The Piano Lesson (2024)
Content by Tony Macklin. Originally published on November 26, 2024 @ tonymacklin.net.
The Piano Lesson is an important part of a Denzel Washington/August Wilson rich legacy.
It's the third August Wilson drama made into a movie with Denzel's creative support. Denzel has said he plans to assure that ten of Wilson's plays make the screen. He originally had a deal with HBO, but Netflix took over.
In 2016 Denzel starred and directed Wilson's Fences. Viola Davis won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress and the late Chadwick Boseman received an Oscar nomination.
Denzel made Fences in Pittsburgh, August Wilson's hometown. [He helped raise $5 million to restore August's childhood home in Pittsburgh.]
In 2020, Denzel was one of the producers of the film of Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. Viola Davis received an Oscar nomination.
The original version of The Piano Lesson appeared on Broadway from April 16, 1990 to January 27, 1991. The production lasted 7 1/2 months and 328 performances.
In 2022, another production of The Piano Lesson appeared in New York. It was produced by Denzel and his daughter Katia. It was directed by LaTonya Robinson Jackson, the wife of Samuel L. Jackson. Denzel's son John David starred as Boy Willie. Samuel L.Jackson portrayed Doaker Charles, Boy Willie's uncle living in Pittsburgh. It is ironic that Samuel Jackson was the understudy for Boy Willie in the 1990 production; now he's his uncle.
The film is directed by Denzel's son Malcolm, not LaTonya Jackson.
The Piano Lesson is a difficult film to fathom. Symbols are a significant factor in Wilson's work. The major symbol in The Piano Lesson is a large, carved piano which was stolen from a slave owner in Mississippi, which has brutal repercussions.
The piano has major historical and ancestral meaning for the characters -- and the film's makers. The film is set in 1936, but has crucial reverberations today.
The characters' names are unusual -- Boy Willie, Wining Boy, Doaker. et al. And the themes are multiple and rampant. Chaos and confusion often rule. Ghosts appear, ancestors are called. Dialogue becomes caterwauling.
The film has scenes that don't work -- such as the relationship between Lymon (Ray Fisher) and Berniece (Danielle Brooks). In the 1990 stage version they were played by Rocky Carroll (Vance in NCIS) and S. Epatha Merkerson (Lt. Anita Buren in Law & Order).
But there is a wonderful scene as the men in a room all together sing, "Berta, Berta" -- a Parchman Prison work song. It is a powerful, emotional rendition.
There are loose ends galore. One should probably read the play first to get a grip on knowledge that makes up the film.
The Piano Lesson is a tough course.
