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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Entertainment
Gloria Oladipo

The Piano Lesson review – August Wilson revival hits a bum note

August Wilson Boy Willie Samuel L Jackson John David Washington LaTanya Richardson Jackson Sutter Avery Michael Potts
Samuel L Jackson and John David Washington in The Piano Lesson.
Samuel L Jackson and John David Washington in The Piano Lesson. Photograph: Julieta Cervantes

August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson is not a comedy. It has comedic moments, pockets of respite that Wilson’s characters lull in and out of. But the latest revival, under the direction of LaTanya Richardson Jackson, is a-textual. Wilson’s seminal work is tonally misread, flattened into a sitcom about a haunted piano versus a family struggling to forge anew amid their past.

The Charles family is wading in grief, deluges of trauma rotting its roots.

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