"The Piano Lesson" - by August Wilson - Actors' Shakespeare Project (Boston, MA.) - REVIEW
(Cover Photo: The CAST of August Wilson's "THE PIANO LESSON" presented by Actor's Shakespeare Project at Hibernian Hall in Boston, MA. now playing through February 23, 2025. Photo Credit: Nile Scott Studios)
By Kevin T. Baldwin
METRMAG Reviewer
# 774-242-6724
“You know she won’t touch that piano. I ain’t never known her to touch it since Mama Ola died. That’s over seven years now. She say it got blood on it.”
- ("Doaker Charles") / August Wilson
Actors' Shakespeare Project
In Partnership with Hibernian Hall
Presents August Wilson's
"THE PIANO LESSON"
In Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic,
the haunting melodies of the past will ignite a family conflict.
Written by August Wilson
Directed by Christopher V. Edwards
In Partnership with Hibernian Hall
Cast Includes: Omar Robinson* as “Boy Willie,” Jade Guerra* as “Berniece,” Anthony T. Goss* as “Lymon,” Jonathan Kitt* as “Doaker Charles,” Brittani J. McBride* as “Grace,” Ariel Phillips as “Maretha,” “ranney,” as “Wining Boy,” Daniel Rios, Jr.* as “Avery Brown”
Additional Creative Team:
Production Stage Manager - Adele Nadine Traub*; Scenic Designer - Jon Savage**; Costume Designer - Nia Safarr Banks**; Lighting Designer - Isaak Olson; Sound Designer - James Cannon; Props Manager - Isaac West; Dramaturg - Regine Vital; Intimacy Director - Olivia Dumaine; Production Manager/Technical Director - Danielle Ibrahim; Asst. Production Manager - Matt Pierce; Dialect Coach - Rachel Finley; Music Director - R. M. Lawrence ; Wardrobe Manager - Christian Scott Jones; Production Electrician - Molly Beall; Assistant To The Director - Tre Tyler.
* Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States
** Represented by United Scenic Artists, Local USA 829 of the IATSE
Performances:
January 23, 2025 through February 23, 2025
(Contact Box Office for Exact Times)
Hibernian Hall, 184 Dudley Street, # 200, Boston, MA. 02119
TICKETS:
Memberships are available. For tickets and more information, call Phone # 617-241-2200 or visit www.ActorsShakespeareProject.org
BUY TICKETS
COVID-19 PROTOCOLS
Please consult directly with venue for latest COVID-19 and any other health and safety protocols.
(Warning: The following review contains spoilers)
Actor's Shakespeare Project (ASP) presents an exceptional staging of the highly acclaimed drama, "THE PIANO LESSON" by August Wilson.
The cast is superb and the production values simply off the charts in this magnificent staging by ASP director Christopher V. Edwards.
"THE PIANO LESSON" is the fourth play in Wilson’s “The Pittsburgh Cycle,” which also includes arguably Wilson’s masterpiece, “FENCES” (METRMag readers may recall our past reviews of other plays in this cycle, including “SEVEN GUITARS,” “KING HEDLEY II” and “JOE TURNER’S COME AND GONE”).
"THE PIANO LESSON" debuted as a staged reading in 1986 before its first official staging in 1987.
It then opened in 1988 at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston before ultimately premiering on Broadway in 1990.
Not only would the 1990 production be awarded the esteemed Pulitzer Prize for Drama, "THE PIANO LESSON" would also be nominated for five Tony Awards, including one for “Best Play” (winning the same award from the New York Drama Critics' Circle) and, in addition, would receive a Drama Desk Award for “Outstanding Play” that same season.
Two subsequent revivals in 2013 and 2022 would each receive similar praise and there have also been two film adaptations made of the Wilson story.
As the ASP two-act play begins, it is 1936 and we find ourselves in the home of railroad worker Doaker Charles (Jonathan Kitt) in Pittsburgh, PA. just after the Great Depression.
The single set is extremely well-designed and finely detailed to suit the time-period in which the Charles family’s story exists.
To one side of the stage sits a family heirloom…a black stand-up piano.
It is an unusual piece, decorated with carved designs by an enslaved Charles family ancestor.
