The Piano Lesson
The Piano Lesson
By August Wilson
Directed by Belinda Boyd
Starring David Tate, Sidonie Smith, Michael Baugh
UCF Conservatory Theater, Orlando, FL</strong>
Some times you inherit a ghost, other times you install it yourself. Boy Willie (Tate) wants that piano his granddaddy carved with scenes of slave life, his dad stole fair and square, and he can turn into 100 acres of farm land back home in Mississippi. His sister Bernice (Smith) prefers to keep this only remaining relic of her family’s past, but once Boy Willie sells his truck load of watermelons, only Bernice stands between him and buying the land his ancestors worked as slaves. Surrounding the pair is a cast of perfectly drawn black stereotypes – womanizing Winning Boy (Alex Lewis), preacher and elevator operator Avery (Kenneth Dowling), and subservient Doaker (A. C. Sanford). As the fight intensifies, the ghost of Mr. Sutter haunts the house. Boy Willie knows more than he lets on as to who pushed Sutter into that well. It will take more than removing the piano to exorcize these people’s lives.
There’s everything to love here – the cast fully embraces the stereotypes, and joyfully lampoons them to the Looney Tunes level. Dowling’s Avery has a real knack for the preachers cant, and as he warms up to saving Boy Willie, the audience seems ready to give him a solid “AMEN!” Smith plays the consummate no-nonsense uptight black woman, with no tolerance for Boy Willie’s shenanigans, yet unable to remove him from her life. Tate finds a perfect balance of swagger and desperation, and Winning Boy seems ready to steal his grandmothers gold teeth with a deck of marked cards.
Backing the action on stage is one of the cleverest UCF sets ever – a scrim of wall paper fades into disrepair as we approach the attic full of carved ancestors howling in faceless pain. Preshow and intermission are filled with a hidden chorus singing spirituals and works song. The black homeland is still deep in unrepentant Sunflower County, Mississippi, and the industrial north a virgin land to be explored and conquered. The times were both trying and thrilling, and while civil rights were a generation away, economic rights went to those willing to work. Rights with out means to enjoy them are meaningless, and Wilson’s storytelling captures a central struggle of Black America – dwell in the past, or moving into the future? Either choice requires giving something up, and the decision can tear a family apart.
For more information on UCF Conservatory Theatre, visit http://www.theatre.ucf.edu
