The Piano Lesson is all-around hit with editor

By Frank Visco
Collegian Editor
April 2, 2008

Despite a major eleventh-hour casting replacement, the Arden Theatre Company has put together a powerful production of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Piano Lesson.

Lesson, which runs through April 13 at the Arden (141 N. 2nd St.), is the fourth play in Wilson’s historic Pittsburgh Cycle, a 10-play, decade-by-decade account set (mostly) in his native city that recounts the black experience in the 20th century. While it’s not the most critically acclaimed of the bunch (that would be Fences) or the best (casting my vote for Joe Turner’s Come and Gone), it is still one of Wilson’s strongest.

Set in 1936, the play focuses on the feud between a brother and a sister over a family heirloom. Boy Willie (Kes Khemnu) has come up north to Pittsburgh to sell watermelons along with his naïve pal Lymon (Yaegel T. Welch). At least that’s what he initially tells his Uncle Doaker (Julian Rozzell Jr.) and sister Berniece (Kala Moses Baxter, extraordinary despite having taken over the role a day before opening) when he bombastically invades their home in the middle of the night. However, as Boy Willie motor-mouths on, he drops a hint here and there, before outright demanding his right to sell the piano that sits center stage.

Berniece denies him the opportunity even though she no longer plays the instrument, and anyone familiar with Wilson’s work, or, at the very least, good playwriting (the two often go hand-in-hand), knows there’s a story behind the piano, likely to do with black oppression and slavery. That impulse proves to be true, but saying any more on the topic would ruin the theatrical experience, so that’s all I’ll say here.

Wilson’s script masterfully sneaks in the significance of the piano, before laying the cards flat out. We eventually come to believe Berniece’s proclamations that the piano’s “got blood on it,” in the form of a phenomenally crushing recounting of the piano’s history (expertly carried off by Rozzell). But there’s more to it than that. Boy Willie aims to sell the instrument for land-owning independence; he makes it clear that he’ll part with the past to get what’s his. Most audience members will side with Berniece (as do most of the characters), but it’s a testament to Wilson’s writing and Khemnu’s absorbing performance that Boy Willie’s motivation is always grounded in pathos and a desire to build upon the past, not just selfishness and greed.

A variety of other characters populate this story of sibling rivalry. Avery (Brian Anthony Wilson), a preacher with his eyes set on making Berniece his wife, and Wining Boy (Harum Ulmer Jr.), Doaker’s boozy washed-up brother, come in later on, and, along with the idealistic Lymon and paternal Doaker, they function to flesh out varying facets of the African American disposition. They’ve all been cheated by society in one way or another, and they’ve all got a plan to get out of/cope with it.

The play’s supporting women are significantly less successful than their male counterparts. However, it’s hard to blame Katrina Yvette Cooper (a woman of intrigue to Boy Willie and Lymon) and young Chioma Dunkley (as Berniece’s daughter Maretha) for that, as Wilson doesn’t really give them much to do. Grace doesn’t come in until late in the proceedings, and functions more as a character development ploy for Lymon than anything else. And if there’s one glaring weakness in Wilson’s writing, it always has been the almost dismissible characterization of children. Still, in the grand scheme of things, these problems hardly register. Others could also complain about the second act dragged on too long, but Wilson ends the play on a moving, otherworldly high-note and the characters keep you invested enough that the three-hour run time seems (almost) short.

Technical aspects are great across the board. Donald Eastman’s high-ceiling set is a beautifully rendered, yet simplistic living room/kitchen combo that allows the actors room to breathe and move around, especially during the more intense scenes.

The lighting and sound are even more impressive. The play opens up in darkness, save a spotlight on the piano, and that emphasis remains throughout, even if the darkness/spotlight effect does not. The stage is adorned mostly through natural light (from windows and well-placed fixtures), but designer Curtis V. Hodge always keeps the piano in focus. Jorge Cousineau’s sound works to similar effect. Cousineau has created some nice musical interludes between scenes, but his most memorable work comes courtesy of the supernatural groans that emanate from the sound system every time Boy Willie attempts to move the piano.

Still, this is Dallas’s show. Although Wilson is more reined-in here than in some of his other works, his script still indulges in stories, songs, subplots and the fantastic. It’s a great formula if a director can make it work, and Dallas does just that, especially in a chain-gang inspired chant featuring Boy Willie, his two uncles and Lymon (it brought the house down) and the spiritual, larger-than-life finale. Assured and confident, Dallas (along with his cast an crew) plays Wilson’s work like a finely tuned piano.

viscof1@lasalle.edu