(Photo: Omar Robinson as "Boy Willie" with Anthony T. Goss as "Lymon" in a scene from August Wilson's "THE PIANO LESSON" presented by Actor's Shakespeare Project at Hibernian Hall in Boston, MA. now playing through February 23, 2025. Photo Credit: Nile Scott Studios)
Unexpected (and uninvited), at the break of dawn, Doaker’s nephew, sharecropper and ex-con Boy Willie (Omar Robinson), along with Boy Willie’s friend, Lymon (Anthony T. Goss), arrives at the Charles’ house.
Traveling northward from Mississippi, the two tell Doaker that they have come to town with a truck of watermelons to sell.
Boy Willie wakes up his sister Berniece (Jade Guerra), who is less than thrilled to see her estranged brother, not seen at their doorstep in three years.
Berniece accuses Boy Willie of somehow being connected to her late husband’s death, and she asks him to leave.
She becomes even more hostile to Boy Willie once he announces his reason for coming to town unannounced.
The reason he has arrived and intends to sell the watermelons is his intent to buy up some land he has been offered IF (and only if) he can come up with the money for the down payment.
The only way Boy Willie can come up with the rest of the down payment AFTER the melon sales is with the sale of the piano heirloom, of which both Boy Willie and Berniece are equal owners.
Boy Willie is determined to buy the land where the Charles family’s ancestors worked as slaves using the money from what he refers to as selling his “half” of the piano.
Jonathan Kitt is marvelous as the kindly and sympathetic Doaker, trying to maintain an uneasy peace between Berniece and Boy Willie and protecting anyone who may find themselves collateral damage if caught in their lines of fire.
One of the reasons for the value of the piano is the carved images all over it, including the faces of the siblings’ great-grandfather's wife and son during the days of their enslavement.
(Photo: Jade Guerra as “Berniece” embraces Ariel Phillips as “Maretha” in a scene from August Wilson's "THE PIANO LESSON" presented by Actor's Shakespeare Project at Hibernian Hall in Boston, MA. now playing through February 23, 2025. Photo Credit: Nile Scott Studios)
Jade Guerra dominates much of the show as the bold and defiant Berniece, who, by keeping Boy Willie from selling the piano, sees herself as guardian of the Charles family ancestral legacy.
She also believes the spirits of those past live inside the family’s home and even in the piano, which she refuses to play, once again connecting to Wilson’s supernatural overtones.
Berniece is adamant that the piano will not leave the house.
The ruckus between the siblings wakes up Berniece's daughter, Maretha (Ariel Phillips), who plays a small piece on the piano for Boy Willie.
As Boy Willie, Omar Robinson is fierce as Berniece's brash albeit determined brother who refuses to be tied to the legacy of his family’s past and, instead, seeks to move forward, proving himself equal (if not superior) to any white man.
However, Boy Willie soon learns that escape from his ancestral legacy is impossible and that the only way to benefit from the past is to learn from it.
Anthony T. Goss gives an admirable performance as the likeable and sensitive Lymon who is far less aggressive than his buddy and business partner Boy Willie and, being a good listener, tends to serve as the audience P.O.V. in his scenes throughout the show.
(Photo: Omar Robinson as "Boy Willie", Jonathan Kitt as "Doaker Charles," “ranney” as "Wining Boy" and Anthony T. Goss as "Lymon" in a scene from August Wilson's "THE PIANO LESSON" presented by Actor's Shakespeare Project at Hibernian Hall in Boston, MA. now playing through February 23, 2025. Photo Credit: Nile Scott Studios)
We also meet a preacher, Avery Brown (nicely portrayed by actor Daniel Rios, Jr.), who has been attempting to court Berniece ever since the death of her husband, Crawley.
For reasons that later become clear, Berniece is resistant to his advances, although she recognizes Avery as a good man and cares for him.
Wining Boy (“ranney”) is Doaker’s older brother, a musician of limited notoriety who is now more the notorious gambler.
As Wining Boy, “ranney” is a robust presence, serving up much of the comic relief in the story.
However, the flip side to this is that Wining Boy is very much like Boy Willie in that, even though he recalls glory days that perhaps never were, he hopes he still has more glory days ahead of him than a future of obscurity.
There is an element of the supernatural (or superstition) incorporated into many of Wilson’s pieces, and "THE PIANO LESSON" is no different as a ghost known as “Sutter” factors greatly into the Charles family saga.
