The Piano Lesson

By August Wilson

The revival of August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play starring Samuel L. Jackson, Danielle Brooks, and John David Washington is now on Broadway!

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. In his second Pulitzer Prize-winner, The Piano Lesson, Wilson has fashioned perhaps his most haunting and dramatic work.

At the heart of the play stands the ornately carved upright piano which, as the Charles family's prized, hard-won possession, has been gathering dust in the parlor of Berniece Charles's Pittsburgh home. When Boy Willie, Berniece's exuberant brother, bursts into her life with his dream of buying the same Mississippi land that his family had worked as slaves, he plans to sell their antique piano for the hard cash he needs to stake his future. But Berniece refuses to sell, clinging to the piano as a reminder of the history that is their family legacy. This dilemma is the real "piano lesson," reminding us that blacks are often deprived both of the symbols of their past and of opportunity in the present.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: Aug 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9780593087596

Reviews for The Piano Lesson

[doowatt34 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I swiped this book from my daughters high school book collection to read because of all the hype...to my surprise the story was wonderfully written the characters were amazingly close to the people in my community and the storyline was excellent, though too too short.

[chory64 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Piano Lesson by August Wilson is a screenplay about a family who is haunted by the ghosts of their past. In the house, they have a piano that has the carving of their whole family history. Bernice and Boy Willie’s father stole the piano from his former slave owner, he was killed. Now, the piano stays in Bernice and Doaker’s house as a symbol of their family history. When Boy Willie comes home, he wants to take the piano and sell it so that he can purchase Setter’s land and build a home and business for himself. Bernice refuses to part with the piano. Bernice has lived a life full of tragedy but has always been powerless to stop it, from the death of her husband and father. The story is about the limited opportunities that were available to black people and how even their family history and identity could have been stolen away from them. In the end, Bernice liberates Setter’s ghost which has been haunting the house by playing the piano.

[bmozanich · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Piano Lesson is a play with two acts. It takes place over less than a week’s time. The story is compact and engaging. Readers get to know the characters from the dialogue and some stage directions. Wilson relies more on the language and dialogue to tell the story than the stage directions. He uses authentic language to describe the culture and times. Wilson describes the conflict and tension over the piano in such a way that readers find themselves unsure what is the best solution to the problem. Each argument is full of passion and reason. Wilson uses trains as effective metaphors for the comings and goings of life as well as how choices change our lives directions.

[devil_llama · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of the Pittsburgh Cycle plays, this takes place during the Great Depression as a family struggles to survive against difficult odds. The dreams of the family center around an old family heirloom, a piano that appears to be responsible for a great deal of their grief. The struggle between a brother and sister who each claim half ownership of the instrument is complicated by the presence of a ghost that one can see and the other can't. The characters struggle with identity, their ideas of self-worth, and even their religious views as they play a tug-of-war over the eventual disposition of the piano. The strong female character gives Wilson a chance to speak for equality of the sexes as well as the races, but even within that, the characters struggle with uncertainty. The author does not cave in to a pressure common on all writers and wrap everything up neatly; the ending is left with a level of ambiguity that allows the reader to wonder what will become of the characters.

[janeajones · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

[The Piano Lesson] is the 1930s play in August Wilson's decade of plays about the African-American experience in the 20th century. In 1990 it won the Drama Desk Outstanding New Play Award, New York Drama Critics Circle Best Play Award, Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award for Best Play, American Theatre Critics Outstanding Play Award, and the Pulitzer Prize for drama. Siblings, Berneice and Boy Willie, struggle over the fate of a piano which their grandfather carved with pictures of their family's life in slavery. The seemingly simple conflict between family values and material gain gives way to a much more complex reflection on one family's struggle to deal with the ghosts that haunt their lives.

[laytonwoman3rd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ever since I saw the film of Wilson's play Fences, I have wanted to explore his other work. Part of Wilson's 10-play "Pittsburgh (or Century) Cycle", this play is every bit as powerful, and I would love to see it performed. Berniece and her 11-year-old daughter live with Berniece's Uncle Doaker since her husband Crawley was shot and killed three years ago. A piano with elaborate carvings documents her family's slave history, and she treasures it as a link to her past, although it is also a constant reminder of subjugation and loss. When Berniece's brother Boy Willie shows up with a plan to sell the piano so he can buy the Mississippi land where their family was once enslaved, he meets total resistance. Reading this one just made me want more.

[opinion8dsngr · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fun and interesting story about a piano that is haunted, not only by memories but literal ghosts of a family's past. The play provides an interesting look into the lives of one fictional family as they debate over the importance of chosing between the past and future.

[mpho3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Holy wow! That was a helluva an ending! I'm to rearrange my ranking of these ten plays to date: though this is not an apples to apple comparison, I'm putting The Piano Lesson up near the top.