OCTOBER 15, 1993 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

ENTERTAINMENT

Finely tuned playing of a complex family history

The Piano Lesson

Karamu Theatre

Reviewed by Barry Daniels

Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, August Wilson, has been telling the story of the African-American experience in an epic series of dramas that will include one play for each decade of this century. The Piano Lesson, which is currently playing in an excellent production at the Karamu Performing Arts Theatre, is set in the 1930s. It is an emotionally powerful story of the struggle between a brother and sister over the possession of a family heirloom, an ornately carved upright piano. Wilson's art is such that this simple conflict serves as the vehicle for a complex recounting of a family history that becomes emblematic of aspects of African-American history. It is a tale designed to disturb both black and white audiences with its bleak view of racial hatred in our country and in its scathing portrayal of the failure of the African-American male to successfully achieve manhood.

The first act of The Piano Lesson is beautifully crafted and poetic. The action is set in the Pittsburgh home of Doaker Charles, a cook working on the trains. Living with him is his widowed niece, Berniece, and her eleven-year-old daughter, Maretha. Doaker, Berniece, and her cousin Wining Boy, a failed musician who arrives from Kansas City, represent the generation of AfricanAmericans who moved North seeking better jobs and freedom from the oppressive racism of the South. One senses in them the trauma of being uprooted and the feeling of loss as the family becomes fragmented and dispersed,

Boy Willie, Berniece's brother, and his friend Lymon, arrive from the South with a truckload of watermelons to sell. It is Boy Willie's plan to take his savings, his share of the profits from the sale of the watermelons, and his share of the sale of the heirloom piano, and purchase the property that had been owned by the Sutter family, whose slaves the Charles family had been. Through a series of finely written narrations, set pieces for the actors, we gradually put together the history of the Charles family. It is a story of racial hatred, obsession, vengeance, violence, and superstition. The ugly circumstances that led to the murder of Berniece and Boy Willie's father and the subsequent series of mysterious deaths of seven white men implicated in this murder are symbolically represented by the piano which is a carved portrait of this history and is literally drenched in the family's blood.

For Boy Willie the piano represents the means to a final victory over the slave owners: its sale will free him from his past. For Berniece the piano is a reminder of the past history of "thieving and killing" that must never be forgotten; it is also her link to

the history of her now dispersed family.

Director Gary Anderson has succeeded in helping his actors bring to life Wilson's expertly conceived gallery of characters. Evelyn Irby's Berniece is prim and dour, often more white than the whites. She is full of anger and resentment that overflows at key moments in the action. Charles W. Bevel's Doaker is sensible and gentle with a dry sense of humor. Hassan Rogers as Boy Willie and Herman Saunders as Lymon form a classic comic duo of "country niggers" on the loose in the big city. Rogers gives a crude, lusty, exuberant reading of Boy Willie that is often endearing and occasionally moving, but too often borders on exaggeration. Saunders's wiry, self-conscious, awkward Lymon, is a perfect foil for Willie Boy. Kevin Willingham's Wining Boy is a failed musician, a drinker, a gambler, and a drifter, whose seedy elegance and worldly manners conceal a poignant sense of loss. Prester Pickett does a fine job as Avery, the elevator man who loves Berniece and who is trying to start his own ministry. His fervent belief in his calling is both affecting and slightly ludicrous: he is both sweet and ineffectual.

After the poetic richness of the many stories told in Act I, the change of tone and direction of the action in Act II is something of a shock. The Act is organized around the logistics of Boy Willie's getting the piano moved out of the house. There are some strong scenes that don't seem connected to the sense of the action. In one, Avery proposes to Berniece and is brutally rejected by her in language that sounds like a feminist diatribe. Boy Willie brings back a woman he has picked up for sex, and they are chased out of the house by Berniece. There is a lovely scene between Lymon and Berniece in which their very human needs briefly intersect. And there is a final confrontation between Berniece and Boy Willie that is interrupted by Sutter's ghost and its exorcism by Berniece. Although I was constantly engaged by the characters and the acting, I was disappointed at the loss of poetic effect and somewhat confused by what the act meant.

It was thanks to the tears of anger and rage of my African-American colleague, who attended the performance with me, that I was able to understand Wilson's meaning. My friend explained that what had so profoundly upset him in the second act was the portrait of black men being emasculated and infantalized by a black woman. It is Berniece who finally controls the action in almost every scene, and the men are reduced to failure (Boy Willie, Wining Boy, Lymon, and Avery) or passivity (Doaker). This structure of oppression within the African-American community has been as destructive as the racial hatred and oppression by whites that is the subject of Act I. I

(216) 458-4533

Mary E. Papcke

ATTORNEY AND COUNSELOR AT LAW

MIKE EDWARDS PHOTOGRAPHY

Left to right: Evelyn Irby (Berniece), Andrea Howard (Maretha), Hasan Rogers (Boy Willie)

don't think director Gary Anderson has confronted this meaning openly—it is a difficult issue and there is a certain amount of denial about it-this would explain the sense of confusion I experienced in viewing the second act.

Despite what may appear as a criticism of the second half, the production of The Piano Lesson was a thrilling evening in the theater. The play is so wonderfully textured and detailed and possesses such warmth, humor,

passion, and rage that it is always engrossing. Anderson's work with the actors is excellent and the sense of ensemble playing is commendable. This is theater at its most vital. It is an auspicious debut of the 1993-1994 Karamu Performing Arts Theatre Season. Performances continue in Jellife Theatre through October 24, Thursday-Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 3 pm. Tickets are $9 on Thursday and Sunday: $10 on Friday and Saturday. For reservations telephone 795-7077.

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