Wining Boy is also the only other character, aside from Berniece, who can speak with the dead, speaking to the “Ghosts of the Yellow Dog” and to his deceased wife, Cleotha.
Berniece asks Avery to bless the house, hoping to destroy the spirit of the Sutter ghost that has descended upon the Charles’ home.
(Photo: Omar Robinson as "Boy Willie", “ranney” as "Wining Boy," Anthony T. Goss as "Lymon," Daniel Rios, Jr. as “Avery Brown” and Jonathan Kitt as "Doaker Charles" in a scene from August Wilson's "THE PIANO LESSON" presented by Actor's Shakespeare Project at Hibernian Hall in Boston, MA. now playing through February 23, 2025. Photo Credit: Nile Scott Studios)
As the history of the piano becomes revealed, along with many long-held, dark family secrets, other “ghosts” of the past make themselves known - and it become clear why Berniece is so staunchly opposed to Boy Willie selling it.
Rounding out the ASP cast of "THE PIANO LESSON" are two fine supporting performances by Ariel Phillips as Berniece’s daughter “Maretha” and Brittani J. McBride as a local ‘female interest’ of both Boy Willie and Lymon known as “Grace.”
The question ultimately becomes – when it comes to this particular piano, just what will it take before Boy Willie ever learns his lesson?
"THE PIANO LESSON" is a terrific production with outstanding performances across the board.
Also elevating the ASP production is a heightened attention to detail when it comes to lighting and sound - not just in terms of special effects as required for some of the more supernatural elements - there are also moments where simple moments of exchanges on stage are exquisitely isolated.
ASP's "THE PIANO LESSON" plays on at the Hibernian Hall in Boston until February 23rd and, whatever else you may have scheduled, make sure this is one lesson on your calendar that you DO NOT MISS.
Up next at ASP will be "A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM" by William Shakespeare beginning in April 11, 2025.
For tickets and more information, call # 617-241-2200 or visit www.ActorsShakespeareProject.org
BUY TICKETS
Approximately two hours, 45 minutes with one intermission.
Kevin T. Baldwin is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association (ATCA)
@MetrmagReviews
@Theatre_Critics
ABOUT THE SHOW
ACTORS' SHAKESPEARE PROJECT is thrilled to continue and deepen our dedication to August Wilson’s American Century Cycle with one of his most celebrated titles: "THE PIANO LESSON."
This passionate and riveting family drama returns to Pittsburgh’s Hill District in the aftermath of The Great Depression.
Tensions are crackling under the floorboards of Doaker Charles’ household when his fast-talking nephew Boy Willie blows in from Mississippi with a scheme to set their descendants up for generations.
The plan: sell the family’s ornate antique piano carved by an ancestor and use it to buy the land where his family had been enslaved.
But half of the piano also belongs to Berniece, who refuses to let her brother pawn off the heirloom.
As the siblings dig in their heels, they will search deeper into their lineage and uncover shocking revelations that will change them both forever.
Winner of the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a 1990 Tony Award Nominee for Best Play,
August Wilson’s "THE PIANO LESSON" is an explosive and incisive inquiry into the struggle between what we owe to our past and how we build our future.
ABOUT THE ACTORS' SHAKESPEARE PROJECT
ACTORS' SHAKESPEARE PROJECT(ASP), founded in 2004, is an award-winning professional theater company with a Resident Acting Company and extensive education, youth, and community programs. ASP performs and works in found spaces, schools, theaters and neighborhoods to present and explore the robust language, resonant stories, and deeply human characters in Shakespeare’s plays and in works by other great playwrights. Work is ensemble-based and focused on intimacy, storytelling, language, relationships, voice, risk and artistry within and throughout the Boston area.
MISSON
ACTORS' SHAKESPEARE PROJECT believes Shakespeare’s words are urgently relevant to our times. Working as an ensemble of resident company members, ASP brings these words into the voices, bodies, and imaginations of actors, audiences, and neighborhoods. ASP does this through creative projects, including intimate productions and outreach programs that are informed by the spaces in which they happen. These projects inspire civic dialogue, build relationships between people, strengthen communities, and reveal something about what it means to be human here and now.
442 Bunker Hill Street
Charlestown, MA. 02129
Phone # 617-241-2200
