Cursed. The Friday night review date I was assigned predicted rain — what actually occurred, about 15 minutes into August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson at 1st Stage, was massive downpours that drowned out the actors, shook the roof, sent emergency alerts buzzing to our phones, cut the electricity, and canceled the performance. Kudos to all the actors and the behind-the-scenes folks for handling the situation with grace, even as I grumbled and trudged out into the downpour, unhappy about the unexpected circumstances.
I was back the following Friday night. I soon realized that the curse metaphor extends through the essence of the show — and that my own minor inconvenience of the week prior was nothing next to its characters’ stories.
This family is cursed by the violence of racism, of generational trauma, of their enslaved ancestors, who lived only a generation or two earlier, torn apart on plantations in the South. What brings them together — an intricately carved upright piano — is also what threatens to tear them apart. This powerhouse production, directed by Danielle A. Drakes, now extended through June 29, was worth a second trip to 1st Stage.
With only one week remaining, do not wait to see it in the intimate 1st Stage theater, where, thanks to the genius of the set design (Nadir Bey), you feel like you have a seat at the table. Not only will this production wrap up the season, but the theater will be closed for major renovations until the fall.
The Piano Lesson, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is part of the acclaimed playwright’s ten-play Century Cycle in which he charts the Black experience across the 20th century. This production, tightly and powerfully directed and acted, packs an emotional and intellectual punch that transcends the play’s setting in 1936 Pittsburgh.
It’s the story of a Black family, at its center a brother and sister, played with charged emotional heart, anger, grief, and moments where music and joy overcome all. Deidra LaWan Starnes stars as Berniece, recently widowed, a mother to 11-year-old Maretha (sweetly played by recent Catholic University graduate Hannah Taylor). They live in the house of her uncle Doaker (wisely played by James J. Johnson), who is startled awake by an unexpected visit from her Mississippi-based country brother Boy Willie (Ronald Eli) and his buddy Lymon (Shawn Sebastian Naar). Boy Willie has shown up with a truck full of watermelons and a plan to sell the family heirloom, the piano at the center of the living room — and the play — to fund the purchase of a farm.
It’s not the piano, though it has its own dark secrets, that fires up the anger between brother and sister — two heart-rending, achingly layered, and deeply felt performances by Eli and Starnes — but rather what it represents to each of them. Boy Willie shares that “all he’s trying to do with that piano is make his mark in the world.” However, Berniece, who refuses to play the piano, will not sell it. Both siblings want to move up in the world, and while the piano represents the family’s past, it is also the family’s future. Yet, as the steady and cautious Doaker observes with dramatic irony, “If everyone would just stay in one place, it would be a better world.”
One of the most moving scenes is an extended one featuring the key men in the cast — Doaker and his newly arrived brother Wining Boy (Addison Switzer, in a wonderfully rakish performance as the drinking and gambling piano-playing brother) along with Boy Willie and Lymon, as each reveals a piece of their past — from love of women lost to injustices and run-ins with the law down South to chain gangs. The scene evolves into a pantomime depicting the ominous prison work crews.
Lymon morphs from his easygoing sidekick country bumpkin character to revealing all the pain of a man unjustly imprisoned. The grief and anger emanate from Lymon as he sings and pounds his arms as if wielding a sledgehammer to a rail spike. The acting of all four men, stellar — the pain and injustice they shared, a testament to our American history.
Yet, it is not all pain in this family — there is also joy and tenderness. The moments featuring Berniece and her suitor, Reverend Avery (Johnnie Leon Hill), are played with a big heart. A key late-night scene between Lymon and Berniece ignites with desire. As an old saying goes, where there is life, there is hope. Even with the weight of history and its ghosts upon us, this is ultimately a hopeful play. By the end of this superb production, I felt the opposite of what I had felt a week prior — I felt blessed to have shared the time with this powerful cast and this masterful American play.
Running Time: Three hours and 15 minutes, with one 15-minute intermission.
The Piano Lesson plays through June 29, 2025 (Thursdays/Fridays/Saturdays at 7:30 pm and Saturdays/Sundays at 2 pm), at 1st Stage, 1524 Spring Hill Road, Tysons, VA. Purchase tickets ($55 for general admission, with limited tickets for $15, $25, and $40 at each performance) by calling the box office at 703-854-1856, going online, or in person before each performance. Select performances are open-captioned and/or audio-described. Open seating.
The digital playbill is downloadable here.
COVID Safety: 1st Stage is now a mask-optional space with select mask-required performances offered for each show. See 1st Stage’s complete COVID Safety Information here.
The Piano Lesson
By August Wilson
Directed by Danielle A. Drakes
