At the spiritual and moral center of August Wilson's The Piano Lesson is an old piano on which are carved faces and bodies in the manner of African sculpture. This piano, owned by a young widow named Berniece (Dorcas M. Johnson), once belonged to a slave owner, who traded a woman and her son — Berniece's ancestors — for it. Now, many years later, it sits in Berniece's Pittsburgh living room, silently attesting, with its scenes of births, marriages and funerals, to the lives of African-Americans in the era of slavery. Enter Boy Willie ("ranney"), Berniece's passionate brother, with a plan and a will. With the profit he can make from selling the piano, he tells his sister, he can buy the property their grandparents once worked on as slaves and put an end to a history of exploitation. Berniece insists she'll never sell, but Boy Willie is just as stubborn. And as they argue the point, we in the audience are meant to ask, how valuable is the past? Is it a burden that keeps us from moving ahead or is it a source of strength that we surrender at our peril? Because playwright Wilson happens to be one of the best writers in America, we encounter these questions not as subjects in a dry debate, but as vivid, urgent problems in a living world of richly drawn characters. There's Berniece herself, dourly independent, still in mourning for her husband three years after his death and devoted to her 11-year-old daughter Maretha (Courtney Howard). And there's exuberant Boy Willie, all energy and optimism, vastly confident in his capacity to overpower any opposition. There's Uncle Doaker (Rob Barnes), a sensible, placid man who can usually be depended on for a shot of whiskey; and Boy Willie's buddy Lymon (Ize Ofrika), a fashion-conscious would-be womanizer who likes Pittsburgh the moment he meets a few of its females. There's also Avery the Preacher (T. J. Conwell), who found his vocation in a dream; the musician Wining Boy (Edward Walker, Jr.), who once had a recording contract; and the unseen Sutter's Ghost, who may or may not be on the prowl for Boy Willie. And there's History: the long, terrible history of slavery and the sad history of discrimination and impoverishment that followed it. In an August Wilson play, History is always a character, whether or not there's a piano with carvings to represent it.
And in an August Wilson play, there's always poetically colloquial dialogue. Here's Boy Willie on his plans: "Walk in there. Tip my hat. Lay my money down on the table. Get my deed and walk on out. This time I get to keep all the cotton. Hire me some men to work it for me. Gin my cotton. Get my seed." Or Wining Boy on why he gave up a career in music: "You look up one day and you hate the whiskey, and you hate the women, and you hate the piano. But that's all you got. You can't do nothing else. All you know how to do is play that piano. Now, who am I? Am I me? Or am I the piano player?"
There's also a downside to Wilson's language: it's not easily mastered, domesticated, made real. And in fact, in the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center production, only "ranney" and Ofrika, among the main characters, are always on top of their words. "ranney" wins his way into Wilson's dialogue through a show of sheer force, through a thundering rapidity that on occasion gets too loud, but that mostly commands our attention and admiration. Ofrika's just the opposite, caressing and charming the language with a self-deprecating gentleness that earns him a kiss from the usually cautious Berniece.
Persuasive also (in smaller roles) are Flo Tillman as Boy Willie's momentary love interest Grace and actress Howard as the child Maretha.
The other actors are convincing only in patches, too often appearing unsure of themselves and of Wilson's language.
Peter Flynn's direction is always sensible and sensitive, but Patricia J. England's set, of Berniece and Doaker's living room, is more attractive than is appropriate. The piano is placed on one edge of the playing area, where it fails to "dominate" (Wilson's language).
Rick Criswell's costumes, though, are mostly right for these poor working folk, and Joseph P. Oshry's lighting is impeccable.
Speaking of pluses, there's a wonderful moment in Act One when all four men — Boy Willie, Lymon, Doaker and Wining Boy — spontaneously break into song. If music alone could conquer a heritage of suffering, this quartet would do it.
Of course it's not enough; something more is required. Boy Willie thinks he knows what that is. And so does Berniece.
By the end of the play, one of these protagonists gets an unexpected piano lesson.
Sparrow Power. If you're looking for an ingratiating cabaret, one that makes few demands and features fine singing, you might pay a call on Piaf: Flight of the Little Sparrow, currently playing at Gorilla Theater. Judy London is the chanteuse who reprises most of Piaf's best, Aubrey Hampton's script is innocuous, leading us (with the help of "heckler" Carl Donovan) gently through the singer's biography, and Andrei Cheine couldn't be a better accompanist on accordion and piano. London's voice may be a bit deeper than you'd expect, and she lacks a convincing high register (and a booming crescendo), but her French is wonderful and she seems every bit as melancholy as the celebrated Sparrow must have been.
This is a bittersweet, little bird of a show.
See it with someone who needs your protection.
Contact performing arts critic Mark E. Leib at mark.leib@weeklyplanet.com or call 813-248-8888, ext. 305.
This article appears in Feb 12-18, 2003.