Theatre in Review: The Piano Lesson (Signature Theatre)

	Roslyn Ruff and Alexis Holt. Photo: Joan Marcus

Is The Piano Lesson August Wilson's finest play? After seeing Ruben Santiago-Hudson's stellar revival at the Signature, I'm inclined to say yes. Wilson was given to all sorts of excesses -- a couple of which we'll deal with in a minute -- but, of all the panels comprising his extraordinary mural of 20th-century black American life, this may be the one most packed with lively and telling details.

As William Faulkner once noted, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Wilson was the most Faulknerian of playwrights, and the characters of The Piano Lesson face a tangle of events past and present that they are forever trying to honor or forget, claim or disown, reject or reconcile. Once again, we are in Pittsburgh; the year is 1936. The title object resides in the home of Doaker Charles, a middle-aged railroad worker, but it belongs to his niece, Berniece, and nephew, Boy Willie. The latter wants to sell the piano in order to purchase the farmland belonging to the Sutters, who owned the Charles family during slavery. (The death of the current Sutter, pushed into a well under mysterious conditions, is no small matter in The Piano Lesson.) However, Berniece flatly refuses to let go of the piano, because its richly carved panels detail many episodes in the Charles family history. Adding to the tension is the fact that Berniece blames Boy Willie for the death of her husband, Crawley, and she wouldn't be surprised if Boy Willie killed Sutter too. And there is Sutter's ghost, which keeps appearing at the top of Doaker's stairway.

What does the past mean, and what does one do about it? These questions eat away at nearly everyone in The Piano Lesson. Boy Willie wants to dispense with the piano -- never mind its place in the family story -- in order to claim the land of the man who oppressed his family. Berniece refuses to let go of this unique heirloom, largely because it honors the family's struggles. At the same time, however, she won't touch the piano, for, after three years, she continues to mourn Crawley's death despite the attentions of Avery, a minister who wants to marry her. (As often happens in Wilson's plays, Christianity attempts to mediate between hard-knock reality and an apparent spirit world rooted in African folk myth, and, as usual, the effort is fairly ineffectual.) As the conflict between siblings becomes more pointed, Sutter's ghost appears more frequently, leading to a climactic showdown -- complete with exorcism -- that holds the promise of a kind of peace.

Every Wilson play is intensively embroidered, and the above summary doesn't begin to take in the range of characters, themes, and lyricism that give The Piano Lesson its distinction. In this production, the details gleam with special brightness, thanks to Santiago-Hudson, a good character actor who is proving to be an exceptional director. It's no easy task to go up against the memory of an original production (in 1990) that starred the likes of Charles S. Dutton, S. Epatha Merkerson, Rocky Carroll, and Tommy Hollis, but Santiago-Hudson's company makes it seem as if Wilson's words are freshly minted.

Brandon J. Dirden's Boy Willie is always on the hustle, always convinced that good times are just around the corner, always ready to turn a situation to his advantage; he finds a formidable opponent in Roslyn Ruff's Berniece, her tremendous self-possession and deliberate manner hinting at a sensuality that is kept firmly under wraps. Her remarkable control makes all the more shocking the moment when, fed up, she slaps Boy Willie across the face. Dirden's brother, Jason, is equally fine as Lymon, Boy Willie's low-energy accomplice ("Sometimes the sheriff and me don't see alike," he says languidly, explaining his decision to leave the South), who, later, dressed up in a gaudy striped suit, reveals a powerfully seductive side that he turns on Berniece. James A. Williams is fine as Doaker, who keeps tabs on Berniece and Boy Willie without interfering in their dispute. He also has a lovely song, listing the railroad stops between Jackson and Memphis, which pretty much sum up his career on the railroad. Chuck Cooper neatly takes care of the play's robust comedy as Wining Boy, Doaker's brother, a musician with a touch of the con man about him, his rootless, itinerant existence providing a vibrant countermelody to the play's main theme. There is also fine work from Alexis Hoff as Maretha, Berniece's watchful 11-year-old daughter; Eric Lenox Abrams as Avery, who yearns to start a new life with Berniece; and Mandi Masden as Grace, a local girl who is happy to go with either Boy Willie or Lymon, depending on whom is making the best offer.

Santiago-Hudson has also seen to it that The Piano Lesson has an exceptionally fine production. Michael Carnahan has torn open Doaker's house to reveal a two-level portrait of working-class poverty, the shabby furnishings faultlessly neat and the worn walls and floor thoroughly scrubbed. The setting is rendered in a very narrow color palette that gives the action the sepia tone of an old photograph, an aesthetic that is honored in Rui Rita's faultlessly sensitive lighting. Rita's work is so meticulous that an entire sequence is staged with illumination provided only by the mix of moonlight and streetlight coming in the windows. Karen Perry's costumes -- especially that striped suit -- and David Van Tieghem's sound design are equally fine.

It must be added that, even if The Piano Lesson is one of Wilson's most accomplished works, many of his weaknesses are prominently on display. The extensive backstory is revealed in lengthy stretches of exposition; listen carefully, or you may find yourself helplessly lost. Wilson always seemed to feel that if something is worth saying, it was worth saying ten times. You could easily cut 20 minutes from the text by dropping the endless and repetitive exchanges between Boy Willie and Berniece about the piano. And it is certainly strange to see a place set in 1936 that never really deals with the Depression. (I asked Wilson about this once, and he more or less laughed the question off, saying that the Depression meant nothing to black people who had been living in a depression for decades. In any case, the lives of his characters are rarely shaped by the major events of the 20th century.)

You can pick at The Piano Lesson all you want, but plays this monumental don't come along every day, or even every year, and whether you take it as a stand-alone drama or part of Wilson's 20th-century cycle, it is something to marvel at, both in its evocative, close-up look at its characters' lives and in its willingness to grapple with enormous, unanswerable questions. Wilson filled an enormous gap in American dramatic literature, creating an alternative history of black American life that now seems indispensable. That he came along at all should make us grateful; that he managed to complete his cycle now seems like some kind of miracle.--David Barbour