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Saturday, May 03, 2003

By Christopher Rawson, Post-Gazette Drama Critic

Breaking my own rule, I'll start with a superlative: "The Piano Lesson," intensely theatrical and emotionally wrenching, is one of August Wilson's best -- and he ranks with Albee, Mamet and Miller as the greatest living American playwrights. "Piano Lesson" shares the top spot with "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" (ahead of "Fences," "Ma Rainey" and "Jitney") because of its coruscating blend of past and present and a mystery that projects present conflict into the realm of spiritual significance.

Harvy Blanks exudes raw emotion as Boy Willie in Pittsburgh Public Theater's production of August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." (Suellen Fitzsimmons) "The Piano Lesson" Where: Pittsburgh Public Theater, O'Reilly Theater, 621 Penn Ave., Downtown. When: Through May 25; Tuesday through Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m.; some exceptions. Tickets: $28.50-$46; students $12; 412-316-1600.

But you needn't take my word for it, because the Public Theater now completes its journey through Wilson's eight plays with the first Pittsburgh production since the disappointing 1992 tour. And Israel Hicks' staging is richly satisfying, worthy of comparison to (if not quite the equal of) the definitive 1990 Broadway production, partially preserved in the 1995 TV movie.

The past is vivid in "Piano Lesson," but it is in the present that drama happens, and Wilson serves it up in huge helpings of humor, tragedy and mystery. It all climaxes in an astonishing scene where past heritage and present life collide in a spiral of explosive farce, operatic feeling and tragic release.

The story is set in the 1936 Hill District amid the Charles family, transplanted from Mississippi.

First and most emphatic are the robust characters: Berniece, angrily pouring her hopes into her 11-year-old daughter, Maretha; her two uncles, Doaker, a prudential career man, and Wining Boy, a colorful troubadour; Avery, the would-be minister who loves her; Lymon, the sweet hayseed who touches her heart; and, above all, Boy Willie, her tumultuous brother who storms into her careful life stirring the past and challenging the present.

Then there is the history, gradually revealed, which focuses on a large emblem of the family's tormented past, an ebony Victorian square piano that in 1856 was bought by the Sutter family in exchange for two slaves, the Charleses' ancestors. (It helps to read the family tree in the program.) Their bereaved great-grandfather, the wood-worker whose artistry enriched his Sutter owner, covered the piano with carved images of his family's past.

Figuring the piano was their birthright, a later generation of the family stole it back -- and Boy Willie's and Berniece's father was killed in retaliation, a killing that set off further mysterious deaths. Now the piano sits in 1936 Pittsburgh, a palpable record of a history shameful, bloody and proud.

Hence the conflict. The latest Sutter has died -- another mysterious death -- and Boy Willie comes to Pittsburgh to sell the piano to buy the Sutter land on which his ancestors were slaves. But Berniece refuses -- she will not play the piano, burnished with her father's blood and mother's tears, but she will not part with it, either. She is right -- but so is Boy Willie. And there are other conflicts of culture, class, expectation and assimilation.

Then Sutter's ghost arrives.

It's not the only ghost to exorcise. There's Berniece's anger at Boy Willie, whom she blames for her husband's murder. Wining Boy and Doaker have ghosts, too. And the ghostly heritage of slavery bedevils us all -- why else are these people limited to jobs as cleaning lady, elevator operator, Pullman car cook and tenant farmer?

Boy Willie demands more, and Harvy Blanks gives him his full measure of raw zest, a true American hero worthy to stand beside Charles Dutton's original Boy Willie. Blanks' drive is so intense his words spit out like buckshot -- some audience members may struggle to keep up, but it's worth the effort. His irresistible force meets the immovable wall of Berniece, whom Kim Staunton stiffens with an angry dignity.

Charles Weldon is irresistible in the other way as Wining Boy, gambler and raconteur. Terry Alexander is a calm tent pole as Doaker. Michael Eaddy plays Lymon a shade goofier than necessary and Terrence Riggins' Avery is surprisingly unsure of himself.

Similarly, I think Alexander is a bit too ingratiating, and Staunton doesn't build toward Berniece's change of heart. I question Hicks' direction only at the end, where the resolution feels fast and the audience may not see the significance in Wining Boy's sudden affluence.

But these are quibbles based on vivid memories of the 1990 original. This "Piano Lesson" is well designed and in very capable hands, with Blanks providing the essential fire at its heart.