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Piano Lesson

Presented by Hattiloo Theatre at Hattiloo Theatre

February 4-February 28, 2010

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The play – awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1990 – takes place in Pittsburgh in 1936. The play centers on a piano that was once traded by the Charles’ family's white master for two of the family's ancestors. Boy Willie and Berniece, the siblings who inherit the piano, argue about whether or not to sell it. Berniece's climactic refusal to allow Boy Willie to move the piano exorcises the ghost of the white slave owner who has been haunting the family. This play is directed by Ekundayo Bandele. And sponsored in part by the Benjamin Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis.

• At-a-
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  • Venue Info

    Hattiloo Theatre

    656 Marshall
    Memphis, TN 38103-3218

    Full map and directions

  • Admission Info

    Tickets: Thurs.: $18 (Adult) $15 (Senior, Student) Fri./Sat.: $22 (Adult) $18 (Senior, Student) Sun.: $18 (Adult) $15 (Senior, Student) Recession Night - February 11, 2009, 7:30p - all tickets $12.00.

    Info Phone: 901-525-0009

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  • Dates & Times

    Dates:
    February 4-February 28, 2010

    Times:
    Thursdays 7:30pm
    Fridays & Saturdays 8pm
    Sundays 3pm

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    Add review/comment

    • Event Name: Piano Lesson
      "Review by Bo List - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver"
      Comment posted by: Bo List - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver from Memphis, TN, Feb 16, 2010
      

      Any theatre wanting to produce Hamlet or King Lear or Hedda Gabler, or other well-known play with a difficult title role, would be well advised to make sure that an actor is available to play it... Expand

      Any theatre wanting to produce Hamlet or King Lear or Hedda Gabler, or other well-known play with a difficult title role, would be well advised to make sure that an actor is available to play it before you put it on. The entire purpose of a play can rest on the shoulders of one person, or in the case of The Piano Lesson, one item. Alas, like a King Lear audition where no old men show up or a violin recital played by a banjo, Hattiloo Theatre's The Piano Lesson is sunk early and often by a lousy lead instrument. Pittsburgh, 1936. Bernice (Mary Pruitt) lives in a house with her uncle Doaker (TC Sharpe) and daughter Maretha (Anitra Higgins). Life is upended by the arrival of Bernice's brother Boy Willie (Cooli Crawford) and his crony Lymon (Robert Olsen, Jr.). Boy Willie, a Mississippi sharecropper, has arrived with a truckload of watermelons. Once they're sold, he intends to load up and sell the piano. It's an heirloom of staggering importance, having passed through the family over three generations of death, heartache, slavery and recovery. The plot - a tug of war between Bernice and Boy Willie - is complicated by possible romance between Bernice and Lymon and the colorful storytelling between Doaker and washed up friend Wining Boy (newcomer Anthony Bell who, through sheer presence and authenticity to the material, delivers one of the most delightful performances in Memphis this season). Also lurking in the house - a ghost, either real or imagined, who has a stake in the fate of the piano. The piano is terrible. Forget that the production breezes over the script requirement that it be played throughout the show. It is a cheap, battered 20th century upright with two thin strips of wood clumsily affixed with indecipherable scratches in the surface to approximate the lovingly adorned carvings so intricately described. Not the magnificent item described throughout. And while a lousy prop shouldn't be a dealbreaker - this isn't a prop. It's the prop. The set is no better - a 20th century hodgepodge that totally obscures the play's 1936 setting. So while the cast is winning and evenly talented, the physical world provided the audience make it impossible to fully understand the big deal about the piano, believe in the bewildering, supernatural ending, or grasp the play's much-deserved 1990 Pulitzer Prize. Collapse

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  • Member Reviews

    Add review/comment

    • Event Name: Piano Lesson
      "Review by Bo List - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver"
      Comment posted by: Bo List - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver from Memphis, TN, Feb 16, 2010
      

      Any theatre wanting to produce Hamlet or King Lear or Hedda Gabler, or other well-known play with a difficult title role, would be well advised to make sure that an actor is available to play it... Expand

      Any theatre wanting to produce Hamlet or King Lear or Hedda Gabler, or other well-known play with a difficult title role, would be well advised to make sure that an actor is available to play it before you put it on. The entire purpose of a play can rest on the shoulders of one person, or in the case of The Piano Lesson, one item. Alas, like a King Lear audition where no old men show up or a violin recital played by a banjo, Hattiloo Theatre's The Piano Lesson is sunk early and often by a lousy lead instrument. Pittsburgh, 1936. Bernice (Mary Pruitt) lives in a house with her uncle Doaker (TC Sharpe) and daughter Maretha (Anitra Higgins). Life is upended by the arrival of Bernice's brother Boy Willie (Cooli Crawford) and his crony Lymon (Robert Olsen, Jr.). Boy Willie, a Mississippi sharecropper, has arrived with a truckload of watermelons. Once they're sold, he intends to load up and sell the piano. It's an heirloom of staggering importance, having passed through the family over three generations of death, heartache, slavery and recovery. The plot - a tug of war between Bernice and Boy Willie - is complicated by possible romance between Bernice and Lymon and the colorful storytelling between Doaker and washed up friend Wining Boy (newcomer Anthony Bell who, through sheer presence and authenticity to the material, delivers one of the most delightful performances in Memphis this season). Also lurking in the house - a ghost, either real or imagined, who has a stake in the fate of the piano. The piano is terrible. Forget that the production breezes over the script requirement that it be played throughout the show. It is a cheap, battered 20th century upright with two thin strips of wood clumsily affixed with indecipherable scratches in the surface to approximate the lovingly adorned carvings so intricately described. Not the magnificent item described throughout. And while a lousy prop shouldn't be a dealbreaker - this isn't a prop. It's the prop. The set is no better - a 20th century hodgepodge that totally obscures the play's 1936 setting. So while the cast is winning and evenly talented, the physical world provided the audience make it impossible to fully understand the big deal about the piano, believe in the bewildering, supernatural ending, or grasp the play's much-deserved 1990 Pulitzer Prize. Collapse

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