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The Piano Lesson
Now that a little time has accrued onto August Wilson’s century cycle, in which the late dramatist devoted one play to each 20th-century decade of the African-American experience, the individual plays can look less like momentous stand-alone tragedies and more like schematic episodes of a greater whole, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. For example, The Piano Lesson—written in 1991, set in 1936 and now in a rock-solid revival at the Court—is the one about the siblings arguing over whether to sell the piano for which their enslaved grandmother was once traded. A small assortment of other characters also crops up to engage in some of Wilson’s trademark Pittsburgh Chekhov. And there’s a haunted-house plot twist that, at least as rendered here with some cheap flickering light and recorded wind sounds, strains the credulity of the otherwise quite literal-minded material. But while Piano Lesson may not be as airtight as its Pulitzer would indicate (the playwright’s struggle to flesh out women shows up here), it still makes for a diverting evening of storytelling.
With an excellent cast on hand, Parson shows off his ease with coaching Wilson’s rhythms out of actors. The director again anchors a Wilson revival with the authoritative Smith as the patriarch, although the tragedy doesn’t quite soar as it did in their previous collaboration, Fences. But penny-ante dramas are evenly distributed to the beautifully tattered Wilson as a broken-down piano player, open-faced Weddington as a hired hand with big dreams, and Conner, whose explosive, ambitious Boy Willie commands the evening.
