. With Chekhovian obliqueness, the author reveals simple truths, hopes and dreams, creating a microcosm of an era and a community on the brink of change.