Strong performances by an ensemble of black players and a moody, authentic atmosphere are the highlights of a new, energetic reworking of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson. As a newcomer to feature-length film directing, Malcolm Washington takes Wilson’s complicated, tiered plot and makes it clear, palatable, and very entertaining. He also is its co-writer along with Virgil Williams.
Father Denzel Washington produced the film. John David Washington, Malcolm’s brother who is an award-winning actor and former football player, takes a lead role.
The Piano Lesson is one of August Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle, also called the American Cycle. First presented on Broadway in 1990, it tells the story of a group of black friends and family in that city in 1936. Boy Willie, the character played by John David Washington, heads north to the family homestead. He and his buddy Lymon have a large truckload of watermelons to sell. He figures with the profit from the melons, plus his half share in selling the family’s beautifully-carved antique piano, he can purchase farmland in the South. But his sister, Berniece, refuses to sell a piano that has been part of their family’s history since slavery days.
The action takes place in the home of the Charles family, where Doaker Charles, played by Samuel L. Jackson, resides with his niece, Berniece, and her small daughter. In the two- hours + running time, there are as many as eight or ten people inside the small house. The viewer can feel the heat rising at times as tempers flare, proposals of love are tested, mind games are played, and --towards the end, the clergyman among them attempts to exorcise the house of a violent ghost.
Because the piano goes back to the time of enslaved folks on a plantation, Washington includes a scene from that period. Interesting that he chooses to keep that scene brief. Still, with his firm control on the camera, that scene leaves its mark. The enslaved people are no more than belongings to their so-called owner. One and one half enslaved persons equals the worth of the piano.
The Piano Lesson was first filmed for TV in 1995 with Alfre Woodard as Berniece and Charles S. Dutton as Boy Willie, a role he played on stage. Dutton received a Golden Globe Award nod for his work. That version can be streamed at a number of sites. Since it was directed by Lloyd Richards, the best-known director of Wilson’s plays, I am going to seek it out. My late husband, Rob Edelman, and I saw the original stage production of Lloyd Richards at the Yale Repertory Theater in 1987, when I was Director of the Yale Film Study Center. It was a memorable production.
Meanwhile, The Piano Lesson of 2024 is available on Netflix. This film, clearly a study of African-American lore and heritage mixed with family drama, has been nominated for, and has won, a slew of awards. It’s a work of extraordinary energy and sensitivity.
Audrey Kupferberg is a film and video archivist and retired appraiser. She is lecturer emeritus and the former director of Film Studies at the University at Albany and co-authored several entertainment biographies with her late husband and creative partner, Rob Edelman.
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