Red Bank’s Two River Theater has been on a mission to produce all of August Wilson’s “Pittsburgh Cycle”, ten plays chronicling the African American experience through the decades of the 20th century. Two River’s eighth production from this cycle is 1990’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Piano Lesson, set in the early 1930s.
The Piano Lesson centers around the Charles family and a piano entwined with their family’s history as slaves in Mississippi. Berniece Charles Crawley, a widow with an 11-year-old daughter, Maretha, keeps the piano in the Pittsburgh home of her uncle, Doaker Charles, where the Crawleys live. The piano is covered with carvings of the Charles family during slavery. Her brother, Boy Willie, has traveled to Pittsburgh from Mississippi with a dream of buying the Sutter farm, where their family were slaves, now that the last Sutter has died. He plans on selling the piano and using his half of the profits as part of the purchase price. Boy Willie has no regard for the piano as a piece of his family’s past, looking only at its monetary value, which pits him against Berniece. Berniece also holds the death of her husband down south against the recklessness of Boy Willie.
Boy Willie has traveled up north with his friend Lymon in a truck loaded with watermelons, another source of income for Boy Willie’s land purchase scheme. Lymon has made the trip, planning to stay up north, feeling he can make something more out of himself than he could back home. Lymon’s also starting to look for a suitable woman to marry — and yet get some experience along the way — but is uncertain how to go about this. Wining Boy, Doaker’s older brother, is a frequently bankrupt ne’er-do-well who maintains a fancy facade while reliving tales of his past glories. But Boy Willie’s arrival has also awakened the restless spirits of the slaveholder Sutter, who was responsible for having the piano carved, and Berniece’s late husband. Berniece and Wining Boy are the only ones who can see the spirits — as can Maretha, to the fear and dismay of her mother.
Rounding out the cast of characters is Avery, a local deacon who dreams of having his own church. At first seemingly harmless, Avery quickly shows himself as a spiritual weakling. He woos Berniece because it doesn’t look right that a deacon, a man of God, should still be single. He also thinks that by selling the piano, Berniece’s share of the profits could be used to purchase a building for Avery’s church, and she would be amply repaid by becoming not only his wife but his choir leader as well. Since Berniece is still holding on to the memory of her late husband, she rebuffs Avery’s suggested proposal. Yet in a tender late-night scene with the girl-shy Lyman, the hold of her past love begins to loosen.
Director Francois Battiste leads the cast through Wilson’s mix of family conflict and ghost story, inspiring fine performances from them. Danielle Moné Truitt delivers a searing performance as Berniece, stubborn and proud of her family’s heritage, a wall of ice. Truitt is by turns bold and frightened, cautious yet yielding, protective of herself so she can protect her daughter — giving a multi-faceted performance of emotional strength. She needs that strength to refute the heated impetuosity of Brandon Micheal Hall’s Boy Willie. He bombards her from all angles, trying to get his sister to see how by giving up this piece of the family’s history both of them can gain some measure of financial security. Brian D. Coats’ Avery projects niceness with an unsettling edge, something not quite right just under the surface, while Joshua Echebiri as Lymon has a youthful naivety that indicates more a lack of experience than a lack of knowledge. Keith Randolph Smith as Doaker and J. Bernard Calloway as Wining Boy portray two types of older Black men in the ’30s. Wining Boy is beaten down by his profligate past; Doaker has gained a rock-hard ethic of fairness and equity that sees both sides of the siblings’ dispute yet prevents Boy Willie from acting without Berniece’s approval.
The only complaint I had with this production was that it seemed very rushed in the beginning. Lines were delivered at breakneck speed and with Mississippi and Pittsburgh dialect elements, which made them difficult to understand. This might have been a verbal expression of Boy Willie’s euphoria at the thought of buying the farm where his family was enslaved. While the beginning haste eased as the play continued, I thought it worked against bringing the audience sooner into the play. Maybe it’s a fault in me, but I do not think I was alone in feeling confused at the outset.
The Piano Lesson is well-written and well-acted, deserving of its accolades over the years. Two River Theater has mounted a fine production of this possibly lesser-known August Wilson play. If strong conflict over the worth of heirlooms and history within a family piques your interest, and especially if you like a touch of the supernatural where you least expect it, then this play is for you. I recommend heading down to Red Bank before this show’s limited engagement is over and learning from The Piano Lesson.
The Piano Lesson is presented in the Joan and Robert Rechnitz Theater at Two River Theater in Red Bank through Oct. 4. For more information or to purchase tickets, go to tworivertheater.org.
