The Piano Lesson

by August Wilson

Book Overview

NOW A NETFLIX FILM STARRING SAMUEL L. JACKSON

Winner of the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, this modern American classic is about family, and the legacy of slavery in America.

August Wilson has already given the American theater such spell-binding plays about the black experience in 20th-century America as Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fences...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0452265347
• ISBN13: 9780452265349
• Release Date: December 1990
• Publisher: Plume Books
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.2" x 7.9"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Vibrant Characters in His Pittsburgh Cycle

"The Piano Lesson" (1990) by the late August Wilson is part of his ten-play series, the Pittsburg Cycle or the Century Cycle. It focuses on a frequent literary device--a family feud over money, land, or personal property. In this case it's a piano that has carved into its surface a history of the family. Berniece and her brother Boy Willie are battling over possession of the piano. Boy Willie with his buddy, ne'er-do-well Lymon, has brought a truckload of watermelons up from the South to Pittsburgh to peddle, hoping to sell them and also sell the family piano so he can buy a spread of land down South. This story takes place in the 1930's when the blacks are still living in a South where white people oppressed blacks and where no law existed to intervene for blacks. Boy Willie wants a white man's land, Sutter's spread. Sutter fell down a well, and he may or may not have been assisted in that fall by Boy Willie. Berniece and her daughter live with her uncle Doaker, a cook for the railroad. He is the voice of reason. She is seeing Avery who wants to set up a church and is the voice of religion and prophecy. Various characters such as Wining Boy play the piano briefly and there are occasional songs. The ghost of Sutter is present at times in the play, and later his spirit plays a pivotal role. As the action of the play continues, all sorts of family memories and history are revealed. August Wilson was a risk-taker who asked audiences to come along with him as he dealt with questions of ownership, possession, and family disputes while at the same time presenting a very accessible story with flashes of humor, large doses of humanity, and a dramatic structure with a beginning, middle and end. It's about as far from Absurdist theater as you can get. Wilson created real people in a believable setting. There's a vibrance and a vitality to the people and a sound dramatic structure with a good set-up, development and climax. They are not phony people or cardboard figures. There's a touching homey quality to the play. One of my favorite haunts in Manhattan is the Edison Café, a diner-type restaurant off the lobby in the Edison Hotel on 47th Street. Fondly known as the Polish Tea Room by its habitués, this was where Wilson was reputed to have written notes for three of his plays on restaurant napkins.

"The Ghosts of the Yellow Dog got Sutter."

Winner of the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, August Wilson's sensitive story of a family's struggle to reconcile the past with the present centers around the carved piano which dominates the living room of Doaker Charles and his niece Berniece. The legs of the piano are carved with faces of their slave ancestors, carvings made by a distant relation who was owned by the Sutter family and working on their farm in Mississippi before Emancipation. Berniece's brother Boy Willie, recently released from a prison farm and penitentiary, has come to Pittsburgh with his friend Lymon, determined to sell this ancient piano in which he claims half-ownership. His arguments with Berniece conjure up the ghost of Sutter, who calls out Boy Willie's name. The struggle of Boy Willie and Berniece over possession of the piano gradually broadens as they reveal the past, incorporating vivid pictures of the family's tenuous survival from slavery to the present. A dozen or more of the white men who have been most abusive over the generations have met their deaths by "falling" into wells, crimes of revenge attributed to the Ghosts of the Yellow Dog. These ghosts are supposedly the ghosts of five black men burned to death in a boxcar by Sutter after his carved piano, the one in Berniece's living room, was stolen. The most recent Mr. Sutter "fell" into a well and died three weeks ago, and Berniece believes that Boy Willie may have had a hand in his death. The play's success rests on the well-developed family relationships and their interactions on stage, as they reflect the legacy of slavery and its aftermath. Berniece wants the piano because the blood of her family has been worked into its wood--it represents her heritage. She and Doaker have learned a whole new culture of survival through their move to the city, but they do not want to forget the past. Boy Willie, by contrast, wants to sell the piano in order to buy land for his future, remarking, "I got to mark my passing on the road. Just like you write on a tree, 'Boy Willie was here.'" He, however, still focuses on vengeance--righting past wrongs. The tension between these viewpoints provides the drama and, in a powerful concluding scene, conveys the message of this play, ultimately a "piano lesson." Mary Whipple

A MASTERPIECE, A Marvel! says JLS

This is a PLAY to be read aloud! The power and brilliance is not only in the theme but in the pacing and rhythm of the dialogue. The character of Boy Willie comes to life when his words are spoken. On the page, he "speaks" rapidly and, sometimes, in an exuberant jumble of passion, rage, and confusion -- as he tries to convince his sister to sell the family piano so he seek his dream. When spoken, Boy Willie is an exciting man, so caught up with his one chance for success, that his words just flow. August Wilson is my favorite playwrite, too. I heed the advice from one of my teachers. A play is NOT a play until read aloud. Take a risk! Even if you are alone, read The Piano Lesson aloud. You won't sound silly. Act out all the parts. Don't deny yourself this masterpiece!

A perfectly crafted masterpiece

August Wilson's subtly brilliant work examines the manner in which an African-American family copes with its past. The central character of the play--the piano--is a pictoral history of the family, carved by a woodcarving ancestor from the families slavery days. The fascinating confrontation between Berniece, who cherishes the piano, and Boy Willie, who wishes to sell the piano and use the profit to buy the land their family tilled as slaves, gives the reader a thought-provoking dilemma. Should one cling to the past or use it to make one's future?Although it seems Berniece is right, there is something in Boy Willie's exuberant pursuit of the American dream that makes the reader respect and enjoy his character, despite his imperfections. Mr. Wilson succeeds in creating characters with virtues, flaws and noble goals with which we can relate.Trumancaro@aol.com

A closer look at reality

The Piano Lesson is my favorite play. The language is very surreal and heartwarming at the same time. It also gives us a closer look at reality; the reality African Americans have endured for decades. Boy Willie wants to sell an antique piano that was once owned by his ancestors. He wants to buy a land his parents had once worked as slaves. His sister, Berniece, refuses to give up the piano -- it has a sentimental value that she cannot let go. But it is the piano itself that teaches the family an important and valuable lesson about the importance of family history and the need for future opportunities.This is a piece of literature that cannot be overlooked. August Wilson is a master storyteller!