WILSON'S 'JITNEY' BRINGS POWERFUL PERFORMANCES.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

Now this is getting downright silly. Exactly how many first-rate productions of August Wilson plays can our theatrical landscape comfortably hold?

Quite a few, apparently. Since spring, we have had the Fountain Theatre's ``Joe Turner's Come and Gone'' and a couple of renderings of ``Fences,'' practically back to back, at the Odyssey Theatre and the Pasadena Playhouse, respectively.

Now Stagewalkers Productions is following up 2004's revival of ``Ma Rainey's Black Bottom'' with a riveting ``Jitney'' at the Lillian Theater. ``Jitney'' is Wilson's first full-length play and one of two of the author's works never to have played Broadway.

This one's a small story, certainly. Wilson here places us among the men of a ragtag gypsy cab company that is about to be displaced by urban development. Over the course of a couple days, the owner reunites with his son who has spent 20 years in prison. A young buck tries to buy a house behind his wife's back. There's also a numbers runner who passes through, and a driver who knows too much about too many people.

Unmomentous stuff, right? Just a pack of unextraordinary people going about their ordinary lives. But few people make them sing like Wilson. And you watch with real admiration performers like James Avery, Russell Andrews and John Toles-Bey, who -- because they are working in a less-than-99-seat house -- are likely getting paid less than the cost of a ticket. You witness the finely tuned instrument that director Claude Purdy has assembled. You know that this is Wilson's least-often-performed work, and yet you find yourself by turns shocked, moved, challenged and reinvigorated.

The coin-operated phone (it's 1977) never stops ringing in Becker's establishment (designed by Joel Daavid). The various cabbies spend their days conducting business -- cab-related and personal. All except perpetually drunk Fielding (played by Mel Winkler), who seems to keep his own clock.

Youngblood (Andrews), a Vietnam vet still young enough to have a future, is looking to build something with his girlfriend Rena (Lizette Carrion). Turnbo (Toles-Bey), a motor- mouthed hustler, makes a point of knowing everybody's business, which runs him afoul of Youngblood and vice versa.

Becker (Avery), when he arrives, is the benevolent overseer -- a leader who demands respect and decorum, a finder of jobs if not necessarily a solver of problems. Becker's good will does not, alas, extend to his own newly released son, Booster (Richard Brooks), whose crimes -- and their consequences -- Becker deems unforgivable. Oh, and the company's doors are scheduled for shuttering come the end of the month.

By necessity, tensions and emotions run high, but Purdy never lets the action peak too early or allows the character roles to become any less fleshed out than those of the central players.

Andrews, who has played Youngblood before, etches in a man poised between the last vestige of youth and a life of responsibility.

Avery played the performance I attended in a foot cast and with a cane, which are probably not written into the script. Doesn't matter. He delivers a character who is big on dignity and bull-headedness. His scenes with Brooks' Booster are seriously affecting.

Which seems to be par for the course these days when directors like Purdy hand quietly great material to great ensembles.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

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JITNEY - Three and one half stars

Where: Lillian Theater, 1076 Lillian Way, Hollywood.

When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday; through Dec. 17.

Tickets: $28 to $32. [phone] or visit www.Plays411.com.

In a nutshell: A rare -- and sweet -- rendering of August Wilson's first play.