I’m just back from a winter break catching up with a couple of productions–and the best of what’s now onstage is easily August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama THE PIANO LESSON. It is yet another transfixing production mounted by Actors’ Shakespeare Project in partnership with HIBERNIAN HALL with an exceptional ensemble bringing visceral life to August Wilson’s tale of a Black family’s struggle with each other and their ghosts across time and space.
Equal parts realism and magical realism, THE PIANO LESSON deals with a struggle between siblings, between generations past, present, and future, between benevolent ancestors and malevolent dead slave owners. The family piano is both battle ground and altar, inscribed and consecrated as it is with the vestiges of the Charles family’s enslavement. Set in 1936 Pittsburgh but written in 1987 as the fourth in a 10-play “Century Cycle” about the 20th century Black American experience, THE PIANO LESSON might be called Wilson’s “Ghostbusters” and haunts with as many questions as it answers.
Veteran actor Omar Robinson in the best performance of his excellent and varied career, grabs the stage and doesn’t let go as Boy Willie Charles who lands on his sister Berniece’s doorstep with a plan to sell the family piano owned by the man who once enslaved their family and buy the land their ancestors worked. Berniece refuses to sell the piano having played it as a child like a prayer to her dead father. Jade Guerra plays Berniece with steel and heat. Anthony T. Goss will melt some of that steel as Boy Willie’s young friend Lymon who’s said to have a magical way with the ladies. Jonathan Kitt provides perspective as Doaker, the home’s owner and a railroad employee who seems to handle everything in transit at this crossroad of legacy and forward momentum. “ranney” is hilarious as Doaker’s brother and good time gambler Wining Boy who both breaks and builds the tension by banging out a tune in just the right key at just the right time.
Sets, costumes, lighting are spot on while Artistic Director Christopher V. Edwards elicits marvelous work from these actors, the tone hovering between earthbound grit and humor, and potent supernatural forces. These literally shook the house, and occasionally it wasn’t clear who among these characters could at any given time see, hear, and feel the ghosts among them and us. The Piano Lesson puts much to rest, while leaving plenty to excavate as the 20th and now 21st centuries unfold…
DO NOT MISS THE PIANO LESSON through February 23 at Hibernian Hall!
I also saw PETER PAN a musical which holds a special place in my heart. Not only was it the senior musical that my all-girls Catholic HS mounted in 1970 and in which I played Tiger Lily, but I was also entranced by the 1960 Mary Martin TV version when I was a kid. Either of the former had more heart than the newly adapted, sped up, seemingly auto piloted production presented by Broadway in Boston onstage at the Opera House last week. Besides that elusive sprinkling of fairy dust, the production was missing the one performance which must hold our hearts and attention– Peter Pan. TRAILER HERE.
Nolan Almeida fell flat from the minute he flew onstage. Rushing and swallowing his dialogue and his vocals, the performer could not deliver this lovely score, couldn’t stop bouncing around and just hold the stage and sing. Even the wistful “NEVERLAND” eluded his grasp. He kept darting around the stage as if worried that if he stopped, we’d notice something missing. The only time his hyper-rambunctiousness was put to good use was during the flying sequences– tumbling and gliding left to right, front and back, supported by soaring video projections which let us imagine everybody’s favorite thing–flying!!!! This show delivered that sensation but little else.
Clearly certain sexist and racist elements- a girl’s sole, primary caregiver role and that “brave noble redskin” Tiger Lily with her sub-literate politically incorrect “Ugg-a Wugg” song– demanded recalibration for contemporary sensibilities. In Larissa FastHorse’s updated book Wendy (Hawa Kamara) and Tiger Lily (Bailey Frankenberg) hold their own with Peter and the Pirates. But the choreography was dull, and Captain Hook/Mr. Darling (Cody Garcia) was neither funny enough nor scary enough. His final moments with his nemesis –a clock-swallowing croc–lacked bite. What can I say. I still wanna fly– but this Peter Pan kept me grounded. At the Citizens OPERA HOUSE through February 2.
