The Piano Lesson

Many of us hold on to trinkets. We have boxes and drawers stuffed with small but meaningful cards and gifts that we just cannot bring ourselves to part with. These things carry a lot of sentimental value for us, and they can be exchanged for no amount of money. That Willie Mays baseball card. The special note we received from an aunt after graduating. The plastic jewelry box gifted to us by a sibling when we were just 8 years old. The $2 bill our dad gave us when they were freshly minted. Or the journals or special drawings our children made for us when they were in second grade. Except for the Willie Mays baseball card, these keepsakes aren’t worth much on the open market. But what if they were, and cashing them in could add a significant boost to our family’s life? Denzel Washington’s son, Malcolm, takes up August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, The Piano Lesson, which explores this very hypothetical.

With an all-star cast in tow, Malcolm Washington takes on the tall task of directing a period piece about a Black family in 1930s Pittsburgh whose ancestry dates to the time of early enslavement in the South. Boy Willie, played by John David Washington, arrives at his sister’s place in Pittsburgh with his friend Lymon (Ray Fisher) and a truck full of watermelons from Mississippi to sell. Brash and outspoken, Boy Willie aspires to buy the Mississippi land of his family’s former enslaver. Even selling all the watermelons leaves him short to buy the 100 acres, so he wants to sell the family’s prized piano which has long sat silent in his sister Berniece’s possession. Played by Danielle Deadwyler (Till, The Haves and Have Nots), Berniece makes it unequivocally and emphatically clear to her brother that she “is not selling that piano.” She even threatens to shoot him when he tries to do so anyway.

Samuel L. Jackson plays Boy Willie’s and Berniece’s uncle, Doaker, who owns the home where Berniece lives and where much of the film is set. Doaker is easy-going but makes it clear that he is to be respected in his own home. As the siblings bicker constantly over the fate of the piano, Doaker lets it go on for so long before he puts his foot down and insists that Boy Willie back off. Doaker is quite deft at this as he gets Boy Willie’s attention, while also acknowledging that the fight over the piano is between the two siblings and not him.

Amid Boy Willie’s and Berniece’s bickering is the presence of the family’s former enslaver, Sutter, who is deceased. Berniece insists she frequently sees his ghost upstairs, and the audience shares this sighting with her along with water flowing across the floors and doors creaking. Berniece believes Sutter haunts them because of the way her family came to be in possession of the piano, as well as the circumstances under which he died.

In our Crumpets piece on horrors and thrillers, we note that villains are typically known in horror movies, and that their innocent victims need to take time to “[figure] out how to defend themselves and their loved ones from them,” who in this case is Sutter’s ghost. Perhaps Berniece’s insistence that she maintains possession of the piano is her way of protecting Boy Willie and her child from him until she figures out how to rid herself of Sutter’s haunting. Nonetheless, as the original owner of the piano, Sutter’s ghost adds a mystique to the film that is not just about giving a fright, but about sending a chill up our spines and making horror’s presence palpable.

In some respects, The Piano Lesson brings to mind Tyler Perry’s 2020 film, A Fall from Grace. The latter’s setting is present day Atlanta, and the subject matter of each film is very different. The two movies are similar, however, in their rising action. Towards the end of both films, the level of suspense is raised from something more than anticipated in the drama we expected to experience when we sat down to watch these films. What the two also have in common is the southern urban aesthetics, despite The Piano Lesson’s setting being more dated than A Fall from Grace and situated in the Northeast rather than South.  The homes in each have dark wood interiors and are dimly lit, but the dark hues are quite effective in drawing the audience into the story.

Indeed, Doaker enlightens the audience when he effectively takes center stage in The Piano Lesson. His ensuing monologue explains the significance of what to some might be nothing more than a heavy, old-fashioned piece of furniture with numerous carvings. From him, we get a history lesson about the piano but learn a thing or two in the process that helps us consider the real value of those trinkets we keep.

In The Piano Lesson: Legacy and a Vision, Washington said he wanted to respect the playwright’s work but to update it in some ways to “speak to the current times,” including language, images, and sounds. He addresses this, in part, by infusing timely orchestral music with deep soulful sounds, danceable tunes, and even on-screen performances by Erykah Badu. The mix of 1930s costumes with the day’s decor, dance styles, jazz, gospel, and today’s R&B offer a cinematic experience that reaches beyond the intrigue of the story to connect us to the family and keep us fully engaged in the film. 

Viewers are likely to find themselves not wanting to miss anything in this period piece, when such movies typically lose our interest, and we gladly excuse ourselves to get popcorn or go on a bathroom break. That the film accomplishes this level of engagement without racy scenes or excessive profanities is impressive, and interestingly, consistent with the cinema of the era. In addition to the mystique around the piano itself, The Piano Lesson offers intrigue, horror, romance, and a mix of music delivered through powerful songs and strong acting. And because of this fusion, the film is likely to both attract and engage viewers across a wide age range, albeit a narrow ethnic group given its subject matter. My hope is The Piano Lesson will get us to consider – no, remember – how similar our stories are and the ties that bind us, still.