'The Piano Lesson' showcases potential of Hattiloo cast

A scene from "The Piano Lesson" at Hattiloo Theatre.

No theater in Memphis is better equipped to handle the works of playwright August Wilson than the Hattiloo Theatre, a black repertory company that has already assembled a rich talent pool of local actors.

That pool may not be seasoned, but it is improving with every show. And "The Piano Lesson," the second of Wilson's plays to be staged by the theater, features a cast that shows both its inexperience and potential.

Actor Cooli Crawford stars in "The Piano Lesson," the second August Wilson play to be performed at Hattiloo Theatre. Christopher BlankSpecial to The Commercial Appeal

Wilson's cycle of plays focuses on the black experience during the 20th century. In the vein of Lorraine Hansberry and Arthur Miller, he brings the problems of an era into one struggling household. While there is often great humor in his works, particularly in the characters, he is not out for laughs. It's the actor's job to make Wilson's big, bold characters seem realistic, though a little off-balance. It can be a challenge for inexperienced actors to find that sense of scale, and Hattiloo almost does it.

Set in 1936, "The Piano Lesson," in particular, is a complex drama because while it is, on one hand, about a brother and a sister at odds over what should become of a family heirloom, it's also a ghost story with some comical run-ins with the undead.

Boy Willie, played by Cooli Crawford, has driven up to Pittsburgh from Mississippi with a truck full of watermelons to sell. Once he unloads them, he'll have almost enough money to buy farmland back home. The other half, he says, will come once he sells the family piano.

But his sister, Bernice, doesn't plan to part with the instrument, which has generational ties back to times of slavery. As Boy Willie and Bernice argue over what should happen to the piano, members of the household begin seeing the apparition of the recently deceased man whose land Boy Wille plans to buy. There is even speculation that Boy Willie killed him.

Some of the problems in the Hattiloo production are technical. A few of the actors -- including the leading man -- speak so quietly that one strains to hear them, even in the 70-seat theater.

However, there are just as many actors in the cast who are larger-than-life. TC Sharpe and Anthony Bell bring so much instinctual ability to the stage that their characters seem to have walked in out of real life.

Director Ekundayo Bandele captures a sense of strained sibling love in the relationship between Boy Willie, played by Crawford as a puppyish but stubborn man, and Bernice (Mary Pruitt), whose stillness and resolve are in striking contrast to the houseful of agitated men.

The story itself loses none of its power under Bandele's direction. With another of Wilson's plays being planned for next season, it will be exciting to see how these actors have grown by then.

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'The Piano Lesson'

Continues 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 3 p.m. Sundays through Feb. 28 at Hattiloo Theatre, 656 Marshall. Tickets are $15-$22. Call 525-0009.

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