Finally, it comes down to ownership. There's metaphoric symmetry in that for a people forcibly brought here as property, starting with the first shipment of African slaves to Virginia.

But in "Radio Golf," the compelling and very contemporary final play in August Wilson's epic 10-play Pittsburgh Cycle, the ownership issue is also literal. Who owns the abandoned old house at 1839 Wylie Ave.? Then, as the house's spiritual heritage is recovered, the conflict becomes moral. It isn't just the house but the whole Hill District that's at stake, and beyond that, the history and souls of black people.

Community or individual, which comes first? That larger issue of self-definition dominates all Wilson's plays. But in "Radio Golf" he makes it triply fresh. First, the play is his most contemporary, set in 1997, barely yesterday in theatrical terms. Second, the issues of Hill District redevelopment couldn't be more current. And third, Wilson tackles the black middle class for the first time, challenging it to live up to a painful heritage.

The central figure is Harmond Wilks, handsome, Ivy League-educated inheritor of a prosperous real estate firm, started by his grandfather, who is about to declare his candidacy for mayor. His wife, Mame, is being courted to become the governor's press secretary. And Roosevelt Hicks, Harmond's partner in a big Hill redevelopment project, is a new vice president of Mellon Bank with big plans.

Into these bustling, successful lives come two agents of the past, Sterling Johnson and Old Joe Barlow. They're familiar Wilson figures, the ambitious young man (not so young here as usual) and the wise if rambling elder. Gradually, the ground shifts under Harmond's very stable feet.

The battle lines are clear enough, with a poster of Martin Luther King Jr. on one side of the stage and Tiger Woods on the other. (Golf, and even radio golf, does actually enter this world.) From the start, Harmond shows that commerce isn't his only standard -- witness his instinctive sympathy for pressed tin ceilings and his determination to commemorate a pioneer black nurse.

This is the fifth production of "Radio Golf" I've seen, and although the others may have been better in some respects, the Public Theater's gains thrilling power from being so near the community where it's set. That even shows up in telling details such as Steelers and Pirates paraphernalia, right down to tattoos.

You don't generally need to know one Wilson play to enjoy any other, but because the connections of "Radio Golf" to "Gem of the Ocean" are unusually significant, Wilson helps the audience by making the search to recover those connections central to the plot. So the audience learns what it needs to know along with the characters. But if you do know "Gem," you'll be able to stay just ahead of the central revelations.

In essence, the revelations invoke the spirit of Aunt Ester, the elderly healer who died in the course of "King Hedley II," set in 1985. That she has been forgotten is evidence of malaise in the community. It's not just a question of whether to preserve a house with historic significance, but one of the nature of the new development. Is this going to be another rape of the Hill for commercial benefit, this time black rather than white?

Jack Magaw's set is a basic office space behind a facade of old brick, with views of dilapidated buildings beyond. Costumes and music between scenes take us back into the '90s. But there are no mysterious journeys as in some Wilson plays. "Radio Golf" is all realism.

So it's essential that director Ron OJ Parson has collected a very solid cast. At the final preview, they hadn't quite polished all the rhythms of individual speeches or scenes, but they had the characters well in hand.

Morocco Omari's Harmond has a sweet earnestness that makes his spiritual journey believable, and E. Milton Wheeler's Roosevelt has a contrasting arrogance that gives him conviction. Roosevelt is the villain, but Wilson gives him his due, as in the powerful battle between him and Sterling over the n-word, which Sterling appropriates with pride.

Montae Russell's Sterling is the most finished portrait, his passion helping to drive the play. Small things mean a lot, as when he wields a golf club like a baseball bat, showing Sterling's ignorance of golf while mimicking the Willie Stargell windmill. And he knows to say Picksburg.

Tyla Abercrumbie gives charismatic presence to Mame. And Alfred H. Wilson reveals the unexpected steel beneath the genial, meandering exterior of Old Joe. For my taste, he should seem a bit more of a crackpot, but he absolutely nails Old Joe's awful story about the flag and the subsequent revelation he shares with Harmond.

The bottom line is that "Radio Golf" is a very good play, not necessarily great -- although it might be, if it didn't have to suffer comparison with the best of Wilson's other plays. And that's my point: "Radio Golf" is the capstone to the whole Pittsburgh Cycle. So whatever it is in itself, as the climax of the cycle, it's better than very good: It's indispensable.