The Black Theatre Ensemble’s production of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson is a drama that hits a couple of marvelous keys but fails to sustain a unified melody. While often fascinating and touching, the production comes off as lackluster, failing to live up to its full potential.
The play begins with a crescendo of noise. Boy Willie raucously and unexpectedly intrudes upon his sister, Bernice, and her household consisting of her young daughter, Maretha, and her uncle, Doaker. The boisterous Boy Willie has brought his friend Lymon along, as well as a truck full of watermelons. He plans to sell the watermelons, and the piano in Bernice’s house, in order to buy some land for himself and start a farm.
Boy Willie wants to sell the piano despite the strong ties between the instrument and his family—Bernice and Boy Willie’s ancestors were traded for the instrument once, and their father was killed while trying to take it. Bernice just as adamantly wants to hold on to the family relic. The two argue over the matter but, as it becomes clear, there is another reason for their animosity. Bernice blames Boy Willie for the death of her husband, who was involved in a money making plan of Willie’s. The struggle between the two strong-willed siblings serves as the central source of tension and conflict of the play.
This is potent stuff, but the play, as directed by Lisa Rose Middleton, is disjointed. Particularly awkward are the instances where characters burst into song. One senses that these songs are meant to be spontaneous, but they come off as forced and out of place. The pacing of the production is also a bit slow. Wilson’s play features long speeches of exposition, explaining the nuanced and sometimes terrible history of the piano. The production sags during these lengthy scenes of little or no action between characters. The final scene also drags on, while other scenes end abruptly. For example, a piercing scream erupts at the end of a scene, leading to a rather sudden intermission. This shocking scream is treated anticlimactically when the play resumes.
The direction is more confident whenever the play veers into the land of comedy. Particularly funny are the scenes involving Wining Boy (guest artist Frank Britton), Doaker’s brother, who is a (mostly drunk) musician. Britton plays Wining Boy with evident glee, investing him with a twinkling and loose-limbed eccentricity. Brandon Small (CAS ‘05) as Doaker has good comic timing as well, a deft mix of sleepy-eyed good nature and calm righteousness. Small and Britton provide marvelous moments of comedy in an atmosphere of tension between Bernice and her brother.
The other performances vary. As Boy Willie, Omar Sharief (CAS ‘05) captures the character’s restlessness and irritating stubbornness, but delivers his lines so quickly that many are lost. Britton and Small are delights, but Maretha (Cecily Armane, CAS ‘06), is unnecessarily petulant. Ria Williams (CAS ‘04) as Bernice gives a solid performance as the strong-willed but sometimes distant matriarch. The best scene of the play, in fact, is between her and Anthony Jones (CAS ‘05) as Lymon. Lymon, who until this point has been mostly comic relief as the impressionable country boy coming to the city, reveals unexpected layers during this lovely nighttime scene with Bernice. Lymon has a quiet lyricism; he is simultaneously sweet, pained and intelligent. The two share a charged erotic moment, with Lymon dabbing perfume on a suddenly vulnerable Bernice. It is a fantastic couple of minutes; the production, unfortunately, does not maintain the nuanced and focused peak reached in this scene.
The set is thoughtfully designed by Isaiah Wooden (CAS ‘04). The play takes place exclusively in Bernice’s home, which is divided into a warm, soft living room and a sterile white kitchen. The juxtaposition of the two areas is a nice parallel to the conflict between the animated Willie and his more proper sister, Bernice. The costumes, designed by Enitant Tairu (CAS ‘04), fit in well with the time period but do not distract from the performers. Muted blues and grays are favored, in general, over more flashy colors.
The little flashes of brilliance dabbled throughout, like the intelligent set, Wining Boy’s jokes, and the sizzling chemistry between Lymon and Bernice, are not enough to sustain The Piano Lesson. The stagnant periods of plot exposition, the awkward pacing of the scenes, and those irritating musical intervals make a potentially great production into an average one.
The Piano Lesson is playing in the Walsh Black Box Feb. 7-9 and 14-15. Admission is $8, $5 for students.
