The Piano Lesson (review)

 

Spoilers ahoy!

I bow to few in my admiration of August Wilson, who seems in my eyes to be America's William Shakespeare (just as Shakespeare seems to me Tudor England's August Wilson).

The Piano Lesson is the latest production by A Noise Within, part of their ongoing to stage every single one of Wilson's "Century Cycle." It centers around a piano jointly owned by a pair of siblings--Boy William (Kai A. Ealy) and his sister Berniece (Nija Okoro).  That piano is the center of the story, equal parts Sauron's Ring and Excalibur, an intrinsic part of this family's history for better, for worse as well as all points in between. Berniece lives in Pittsburgh with her daughter Maretha (Madison Keffer) and their uncle Doaker (Alex Morris).  In this house in 1930s Pittsburg stands The Piano--and the lesson it will teach will shape the lives of every single member of this family.  It all begins when Boy William arrives with his friend Lymon (Evan Lewis Smith).  The former has PLANS.  A man down south where Boy William works as a farmer died.  A man named Sutter has died under some strange circumstances.  Sutter's family owned this family way back before the Civil War.  What happened next is part of their family lore, tied up with The Piano.  But Sutter's heirs say they will sell Sutter's land to Boy William--the land where his ancestors literally slaved away for years--if he can meet the price.

He needs to sell that piano, and even considering for one moment that he needs Berniece's permission is Not Something He Wants To Do.  Not an evil or a particularly cruel person, certainly neither lazy nor stupid, he remains as narrow minded as a horse wearing blinders.  When the rest of his family starts seeing the ghost of Sutter, he gets angry anyone even listens to them.  He gets angry when anyone questions him, insisting if they do they are stupid.  Nor can he stand it when people thwart him in any way, point out anything he has ever done wrong (however slightly).  

Berniece stands firm about The Piano, and for a time we simply don't know if her choice is wise or not.  The Piano looms over events, people and history.  She is a skilled piano player but refuses to play it, noting how much of her family's blood has literally soaked into that wood.  Nor has she forgotten the part her brother and his friend had in her own brother's death.  In Wilson's plays, men often betray women and refuse to face even a hint of responsibility.  

All this culminates as Boy William attempts to simply take The Piano exactly as Berniece's suitor the Reverend Avery Brown (Jernard Burks) arrives to attempt an exorcism of the house, to banish the ghost of the (perhaps) murdered Sutter.  What happens next proves equal parts complex and powerful.  Yet again Wilson surprised me (by now I'm not often surprised by stories) as he nearly always does.  The most difficult part of the play, I believe this production only threaded the bare minimum of needles to make the climax work.  But, it does work.  Myth and ritual blend with what I can only call the most naturalistic of poetry in wood and deed.  With its elements of horror, The Piano Lesson might well have spiraled into a deep tragedy.  I expected as much. 

This is why I call Wilson America's Shakespeare.  He gives us in words a wide array of characters and situations which seem to show the whole range of humanity, over and over again.  With good actors like these, the individual character become living avatars of ideas, of archetypes, of habits as well as choices and yes, lessons.  For this play, that is even in the name.  The Truth emerges just as it did in Ancient Greece in festivals dedicated to Dionysus, or in the Middle Ages as glimpses of the Divine made manifest in mystery plays.  Wilson along with these performers, matched by designers and others in a collective ritual called Theatre give us a glimpse behind the curtain of the mundane, the ordinary.  A play literally calling itself a Lesson should reveal.  This one does.  A lot.  Enough to chill the blood and warm the soul.  No small feat.

The Piano Lesson plays Thursdays at 7:30pm, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Saturdays and Sundays at 2pm until November 10, 2024 at A Noise Within 3352 E Foothill Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91107.