![]() “There’s a preservation of language and life in these plays,” says Samuel, who originated the role played by Washington, which he calls “the Hamlet of August Wilson,” in the first production of The Piano Lesson, at Yale Rep in 1987. As the Great Depression drags on in 1936, two siblings, played by Danielle Brooks and John David Washington, are at odds over whether they should preserve their family’s fraught legacy, which has been intricately carved into the wood of a piano, or sell the instrument for a chance to buy the land their ancestors toiled on for generations.Īnd John David Washington in a role that Samuel L. At a time of eagerness to break cycles, Wilson’s continues to endure as a vivid vehicle for often overlooked histories. The Piano Lesson is part of Wilson’s sweeping Century Cycle, a series of 10 plays, nearly all set in Pittsburgh, that chronicle Black life in each decade of the 20th century. Jackson in the Pulitzer-winning drama’s first Broadway revival, currently at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. “There is something spiritual and metaphysical in our lives standing in for those things that we don’t face,” says LaTanya Richardson Jackson, who directs her husband Samuel L. ![]() ![]() ![]() A ghost haunts the family at the center of The Piano Lesson, August Wilson’s keen reflection on the reverberations of slavery through its descendants’ pursuit of the American dream. ![]()
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