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The Piano Lesson | Introduction

The Piano Lesson is the fourth of August Wilson’s cycle of plays about the African American experience in the twentieth century. It opened at the Yale Repertory Theater in 1987, and, later, on Broadway, to great success.

The play was inspired by Romare Bearden’s painting Piano Lesson. It is set in Pittsburgh in 1936 and focuses upon the relationship between the Charles siblings, Berniece and Boy Willie, who clash over whether or not their family’s piano should be sold. In the mid-nineteenth century, when the Charles family were slaves, two members of the family were sold by their owners, the Sutters, for a piano. Subsequently, a master-carpenter in the Charles family was ordered by the Sutters to carve the faces of the sold slaves into the piano. He did that and more: he carved the family’s entire history into the piano. The instrument was later stolen by Berniece and Boy Willie’s father, who was then killed by the Sutters in retribution.

The play explores African Americans’ relationship to family history, particularly to the history of their slave ancestors. While Wilson’s cycle of plays is set during the twentieth century, all of his plays explore the legacy of slavery and the roots of American racism—this play is as concerned with the Ante-bellum period as it is with America during the Great Depression.

Wilson presents the Charles’ different attitudes towards their family history in a naturalistic style: the dialogue accurately reflects everyday dialect, and the action is interwoven with scenes of people preparing meals, hot-combing hair, and bathing. The play’s central metaphor, the piano, dominates this structure, while Wilson’s inclusion of ghosts and spirits demonstrates his diverse cultural and literary influences. Although a few critics were critical of his mixing of styles and traditions, the majority applauded his imaginative fusion of African, American, and African-American traditions.

The Piano Lesson won Wilson his second Pulitzer Prize and confirmed his status as one of America’s most important and innovative living playwrights.

The Piano Lesson Summary

The action takes place in the kitchen and parlor of the house where Doaker Charles, his niece, Berniece, and her eleven-year old daughter, Maretha, live. Boy Willie, Berniece’s brother, has just arrived from down South with his friend Lymon. The two men have stolen a truck and have hauled a load of watermelons in it. They plan to sell the melons and split the profits evenly. Lymon is in trouble with the sheriff back home and announces that he plans to stay in Pittsburgh, but Boy Willie insists that he will return South.

Boy Willie greets his uncle Doaker exuberantly, and although it is only five o’clock in the morning, he soon raises the whole household from sleep. Soon the audience learns that Boy Willie’s motives for driving to Pittsburgh are by no means innocent. He plans to take the family heirloom, an antique piano, from Berniece and sell it—whether she agrees or not. Boy Willie believes that the profits from this sale, together with those from the melons, will enable him to buy land from the Sutter family and set himself up as an independent farmer. He complains that Berniece never uses the piano and uses this observation to justify the sale. His complaint is crucial to later developments in the play, particularly the final scene.

During Act One, scene one, the audience meets Berniece and her daughter Maretha. Berniece is hostile to Boy Willie, who she believes is responsible for the death of her husband, Crawley, three years ago. She has just had a great shock: she claims she saw Sutter’s ghost standing at the top of the steps. The audience has just learned that Old Man Sutter fell down a well three weeks ago. Boy Willie says she is dreaming. (However, later in the play the audience learns that... » Complete The Piano Lesson Summary