Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson is certainly one of the preeminent American playwrights of the 20th Century. Particularly his ten play Pittsburgh Cycle (aka the Century Cycle). One play was written for each decade of the century and represents the Black experience and culture for that time. The stories are told in great detail through the interactions and daily lives of typical Black Americans. They are all set in Wilson’s home town of Pittsburgh PA. The Milwaukee Rep has been presenting one of the cycle every few seasons and now, one of his Pulitizer Prize winning plays, The Piano Lesson is gracing the new Checota Powerhouse Theater.
It is 1936 and we are in the home of Doaker Charles in Pittsburgh. He shares the home with his niece, Berniece, and her daughter, Maretha. It is a comfortable home, not lavish, but comfortable. Doaker has worked for the railroad for decades and is currently a porter. So his home has a lovely couch and matching chair, a fairly modern refrigerator and stove, and a magnificently carved upright piano. And this lovely piano will be the focus of The Piano Lesson.
It is 1936. It is just over 70 years since the Civil War has ended. All of our characters, of course, are the descendants of enslaved people. Many of the adults most likely knew relatives who had actually been enslaved people. And that piano has a long and storied history. The elaborate carvings were done by an enslaved grandparent. The carvings represent enslaved family members of that time. And it belonged to the land owner who held their ancestors in slavery. But now the Charles family owns it (Doaker has a great long story about that,that you need to hear from him) and the question is what to do with it. How do you honor the past and how can that past provide for the future. The family dynamic differs in opinion in dramatic fashion and that drives Wilson’s narrative here.
Yes, Doaker and Berniece are comfortable in their home until Berniece’s brother Boy Willie bursts in at 5 AM and insists on waking the entire household. Boy Willie has just arrived from Mississippi with his buddy Lyman with a truckload of watermelons which they intend to sell on the street. Lyman, along with Doaker and Berniece, are examples of the diaspora of Black Americans migrating from the South to the industrialized North. Lyman wants to use his money to stay and find his way in Pittsburgh…but for Boy Willie, it’s another story. Boy Willie wants to sell the heirloom piano and add it to the watermelon proceeds and return home to purchase a portion of the land where his family was enslaved, becoming a landowning farmer rather than continue as a sharecropper. And here is the rub between the members of the family…what to do with the piano…and how do you honor the family legacy?
Doaker Charles has worked on the railroad for decades and is now a porter. James Craven gives us a Doaker who has dignity and gravitas and acts as the nominal head of the family. But he also can show a man at wit’s end at times and just backs away to keep his own counsel. Nubia Monks presents initially, a strong and in control young woman as Berniece. A loving and a bit stern mother, she is certainly intent on bringing up Maretha right. But Monks also brings an edge and sometimes a brittleness to Berniece when Boy Willie pushes her buttons just the wrong way. Berniece is a bit superstitious though and maybe with good reason…it seems that the piano may actually be haunted and the spirit of the dead plantation owner may have followed Boy Willie to Pittsburgh or came to seek out the piano. Monks tries to keep her cool while sensing these spirits but eventually overcomes her fears and takes on her future head on!!
Boy Willie is a loud self interested obsessive man. James T. Alfred plays him loud and obnoxious and self-centered and just moving all of the time…at full voice! How Alfred maintains that intensity and activity level is truly a wonder. His friend Lyman is played by La’Tevin Alexander as a quiet easily swayed young man. Alexander wants to listen to everyone without taking sides but is too often distracted by the last person he’s spoken to and that too often is Boy Willie. Anthony Irons’ Avery is a thoughtful, quiet, and patient man who is trying to become a preacher and start his own congregation. He too is from Mississippi and his newly arrived friends tease him a bit but also show him some respect. He is trying to woo Berniece but she is not quite ready to give up her mourning for her late husband. And the last Charles family member is Wining Boy, who is Doaker’s brother. Lester Purry plays him as a player…a piano player too…and a gambler who it seems could be something but instead is something of a ne’er do well. Purry certainly finds his braggart ways to be the pivotal personality trait for Wining Boy.
Director Lou Bellamy certainly has a fundamental feeling for Wilson’s play here. It can’t be easy to put all of these aspects and characters together when the period is, on the one hand nearly 90 years ago, but on the other all too real, fresh, and contemporary at times. And with a run time of about three hours it must be hard to keep the flows going from start to finish.
The Piano Lesson runs at the Checota Powerhouse Theater in the Associated Bank Theater Center from now through March 22, 2026.
More information and tickets can be found here.
Extra Credit Reading: Program